Brown and White Vol. 116 No. 22

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 116 no 22 friday november 21 2008 all the lehigh news first hawk pride b&w photo by steven balter lehigh cheerleaders show school spirit by decorating students cars in brown and white and anti-lafayette slogans spirit my ride is just one of the activities of spirit week which began on monday college tuition rising as the economy sinks by jaclyn cohen the average cost of tuition at a pri vate university has increased 5.9 percent this year according to a study published in the new york times add this to the fact that the economy has been steadily declining over the past two months and it's no wonder that pay ing for college has become an important issue for both lehigh and the nation as students examine their finan cial situations many are looking to president-elect barack obama to see what help the new administration will provide to those who find themselves in trouble even before the economy took a turn for the worse in september the cost of college was an important issue on the campaign trail a national education association re port released in september said 34 per cent of the college students it surveyed ranked college affordability as the most important issue in the presidential elec tion while 78 percent of those surveyed believed that college is much harder to afford now than 10 years ago the find ings were based on interviews with 825 likely voters both obama and sen john mccain released plans during the campaign to reduce the pressure on those paying for school during the campaign obama proposed a 4,000 tuition tax credit in exchange for community service in an effort to make college more affordable he also proposed an increase in the funding of pell grants federal grants intended to help those from low-income families obama also wants to streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal application and allow ing families to check a box on their tax form that allows the information from their tax forms to be used to apply for financial aid there has been talk among lawmak ers about where the money to increase funding would come from in the face of the current economic situation students help local food bank fill its shelves by geoff baird â–  a food shortage at the south bethlehem neighborhood center led students to get involved lehigh groups are trying to fill a shortage in the south bethlehem neighborhood center's food supply by instituting a drive at lehigh the junior inter-fraternity council and ju nior pan-hellenic council has set up the food drive at all 26 chapters of greek life on cam pus by having different houses set up collection bins and tables around campus and the com munity to help raise funds and food stocks said jim paolino 09 president of junior ifc we are using our strength of numbers to help the community paolino said everyone is involved collection bins are set up around campus and both professors and students are being en couraged to donate paolino said the south bethlehem neighborhood cen ter develops programs and supportive services with hopes of building community and self-suf ficiency in south bethlehem according to the center's mission statement lehigh developed the food drive for the center upon learning that its food levels were unusually low dale kochard head of lehigh community relations said javier toro secretary director of the south bethlehem neighborhood center said many people in the community are not aware of the services lehigh has offered the center in the past we have a great relationship with lehigh toro said they show off the big heart that they have profs say research funds could be better by katelyn hanna-wortley professors from some of lehigh's academic depart ments say the university hasn't been putting enough em phasis on funding and supporting research in the liberal arts and humanities the university clearly promotes scientific growth rather than humanistic research said vera stegmann a professor in the modern languages and literature depart ment that used to be more so but it's still the case robert rozehnal a professor in religion studies agreed lehigh is a liberal arts institution with strengths in many departments and disciplines but i often sense a disconnect when it comes to the humanities he said via e-mail we tend to receive the table scraps when it comes to funding and support for our scholarly research this is regrettable and a real problem rozenhal said in an e-mail he believes a university is great when it embraces its poets and philosophers as much as its physicists and engineers david small a professor of anthropology said he be lieves the university promotes areas of research involved with graduate programs the university heavily promotes engineering he said it would be nice if the promotion extended into other areas as well the problem is that lehigh has to put the money into it if it is going to expand small said he has received some funds from the le high university unsponsored research fund which gives money to faculty who do not have external funding i do say thank you for that small said but i still think lehigh should begin to reevaluate the way it always lumps research into only graduate programs pamela wheat a research program development of ficer said lehigh is unique in the sense that it is a small research university in terms of size but has a high level of research activity wheat said the university does not promote one area of research over another rather it supports research in each of its four colleges we have some phenomenally talented faculty all across the university wheat said michael baylor a history professor said lehigh's reputation is based on its engineering but he thinks that has changed i think the university on a whole is supportive of research in every field and encourages breadth and diver sity baylor said dork sahagian a professor of earth and environmen tal science said the university is well known for applied science and research but has been turning out theoretical see tuition page 7 see food page 7 see research page 4 the meaning behind l^^^w lehiqh-laf special check online for the mountain hawk l % pullout section breaking news page 13 *" * *-.< page 9 www.thebrownandwhite.com