Brown and White Vol. 96 no. 47

              the brown and white the brown and white lehigh university bethlehem pennsylvania vol 96 — no 47 friday april 26 1985 215 861-4181 pi lam toga banner offends bsu by alden cushman pi lambda phi's greek week banner un furled at monday's opening ceremonies was meant to be humorous according to brothers and the house adviser but it was considered offensive and racist by both members of the administration and the black students union the banner depicted an emaciated black with a bone through his nose while the legend read dry-lam for africa smo-kaboo has never had a beer . . . and he won't get one here we've tried to apologize to the bsu president but he wasn't in today pi lam president john niemoller said wednesday night i would rather not comment further according to social relations chairman james mcintosh house adviser the house was making an effort at humor which turned out to be rather crude and insensitive they had not thought of the full ramifications of their actions the controversy arose when bsu president elect felicia howell drove past pi lam tuesday afternoon the car in front of her stopped and the driver pointed out the banner to her it was hanging up right outside the house 1 already had a meeting scheduled with dean cohen so when i went to talk to him i told him we were offended by the banner president peter likins unofficially visited pi lam as a university citizen not the president and asked them to remove the banner associate dean of students robert cohen contacted mcintosh who called the house and told the brothers to take the banner down the banner was clearly offensive cohen explained i was sure it would be taken down on request and it was the banner was removed tuesday afternoon 1 think the house was ill advised to make humor out of the situation in ethiopia all blacks find racism very offensive current bsu president myron mcpherson said the situation in ethiopia is not something to be made fun of howell is demanding an open and public apology from the house 1 think they realize they were being in sensitive and i understand that they are in the process of contacting the bsu president to formally apologize mcintosh commented dean of students john smeaton confirmed the facts surrounding the incident and will meet with niemoller to discuss the house's actions b&w photo bv adam seveli b&w photo dv adam sevel the alpha sig competitor tries to finish his last greeker or perhaps tries to make room for more and as wednesday's wanted to make the most of their leftovers by sharing greeker-eating competition came to a close contestants them with the crowd hurling hot dogs and cups of beer b&w pholo by adam sevel i university defends investments in south africa by jonathan ansbacher as student awareness mounts at universities and colleges around the country over investment policies in corporations in south africa lehigh stands by its policy of investing only in companies that endorse the sullivan principles according to treasurer john woltjen lehigh invests some share of their endowment fund as stock in corporations with south african in terests through three investment firms however the firms strictly adhere to the sullivan principles when con sidering which investments should be made the sullivan principles are a code of nonsegregation and fair employment practices for u.s firms with operations in south africa promotions and management training opportunities for blacks and other non-whites are stressed the rev leon sullivan a member of the board of general motors corp designed the principles in march 1977 and ac cording to woltjen many responsible corporations in the united states fully support the sullivan principles woltjen said the total endowment fund is valued at nearly 102 million which consists of contributions from individuals and bequests about half of the university's endowment fund is invested in u.s treasury notes and cash equivalence the other half is left at the discretion of the managers and they are sensitive to our beliefs he stated this is the equity portion of the fund and is invested in common stocks from which lehigh receives interest the three investment firms are general american investors company inc first manhattan co and capital guardian woltjen said one manager is almost exclusively investing in ad vanced high technology companies in the united states another firm deals with mainly value-oriented com panies in the u.s — standby com panies we hold stocks in various com panies but as you can see they are mainly in the u.s we invest a small portion of the total endowment fund with companies that have interests in south africa when interviewed however woltjen was unprepared to cite exact figures on the amount of lehigh's south african investments we have one of the lowest en dowment-per-student ratios as compared to similar schools en dowment earnings constitute 7.8 percent of the university's budget most other schools are over 12 percent woltjen said the ratio is 18,500 per student here versus 43,500 per student at lafayette college he added we have done well in recent years but there is a need to try to increase the number of bequests while ensuring that the funds are managed well we are see divestment page 4