Brown and White Vol. 115 No. 36

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 115 no 36 friday february 29 2008 all the lehigh news first freshman blew 505 while pledging by chris knight and julie stewart â–  beta was suspended two weeks ago after pledge was hospitalized with near-lethal blood alcohol content an other pledge also hospitalized blew 31 the first night of pledging for beta theta pi frater nity's 2008 pledge class began with a dinner the night ended with two of the pledges one with a blood alcohol content of 505 the other 31 sent to the hospital unre sponsive and breathing through ventilators after more than five hours of drinking whiskey shots and cham pagne according to police the hospitalizations along with 14 citations for al cohol-related offenses that night resulted in beta theta pi fraternity being suspended by both the university and its national headquarters of the 14 citations 11 were given to freshmen for underage drinking and be cause pledges told police that the drinking was part of a pledging event drinking to such a high bac is often fatal rider university student gary devercellyjr died last spring with a bac of 426 beta theta pi is suspended by the university and its national headquarters as it faces additional charges of furnishing alcohol to minors and endangering the lives of students said tim wilkinson director of fraternity and sorority affairs fraternity and sorority affairs will let the judicial pro cess run its course before action is taken but wilkinson said the charges against the chapter are serious there's a very distinct possibility that the potential punishment will be loss of charter and dissolution of facility he said wilkinson said in instances of suspension the uni versity and a chapter's national headquarters often work in partnership when conducting an investigation but expects the fraternity to have a hearing before the uni versity in march chris mulvihill assistant dean of students of the of fice of student conduct said he is conducting an investi gation a hearing date will be set soon although the chapter is under investigation mulvi hill said he could not comment on whether individuals would be held accountable for the incident the night began with a scheduled dinner at 6 p.m at the beta house according to interviews conducted by the police with beta pledge class members in the days following the hospitalizations after dinner all members of the pledge class were obama supporters rally for upcoming primary by chris knight pennsylvania's democratic primary may be two months away but plans are underway to get lehigh university students and bethlehem community mem bers active in recruiting votes for illinois sen barack obama a crowd of about 20 students local residents and organizers from the obama campaign met monday night in the basement of linderman library brainstorm ing and planning events leading up to the april 22 pennsylvania primary the meeting was a small frac tion of the resources and people pouring into pennsylvania for the primary said bar johnston a leading organizer for the obama campaign in the 15th congressio nal district which includes beth lehem as of two weeks ago they had five campaign staff in penn sylvania but now they have 15 the amount of support in the lehigh valley has been strong johnston said a week and a half ago john ston said the lehigh valley had as many volunteers active as they had in philadelphia lehigh students have also shown strong support for obama she said and have been planning several large events in the com ing months to raise support both within the university and its sur b&wphoto by chris knight rounding area vice president of college democrats celinda stanton 11 said the organization has been working on plans to hand out fly ers signs and bumper stickers to students brent herbert 08 from alpha tao omega fraternity encour aged greek members and student athletes to volunteer their time and help register people to vote there's a lot of greeks that could get involved herbert said during the meeting there are a lot of politically involved people with a lot of free time so we need to get out and motivate them students local residents and campaign organizers meet in the basement of linderman library to coordinate support for democratic presidential nominee sen barack obama lehigh valley college plans to close in 2009 by brandon sherman lehigh valley college will cease all operations by the end of 2009 according to the company's press release on feb 15 the institution's parent com pany career education cor poration made the decision to teach-out programs at nine of its campuses in pennsylvania new jersey new york massachusetts connecticut and rhode island according to the press release the affected colleges will allow current students to earn degrees without enrolling any new students the company's decision is the result of a failure to attract suitable buyers since it announced plans for a realignment of its resources in november 2006 stated the press release the company had planned to sell selected schools lynn baker vice president of corporate communications for the career education corporation said every effort was made to find an appropriate solution we worked hard to come to an agreement that was in the best interest of the students and every one else involved baker said students and faculty at the af fected schools were made aware of the decision through e-mail campus-portal announcements and classes baker said the closing coincides with mounting legal issues for lvc the morning call reported that the school recently settled a 200,000 lawsuit with pennsyl vania after students complained of being misled in matters of financial aid job placement and transfer credits baker said a decline in enroll ment at the college was unrelated to these legal issues but rather the product of unwarranted bad publicity the impact on the school's population was not due to the at torney general but due to biased reporting by the morning call over the last few years baker said the decision to sell the col lege was made well in advance of these allegations despite the previous settle ment baker said some legal issues have yet to be resolved current litigation is still pend ing and we've given the state as surance of voluntary compliance she said we remain committed to information transparency for students about schools and finances one case of pending legal action comes from joseph san tora 05 graduate of lvc with a degree in medical assisting and office administration santora said he and other students were unhappy with how the school handled recruitment career advis ing and financial aid they tricked me into signing loans with high interest rates and they never disclosed the interest rates he said as a result he said he gradu ated with a large amount of debt representatives from lvc declined to comment on the school's closing and students allegations see beta page 2 see obama page 4 playing the . men's basketball check online for housing game ends with holy cross breaking news page 7 page 16 thebrownandwhite.com