Brown and White Vol. 110 No. 13

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 110 no 13 tuesday october 22 2002 all the lehigh news first university examines greek life by nur-e rahman assistant news editor administrators have launched a comprehensive new initiative that they say will revamp greek life on campus in an e-mail to the campus community on oct 16 vice provost for student affairs john smeaton and executive director of alumni relations christopher marshall announced the adminis tration's plans to launch an endeavor that would strengthen the recently troubled greek system at lehigh the statement addresses the needs of the greek system and to offers solutions some of which which will be taken into effect as early as next week the basic matters addressed are those smeaton believes have become crucial threats to the success of fraternities and soror ities these include alcohol abuse hazing poor living condi tions and declining member ship we believe that a strong healthy greek system con tributes positively to campus life smeaton said in the state ment for that reason during the past decade many efforts at lehigh have been developed to support needs of the greek system to ensure its future and to help individual chapters fulfill their potential he explained that the goal is not to address a new policy change or to adopt certain rules but rather to encourage the ongoing effort that is geared toward improving the quality of greek life an issue that has been of concern for roughly the last 20 years what this whole process is proposing to do is take a look at the overall system - take a good candid comprehensive look at what is here and develop active steps to address those issues smeaton said this has to be done together because no one constituent or component can do it alone we have to work togeth er while alcohol abuse hazing and poor living conditions are chronic problems that smeaton said the administration takes seriously the signal of trouble in the system came from the steady decline in membership numbers in the last five years occupancy in fraternity chap ters fell below 75 percent new member recruitment is also showing signs of trouble - 32 percent of those receiving bids from fraternities declined the offer last year smeaton said and this fall the number of freshmen indicating an interest in fraterni ty rush plummeted 40 percent from 533 to 317 officials are intrigued by the fact that so many students believe project impact is par tially responsible for the decline in greek membership and that it was put in place to bring down umoia house moves to the hill by jen irwinski news writer the umoja house will be taking a hike to its new home on the hill next fall the offices of residential life and residential services announced the move last week according to associate dean of students michelle samuels the umoja house located in warren square is special interest housing dedicated to fostering cultural diversity it will occupy the former phi delta theta building 101 on lower sayre park road samuels said created in 1989 by african american students and the multicultural affairs office the house was originally intended to provide a place where african american lehigh students could make connections receive support and create opportuni ties to celebrate the cultural her itage of the lehigh community samuels said rising diversity on lehigh's campus over the past 10 years has made the umoja house a vital part of lehigh's cultural landscape according to samuels the umoja house which means unity in swahili creates a sense of unity among minority students shalea hicks 06 said b&w photo by tomsteele it is a place where african american students can go to relax it creates an atmosphere where we can feel safe hicks said the hill is filled with predominantly white sororities and fraternities if it is placed on the hill we as african americans can be seen and hopefully welcomed current residents of umoja house said they are eager for the former phi delta theta fraternity house will soon become the new home of the umoja house the umoja house is dedicated to cultural exploration and understanding sexual assault reported by john misinco a female student reported that she was sexually assaulted in her mcclintic-marshall dor mitory early saturday morning in a campus wide e-mail sent out saturday evening chief of police edward shupp said the victim reported that the alleged assault occurred around 3 a.m saturday after she returned home from a fraternity party shupp said the student was treated and released from the hospital she is receiving support from the student affairs office shupp was unavailable for comment look for more details in friday's issue of the brown and white news lditor see greek life page 7 see umoja page 4 * #** f j j * 4b w*^-|j i ox ivsi-'.-'-i â–  .... v â–  ..!â– .â– ' ": â– â– " vfe ' i football team gets back to winning ways with a 14-7 victory over yale see story on page 20 sports 15-20 sports spotlight 17 field hockey 15 football 18 tresolini lecture examines segrega tion and racism see story on page 6 news 1-7 college news 2 death row 3 prisoners start band 5 investing 101 takes a look at what an average college student needs to know about investing see story on page 9 business 9-11 workplace fitness 9 look who's investing 11 a surfer once sued another surfer for stealing his wave source http www.a musi ngfacts.com