Brown and White Vol. 111 No. 24

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 all the lehigh news first vol 11l no 24 friday december 5 2003 gay community speaks of troubles by joe abel editor in chief editor's note an asterisk denotes a name that has been changed to protect anonymity fear and pride a battle is raging between these competing emotions it's a fight the gay communi ty at lehigh continues to ago nize over some students fearful of the social and familial ramifi cations of coming out keep their secret within others maintain a fierce pride of their lifestyles one often displayed by a rain bow car decal shirt or patch a rift within the gay commu nity is present some are out some not there is however one common theme all those within the community share the feeling that it's not easy to get by at this conservative school numbers on the gay popula tion at lehigh are sketchy gene kelly residence life coor dinator and faculty adviser to spectrum lehigh's gay stu dent group said the accepted figure for homosexuals nation wide is 10 percent estimating conservatively he said that means there should be any where from 200 to 400 gay stu dents here this story will focus on the experiences of gay men at lehigh though a population of bisexual lesbian transgen der and questioning students exists on campus kelly said he knows about 20 students who are out there are some students here who are out with every body - parents other kids pro fessors kelly said there are some that are not out there are some mat are out only when they go away on the weekends there are some who are out with tfieir friends but because of where their parents work they can't tell them fear they thought he was asleep he wasn't i actually heard the words from my parents when they thought i had gone to bed that if i were gay i would not be part of the family and that i would be disavowed bill 06 said i'm sure they suspect things but right now widi me not telling them it's a lot better than if i did tell them bill's dilemma is common among gays to tell or not to tell the question eats away at him everyday his experience is also indica tive of many that other gay stu b&w courtesy of rob edwards dents at school have endured one of the first problems they encounter here begins the moment they set foot in their freshman dorms when they have to deal with living with a roommate bill was unlucky in that rob edwards graduated from lehigh in 1990 he is now a volunteer police officer for the washington d.c police force financial lab to open in rauch by da vina attar news writer in the spirit of learning by doing a financial services laboratory will open in rauch business center designed to look like a wall street trading floor the labora tory will provide realistic work ing situations and learning experience in the field of eco nomics and trading while the fsl is idyllic for a student in the college of business and economics dean richard durand said the laboratory is ideal for all students and faculty at lehigh as far as providing background in a wireless labo ratory that's what the business community likes about this - the way to produce students with lots of background durand said the laboratory will include computer software provided by ibm wall-mounted tickers and televisions offering live cover age of cnbc cnn bloomberg and other financial networks the computer software will function to provide simulated trading deal capture settle ment analytics pricing portfo lio management and deriva tives pricing dean durand was proud to acknowledge the rela tionship between the ibm shared university research program and the college of business and economics that made that is aiding in making the lab a reality jim greenleaf professor of finance originated the idea for the laboratory with the inten tions of getting lehigh gradu ates better jobs other goals of the project are to maximize experience within the classroom provide tools for quality faculty research and to attract superi or students and faculty the application of theory to solving actual business prob lems will be one major use of the lab concetta pesotini 07 explained how necessary it is sos tightens control of petitions by matt kapitanyan news writer strict enforcement of regis tration deadlines has made it more difficult for students to add and drop classes these standards are not new rather the standing on students sos committee with the sup port of the deans and the provost is working with rules that already exist but are not being actively enforced in the past few years the number of students requesting and receiving late adds has risen substantially as a result the expectations is that virtual ly any request will be approved last year out of a total 1,046 petitions the sos com mittee heard more than 645 were to add or drop classes late most of the 645 petitions did not have unusual circum stances surrounding them rather they were simply because the student had for gotten to add or drop the class during the allotted registration period the sos committee is simply working to take those numbers back to what they used to be said linda lowe krentz associate dean of the college of arts and sciences according to the student handbook a student may add a course to the roster after the 10th day of instruction in a regular semester ... by petition only lehigh is not alone in its standards for registration most other colleges enforce similar restrictions and usual ly in a much less lax manner some do not even allow any late adds the university of pittsburgh for instance imposes a late reg see lab page 2 see gay page 3 see registration page 2 wrestling wins fourth straight now ranked at eighth in the nation see story page 24 sports 21-24 a look back 21 taylor gym slots 22-23 professor raymond bell retires after 37 years at lehigh see story page 5 news 1-6 good scholar election 4 shop with a cop 4 campus portal 5 lehigh students and south side residents experience tensions what lehigh is doing to bridge the gap see story page 9,10 lifestyle 9-17 first person 11 look who's talking 12 face in the crowd 15 quig one out of every 350,000 americans get electrocuted in their lifetime source www.amusingfacts.com