Brown and White Vol. 97 no. 39

              the brown and white lehigh university bethlehem pennsylvania v01.97-n0.39 friday april 4 1986 215)861-4181 radon gas testing to continue by stu si lberm an further testing for radon gas contamination on the lehigh campus will begin monday according to director of facilities services and physical planning pat chase these tests will be the first conducted by the university since the testing done on campus last summer the initial tests were administered because of the university's increased awareness of ab normally high levels of radon gas in the reading prong a geological formation which extends from pennsylvania through new jersey and into new york lehigh is in the reading prong university president peter li kins commented that we are not dealing with an emergency but with a long term concern to maintain public health he added that the level of concern here is not high at all and that we came to the conclusion last summer that there was no | health problem he explained that in the natural environment there are modest amounts of elements ; which in sufficiently high i concentrations are deleterious to human health this is a hard concept for people to accept according to chase last summer all university owned residence halls fraternities sororities and a sampling of academic buildings were tested health physics associates the private con suiting firm which did the testing checked 121 buildings on both the south mountain and murray h goodman campuses only two buildings both fraternities were found to have readings just slightly above the state safe level 02 working levels chase said but stressed that these readings did not indicate a dangerous level according to the report prepared by the firm it appears that lehigh university does not have a serious radon daughter concentration in any of its buildings chase said new testing will two testing methods measure radon levels by j an el allison radon is a colorless odorless gas produced by the radioactive decay of uranium it seeps into homes through cracks in their foundations floors or sewer pipes radon itself is not detrimental to one's health however the gas further decays into a number of solid radioactive particles called radon daughters which attach themselves to dust particles in the air when inhaled they can cause lung cancer • the concentration of radon daughters in the air is expressed in units called working levels several tests can be used to measure radon daughter concentration the kuznetz method developed for use in uranium mines is an air sampling technique similar to the tests done at lehigh samples are collected during a period of a few minutes after aging for an hour the radon daughter concentration is counted with a radiation detector concentrations of radon gas are expressed in picocuries per liter of air radon is usually measured with a track-etch detector like those distributed by the state during the recent radon survey according to pat chase director of facilities services and physical planning only private homes qualified for the free state testing she said this was one reason lehigh opted for the air sampling technique in the track-etch method air is allowed to flow through the small device for a month or more as radon decays into its daughter particles tracks are recorded on special plastic plates inside the detector when the device is returned to the manufacturer microscopic examination of these markings determines the radon concentration both radon daughter and radon gas concentrations can vary with barometric pressure precipitation and time of day so long brown assistant named engineer football coach henry small will be lehigh's 25th head football coach athletic director john whitehead announced yesterday small who had been the offense coordinator and quarterback coach at brown university succeeds whitehead who was ap pointed director of athletics march 3 after a decade as head coach the engineers posted a record of 75-38-2 for a 661 winning percentage with whitehead at the helm the selection committee was unanimous in its feeling that hank small was the man for the job whitehead said i feel he is very qualified and has a good background he continued he has the necessary qualities and abilities to run the lehigh university football program . successfully prior to last year at brown small served as an assistant coach at princeton university for seven seasons he was offensive backfield coach for that whole time and offense coordinator for his last two years 1983 and 1984 small also had a position in the office of player personnel of the new england patriots national football league club he was an assistant to the patriots director of player personnal during the 1977 season as an evaluatoi of collegiate prospects in preparation for the nfl draft after graduating from gettysburg college in 1969 he was offensive and defensive line coach of the rutgers ' university freshman team for two years in 1971 and 1972 he served at florida state as coach of varsity tight ends in his first year then as coach of freshman football in both seasons at florida state small served as administrative assistant to the football team's head of recruiting the livingston n.j native is expected to put the lehigh squad through its spring practice drills beginning next friday the team will conduct 16 spring practice sessions in accordance with the colonial league's newly formed policy hank small lehigh professor conducting classified sdi research by lori soderlind contributing editor a lehigh profess jr in violation of university policy is conducting classified research funded by the strategic defense initiative through a private corporation in hanover township mechanical engineering professor george sih is president and owner of comptek corporation a consulting firm not affiliated with lehigh through which sih has received research grants from sdi a depart ment of defense project commonly known as star wars currently he and at least three other part-time comptek employees are working under a 99,000 dod contract titled sub-scaling of hyper velocity impact data essentially the project analyzes the strength of various metals and materials to determine how they would perform in combat situations the research is classified as secret and requires government security clearance for participation comptek s classified sdi research was made public in the march 24 issue fof the morning call after reporters discovered the information in government documents obtained through the freedom of information act sih's work at comptek violates policy requiring professors who own private corporations to report these businesses and their earnings to the university each year permission to participate in outside business will be granted only if the work does not interfere with normal university ac tivities does not compete or conflict with university research interests and in some way enhances the professor's professional development according to sih a faculty member for 29 years the opportunities available through comptek presented a dilemma of what i can do for the government and what the university requires sih could not make information about comptek available to the university because of the classified status of the corporation's work i was not trying to hide anything sih said but this case was an exception to the rules i had to make a choice and then accept the consequences at lehigh sih teaches one course a semester and supports 12 graduate students he is director of the institute of fracture and solid mechanics as well as the chairman of the solid mechanics division he was the principle investigator for five major research contracts and grants in fiscal 1985 i don't think i could have gotten those contracts without the knowledge achieved through his work at comptek sih said the classified sdi contracts he obtained privately were set up to enhance my work at lehigh lehigh has not allowed classified research on campus for more than 10 years because secret information cannot be published several professors however have government security clearances to view classified documents provost arthur humphrey whose office is investigating the situation was not available for comment at press time meanwhile the funding source for an unclassified contract sih received through the university may have been swithched to sdi without notification see radon page 3 see steps page 7