Brown and White Vol. 105 no. 16

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 105 no 16 tuesday november 4 1997 all the lehigh news first vigil aims to take back the night by shari budman news writer students and faculty lit candles and walked the hill thursday in commemo ration of sexual assault awareness week the candlelight vigil was only one of the programs geared toward recogniz ing victims of sexual abuse rape assault and incest those who participated in the vigil met at lookout point where tori bronaugh psychological counselor at the counseling center spoke about domes tic violence and read a short poem students sang lean on me before locking arms and walking down to the flagpole where there was hot chocolate and cookies for everyone bronaugh spoke about the importance of the vigil and of recognizing the vic tims of sexual assault although we have been doing this for five years victims are still uncom fortable coming forward she said b w photo by jennifer disisto a vigil was held thursday night to recognize victims of rape and sexual abuse students and faculty members held lit candles and walked on the hill speech panel discussion explore race issues by lisa a jones news editor harvard professor speaks on race religion a passionate speech about contempo rary race issues coupled with a dramatic delivery brought the capacity audience in packard auditorium to their feet wednesday night cornel west professor of afro american studies and philosophy of religion at harvard university and author of several books spoke about race and reli gious tolerance despite the sensitive nature of the topic the audience laughed often at west's humorous comments and expressions i hope i say something that thorough ly unsettles you west said beginning his speech west focused a large portion of his speech on history which he said is crucial to understanding present problems he said this past century was the darkest in the his tory of the human adventure and cited the world wars as examples it's difficult to talk about suffering and social misery at the end of such a cen tury he said it's very difficult to open each one of us up enough to engage in discussion about misery and suffering in the united states challenging the crowd west asked sev eral questions what will we do in our short lives to being some light into the darkness how can we come to terms with the problem who's willing to engage in that kind of battle west reiterated that the past is the key to overcoming present conflict we have to reach a point where we begin explicitly with something profanely un-american namely a sense of history west said not to end in paralysis or debilitation but for the purpose of hon esty and candor race is fundamentally about social misery in america's mist he said white supremacy is an american evil with a long tradition west said white supremacy is a practiced reality he said all of us are in the mess what is the integrity of your struggle against it west also spoke about the importance of art in a society art has a way of forcing us to be hon est about ourselves he said we need to begin with art and become more honest with each other if we can form some kind of trust he said maybe we can linger together a lit tle longer much of the reason there is racial ten sion is because black people are looked upon as a problem west said faculty students respond to west speech with discussion session by lisa a jones news editor students and faculty met thursday in a heated discussion and debate to explore further race issues at lehigh in response to the previous night's speech by cornel west of harvard university the panel moderators and audience talked about whether lehigh is becoming more diverse and tolerant of different races the talk was sponsored by pi lambda phi lehigh's newest fraternity james jackson assistant professor of psychology said that tradition plays a major part in tolerance if the faculty and administration are committed to creating diversity but the student body isn't jackson said we're never going to change things around here ankur gosalia 98 discussed the issue of lehigh's diversity lehigh was forced to make this change he said it's not that the alumni wanted to make the change sharon brown assistant dean of stu dent life said it's a mess we're all in the mess it's the struggle that's important in contrast william scott professor of african american studies noted the positive efforts that have been made we've had some victories in our strug gle scott said i resist this pessimistic idea that we haven't made any progress dr robert rosenwein professor of social psychology said i've been impressed with the way lehigh is mak ing an effort against its history we are a historically white university news writer jaime pumphrey con tributed to this story b&w photo hy danielle frikker javier martinez 98 participates in the panel discussion thursday see vigil page 7 see west page 7 candidates vying for u.s senate seats next year have already raised 42.6 million during the first six months of 1 997 source federal election commission h men's soccer team students and friends new computer defeats navy 2-1 . show off their techniques could aid see page 20 halloween colors cancer detection see pages 4-5 see page 9 sports 15-20 news 1-7 science 9-11 swimming 15 world news briefs 2 science briefs 12 women's soccer 1 7 senate 3 football 20 on-line teaching 6