Brown and White Vol. 130 no. 8

              The Brown and White Vol. 130 No. 8
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Rathbone earns two-star green certification
Alexis McGowan, Lexi Berliner/B&W Staff
TOP: Cookies are available for
dessert at Rathbone Student
Restaurant on Thursday. The
desserts are located by the
community grill in the back of
the dining hall.
RIGHT: Jason Lopez, ’19,
and Conrad Ozarek, ’19, eat
breakfast at Rathbone on Feb.
20. The dining hall has been
awarded a two-star green
restaurant certification per
the standards of The Green
Restaurant Association.
By DANIELLE BETTERMANN
Associate News Editor
Rathbone Student Restaurant
became Lehigh’s first student
restaurant to be awarded a two-star
green restaurant certifica-tion,
which means the dining hall
met many of the environmental
standards set into place by the
nonprofit organization The Green
Restaurant Association.
After taking 43 environmen-tal
steps, Rathbone was award-ed
132 GreenPoints, according
to director of Rathbone Lauren
Sleeger. Sleeger said most of the
steps necessary to earn the certi-fication
were already in place at
Rathbone, so there were not many
changes to make.
“We wanted to be on the fore-front
of creating these changes as
opposed to being mandated to do
it,” Sleeger said. “We did it volun-tarily.
A lot of things they proba-bly
wouldn’t notice, but again, it’s
not that we weren’t doing them,
it’s just that it’s an everyday
thing already.”
While there have been envi-ronmentally
friendly updates to
the dining hall, many students
have yet to notice a substantial
upgrade in quality of the food.
Out of 106 students surveyed
by The Brown and White, 71 stu-dents
said they have not noticed a
change in quality of the food, and
11 noted that they thought the
quality had decreased.
Lehigh’s executive chef Joseph
Kornafel said students may not
recognize the improved quality
of food because they have not
“It is a constant,
step-by-step
evolution and
there’s no such thing
as a jump from A to
Z...So it’s a little bit
at a time.”
- Lauren Sleeger
Director, Rathbone
eaten the food for an extended
period of time. The process of
improving their environmentally
friendly practices and the qual-ity
and presentation of the food
evolves over time. Kornafel said
students spend only a few years
in the dining halls before moving
off campus or into a sorority or
fraternity house.
“It is a constant, step-by-step
evolution and there’s no such
thing as a jump from A to Z with-out
going through B, C, D and so
on and so forth,” Kornafel said.
“So it’s a little bit at a time.”
About 20 percent of students
who responded to the survey
noticed better quality in the food
over the past year, and five stu-dents
said there are now more
choices.
See RATHBONE Page 3
Students influenced by social media Sands Casino
faces potential
new tax increase
By CATE PETERSON
Associate News Editor
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf pro-posed
a tax increase on slot games pro-vided
for gamblers in Pennsylvania
casinos. The tax will impact the
Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem,
which is frequented by Lehigh stu-dents
and community members alike.
Under the current law, the Sands
Casino is not required to pay taxes on
the money it gives away in vouchers
or promotional-play cards.
These items are given to custom-ers
as a way to promote the casino.
George Mease, a valet supervisor,
has been working at Sands since it
opened in May 2009. The voucher
system has been used at the casino
since its opening, Mease said.
“Everybody that uses the slots uses
the vouchers,” Mease said. “They
have to.”
People perceive reality as it is
described and shown on social
media. Individuals receive the
majority of news content through
various social media platforms,
according to Janey Lee, assistant
professor in Lehigh’s department
of journalism and communication.
Lee, who studied communica-tions
with a specialty in com-puter-
mediated communications,
recently published research about
social media and political involve-ment.
She focuses her research
on young people’s perception of
political communication on social
media. She believes social media is
an expanding and evolving outlet
where young people are exposed to
new information that they are not
By DANIELLE CAMPBELL
Assistant Visuals Editor
necessarily seeking.
Lee used a publicly available
data set from Pew Research
Center to conduct her research
about questions surrounding the
topic of article content and if one
responds to various comments on
social media.
“Social media use itself can lead
to political view change,” Lee said.
“I looked at both social media lead-ing
to political view change and/or
more political issue involvement
on social media. I tested if these
are possible.”
Lee said there are other factors
that spark political view change,
too, such as who posted an arti-cle
or how many people liked or
shared it. She wanted to test how
these affected people’s under-standing
of news content.
After proposing a diagram of her
hypothesis of the effects of social
media, Lee gathered the results
of her data and created a new
diagram.
“Just exposure is not strong
enough, but discussion is import-ant
and information seeking moti-vation
is important,” Lee said.
“If you use social media just for
entertainment use, you lack the
motivation.”
Lee said people need to have a
desire to change their views, and
content online is not enough to
change their opinions.
“What’s important, what’s cru-cial,
is actually getting involved in
discussion,” Lee said.
If someone seeks information
with the goal of learning and pos-sibly
forming a view on a topic,
involvement in the discussion is
necessary. Some people, regard-less
of the information on social
media, will not change their opin-ions,
in part because they have
similarly minded friends on social
media platforms who hold the
same view as them. This confirma-tion
bias can prevent some people
from seeing all sides of an issue.
“Usually I would ignore a polit-ical
article unless the caption
See SOCIAL Page 4 See CASINO Page 2
Professor researches
students’ perceptions of
issues on social media