Brown and White Vol. 128 no. 14

              The Brown and White
Vol. 128 No. 14
Friday, March 27, 2015
‘All the Lehigh News First’
The $177 million PPL Center at Seventh and Hamilton streets in Allentown, which opened in September as part of Mayor Pawlowski’s plan to revitalize the downtown, has already been nomi­nated for two prestigious worldwide awards.
Home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms minor league hock­ey team, as well as chain restau­rants Chickie’s and Pete’s and Tim Hortons, the PPL Center has hosted concerts by The Eagles, Tom Petty and Rascal Flatts. The location and the 10,000-person seating capacity have extended the reach of the event center to the Philadelphia region and make it a desirable venue for major acts.
But Michael DeCrosta, a sociolo­gy graduate student and Bethlehem
Lehigh’s Women in Business Conference, hosted Wednesday evening, featured keynote speak­er Maria Chrin, ’87, and panel­ist John Chrin, ’85. Maria is the founder and managing partner of Circle Wealth Management and is a member of Lehigh’s Board of Trustees. John is currently serving as the Global Financial Executive-in-Residence at Lehigh. Maria and John sat down for a Q&A session with The Brown and White.
Q: How would you say your time at Lehigh prepared or influenced you when you entered the job market?
Maria: My time at Lehigh pre­pared me well for the job market. I arrived from Honduras, sight unseen. It was a bit scary but it caused me to learn how to step out of my comfort zone and adapt to a new environment. I learned to get comfortable with being uncom­fortable, to acknowledge different points of views and be open-mind­ed and respectful of others. In business, that has been invalu­able.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about some of the experienc­es you had at Lehigh, your involvements and how they may have influence your deci­sion of what you wanted to go into after college?
Maria: I was in the College of Business and I was involved in as many clubs as possible. I also was a colonizing sister of Kappa Alpha Theta. That was a very interesting
The Lehigh Student Senate ad-hoc dining committee recently surveyed Sodexo employees and is in the process of distributing a survey to all students that are on a meal plan. The student sur­vey intends to collect ideas and concerns from students regarding dining options on campus.
Last semester, the Lehigh Student Senate formed an ad-hoc committee for dining services fol­lowing a passionate voice of con­cern from JJ O’Brien, ’16. O’Brien
local, called the efforts a prime exam­ple of gentrification, or the act of development to the point of local displacement.
“I’m always wary of developers having too large of a hand in revital­izing an urban downtown area like Allentown,” DeCrosta said.
As a sociology student, DeCrosta said he thinks in terms of race and class. By developing upper-class condominiums, corporate offic­es and expensive restaurants, he said Allentown is creating a “white space.”
“A minor league hockey team may be the whitest thing ever,” he said.
In a city where nearly half the residents identify as Hispanic, critics of the development worry that the efforts don’t reflect the local popu­lation.
“To really bring a city back to life, you have to reflect the people that live in the city,” said Erika Sutherland, Spanish professor at Muhlenberg College and director of a Hispanic immigrant advocacy group. “It has to involve the people that live and work and pay taxes in the city.”
Proponents of the development say there is a need to attract people who don’t live in the city to the down­town in order to raise tax revenue and bring in money. Julio Guridy, the president of the Allentown City Council, said the vision for the new development includes creating employment for residents and bring­ing more people to the city that are employed.
“The problem is we have a city that has a significant number of people whose income is below the poverty level,” he said. “Because of that, we want to make sure we have a middle class to sustain the city as well.”
Guridy said that by bringing more
said he has been frustrated with the dining situation at Lehigh since he was a first-year student.
“This issue touches every stu­dent at Lehigh and I am astound­ed that students haven’t tried to fix the issue up until now,” O’Brien said.
He said his concerns became too pertinent to ignore so he decided to take action and discuss his issues at a student senate meet­ing.
“When I went to present my thoughts to the student senate, I was pleased to see that I was not the only individual who felt pas­sionate about the dining situation at Lehigh,” O’Brien said.
His concerns echoed that of some other students on campus, so he said he and the student senate knew something had to be done.
Lindsay Wilson, ’18, was in her first semester at Lehigh and a member of the student Senate when she first learned of O’Brien’s concerns. She said when she heard O’Brien’s statements, she knew that she could not sit idle and see nothing get accomplished. Immediately after the discussion,
PPL center sparks debate on gentrification
Senate committee explores dining options
By KATIE ZABRONSKY
B&W Staff
By KATHLEEN GERARD
B&W Staff
By KERRY MALLETT
Managing Editor
Q&A: Lehigh alumni discuss gender roles in business
See PPL Page 3
See DINING Page 3
See Q&A Page 2
Nan He/B&W Staff
Michele Edwards hands a sandwich to a student Monday at Lower Cort dining hall. The student senate committee on dining is releasing a survey for students to gain information on their dining experiences.
Andrew Garrison/B&W Staff
Maria Chrin, ’87, speaks at the Women in Business conference Tuesday in the Asa Packer dining room. As the keynote speaker, Chrin addressed challenges she has faced as a woman in the workplace.