LehighWeek Volume 12, Issue 08

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"A Night at the Opera"
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Volume 12, Issue 8
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October 20,1998
Employee mortgage program boosts South Side
Lehigh University and
FirstUnion Bank have formed a
partnership to offer an attractive
home mortgage program for
Lehigh employees that would
encourage them to become residents of South Side Bethlehem.
The program was announced
Tuesday, October 20 by Scott
Fainor, FirstUnion president,
and Rhonda Gross, vice president of finance and administration.
"I applaud Lehigh University
and FirstUnion Bank for coming
together on a program that will
help South Bethlehem neighborhoods. The South Side is poised
for a renaissance of economic
and cultural development, and
this program will help make it
happen," said Don Cunningham,
mayor of Bethlehem.
"Like other members of the
community," said Fainor, "we are
extremely excited about the economic development potential of
Bethlehem's South Side. So we
are pleased to be able to promote
such development in partnership with Lehigh University."
"Lehigh is a community partner in the South Side's revital-
ization," said Gross, "and we believe this program can not only
enhance our community, but
also bring our faculty, staff and
students closer together and
help attract more bright, talented faculty and staff."
The mortgage program applies to property within the area
bordered by the Lehigh River on
the north, Route 378 and Wyandotte Avenue on the west, Mountain Drive West on the south,
and East 8th Street and Lynn
Avenue on the east. It includes
three options for Lehigh employees to choose, from when purchasing or renovating existing
single-family homes.
A "primary partnership package" will offer Lehigh employees
mortgages with minimal closing
costs, plus a contribution of 1
percent of the mortgage amount
from the university that qualified employees can use to cover
closing costs, taxes, repairs or
improvements to the property.
There is also a standard
mortgage option through which
employees can negotiate mortgage points and interest, with
FirstUnion agreeing to waive
Lehigh University
Ml. Top Campus
The mortgage program applies to property within the area
bordered by the Lehigh River on the north, Route 378 and
Wyandotte Avenue on the west, Mountain Drive West on the
south, and East 8th Street and Lynn Avenue on the east.
one point from its normal fee
schedule. Employees choosing
this option will also receive the
1-percent contribution from
Lehigh.
A third "renovation" option
enables Lehigh employees to
borrow more than the home's
market value, with the amount
over the market value placed in
an escrow account from which
employees can draw to pay for
improvements to the home they
are buying. Funds from the es
crow account are released by
FirstUnion as work is completed
and approved. The 1-percent
Lehigh contribution is available
for this option as well. IRS regulations require that the Lehigh
contribution be treated as taxable income to employees.
For two years, Gross said,
Lehigh has researched similar
programs at other colleges and
universities, like Yale and Penn.
Last November, Lehigh surveyed faculty and staff about
their views of living in South
Side Bethlehem. Questions
ranged from "Would you consider living in South Side?" to
"What would cause you to seriously consider moving to the
South Side?" The issues ranged
from universal concerns about
schools and crime to long-term
trends in property values and
the infrastructure of stores and
services needed in neighborhoods. While the university can
not solve all these concerns,
Lehigh can take a leadership
role in promoting greater home
Please see Program on page 2
f cducati
Wr Zirkel t
on litigation easing,
tells education alums
Education's winning trio
Elizabeth Keegin Colley
Samuel Varano Jr. '97, Craig Stull and Ava Killingsworth '88
hold the awards they received at the College of Education's
Alumni Day on Saturday, Oct. 17.
Despite the perception among
educators and the public to the
contrary, the so-called "explosion" in education litigation is
over, Perry A. Zirkel, Iacocca
professor of education and law at
Lehigh, said during a keynote
speech at the College of
Education's annual Alumni Day
on Saturday, Oct. 17.
"Education litigation hit its
high point in the turbulent '70s,
started dropping in the '80s and
continues to drop in the '90s,"
Zirkel said.
A study of Supreme Court decisions concerning students
shows that "judges have become
much more deferential, or
friendly, to school officials,"
Zirkel told approximately 175
teachers, alumni, school administrators and others from the
field of education in the Wood
Dining Room of Iacocca Hall on
the Mountaintop campus.
"The major exceptions are
special education, where we have
fueled the fires of litigation with
individual-oriented legislation on
the federal level, and religion,
where conservative judges - and
a similarly pendulum-shifted-to-
the-right society - are, in effect,
torn between their deference to
the institution of the church and
their deference to the institution
of the school."
Zirkel discussed cases before
the appellate courts, including
the Supreme Court, that test
these trends. He touched on subjects such as student searches,
sexual harassment, academic
freedom and student-initiated
invocations.
The bottom line, Zirkel said,
is that school officials have "little
to fear from the courts on a broad
basis in response to efforts at
school reform and school safety;
rather a preventive approach on
a selective basis is appropriate
at this turn of the century."
Four educators received "outstanding educator awards." They
were Iris Anderson, a fourth-
grade teacher at Stearne Elementary School in Philadelphia; Craig Stull, curriculum coordinator for the Phillipsburg
School District; Kerry Goodhart,
a physics teacher at Phillipsburg
High School; and Erik Honsel, a
fourth-grade teacher at Pleasant
Valley Elementary School in
Kunkletown.
Two other awards were presented. Samuel A. Varano Jr.
'97 M.Ed., assistant principal at
Pennridge" Central Middle
School, received the Matthew W
Gaffney Academic Excellence
Award. Ava Killingsworth '88
M.Ed., a learning support
teacher with East Penn School
District, and a past president of
the College of Education's
Alumni Council, received the
award for Outstanding Service to
the College of Education.
— Rich Harry
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