Brown and White Vol. 134 no. 2

              The Brown and White Vol. 134 No. 2
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
IFC RECRUITMENT PERIOD ENDS Registrar explains
degree audits
Molly’s creates “Laundry Pod Shot”
By EMMA DILLON
B&W Staff
By KAYLA SIPPIN
Associate News Editor
By JULIA ADELIZZI
B&W Staff
See TIDE POD Page 3
See IFC Page 2
See AUDIT Page 2
Sam Henry/B&W Staff
There are 15 fraternities with houses on the Hill. During this year’s IFC recruitment period, potential new members were
required to attend at least eight house tours.
Students can use the registrar’s
degree audit tool on the Lehigh
Banner to see which course require-ments
they need to fulfill and how
close they are to graduating.
Minor discrepancies and misinter-pretations
of this tool, however, have
created confusion and caused stu-dents
to be more careful when plan-ning
their schedules.
Over spring break of 2017, Ashley
Baker, an associate registrar, said
the degree audit tool was upgraded to
provide a better interface, which may
have changed how some graduating
seniors use the tool compared to pre-vious
years.
Sophie Bysiewicz, ’18, an IDEAS
major, said her degree audit dis-played
a lot of red, which made her
think she hadn’t fulfilled the require-ments
to graduate. The degree audit
tool uses green, red and blue to show
whether requirements are complete,
incomplete or in progress respective-ly.
Bar and pie charts are used to
show the distributions of credit hours.
“(The tool) will say I have 20 per-cent
complete when my adviser says
it’s fine for me to graduate on time,”
Bysiewicz said.
Baker said integrated programs
like IDEAS can cause students to
misinterpret the degree audit.
“Because IDEAS is so self-designed
with the student and the adviser,
there isn’t a standard for those stu-dents,”
Baker said. “In those instanc-es,
the degree audit isn’t as beneficial
to them.”
Michael Lessel, ’18, said he’s had
a relatively positive experience with
the degree audit tool. However, there
were a few instances where he took
technical electives and his degree
audit did not count them toward his
degree. He said he had to email and
visit the Registrar’s Office to resolve
the issue.
Baker said the degree audit, which
was first developed in the late 1980s,
was built in accordance with the
course catalog.
Special topics or provisional cours-es
being tested out by a department
might not be considered standard for
a specific degree, but the department
will still count them toward a stu-dent’s
major. In these cases, Baker
said the audit won’t update auto-matically
and the department has to
approve these courses as exceptions.
Baker said courses can also be
misrepresented on the audit. In other
words, a student might take a course
intended as an elective, but on the
audit it could appear to fulfill a dif-ferent
requirement. This happens
because the audit looks at the order
in which students take courses and
enters them into the first require-
Lehigh’s Interfraternity Council’s
recruitment ended after new mem-bers
signed their invitation “bids” to
join chapters Friday.
According to the Office of
Fraternity and Sorority Affairs’s
website, the IFC recruitment pro-cess
“occurs in the spring semester
and consists of events hosted by
individual chapters. Students (will)
attend events hosted by chapters
they are interested in, and if the
chapter expresses interest, the stu-dent
will receive an invitation to
begin new member education.”
IFC monitors the entirety of the
internal recruitment process.
“There are people in IFC checking
to be sure that each potential new
member has hit their requirements,-
so that they’re able to formally accept
Two temporary suspensions lifted
their bid,” said Bennett Cole, ’20, an
IFC brotherhood recruitment officer.
“(They also) make sure each chapter
is following protocol.”
Ryan Kirton, ’18, the IFC recruit-ment
chair, said the recruitment
process lasts two weeks, starting
on the Sunday before the spring
semester begins. In previous years,
recruitment was three weeks long.
Charles Patrick went to sleep
on Jan. 19 after posting a photo
of the Tide Pod shot, a new drink
served at Molly’s Irish Grille &
Sports Pub.
When he woke up, his post had
over 1 million views. By the end
of the next day, the number had
climbed to 6.3 million. Molly’s
Facebook page also gained 5,000
new likes in a single day.
“It’s crazy,” said Patrick, the
owner of the bar on East Fourth
Street. “It was overnight. We
couldn’t believe it.”
Despite the photo’s increas-ing
popularity, Facebook took it
down after someone reported it.
Molly’s posted it again, to only
have it removed once more.
“They took it down again with a
stern warning,” Patrick said. “So
then we put the Ghost Busters
(symbol) over it and put it back
up again. They haven’t messed
with us since.”
The post with the shot crossed
out remains on the page.
“We’re the shot that got banned
by Facebook,” Patrick said.
The tri-colored alcoholic bev-erage
was inspired by the “Tide
Pod Challenge,” a social media
trend in which participants bite
into the laundry detergent packs
and post videos of the experience.
YouTube has made an effort
to remove the videos and Tide
has posted a warning featur-ing
New England Patriots player
Rob Gronkowski to make people
aware of the toxicity and true
purpose of the pods.
According to the Tide website,
the pods are, “highly concentrat-ed
detergent meant only to clean
clothes.” If a person swallows the
product, Tide recommends drink-ing
a glass of water or milk and
contacting the Poison Control
Center or a doctor immediately.
Patrick said Molly’s media
manager came to him with the
idea to create the Tide Pod shot,
which costs $4 and consists of
layers of Blue Curacao, Bailey’s
and orange-colored vodka to
mimic the appearance of Tide
Pods.
Patrick said a layering tech-nique
is used to make the drink,
which involves slowly spooning
the different liquors on top of one
another.
Molly’s is now calling the drink
the “laundry pod shot” instead
of using the term “Tide” because
Patrick does not want to be sued
by Procter & Gamble, the con-sumer
goods corporation that
owns Tide.
He said the shot is the first
original drink idea Molly’s has
had in a while and that no other
idea has received this much
national attention.
Patrick said Molly’s has
received calls from different bar
owners around the country ask-ing
how the shot is made. He has
received calls from bartenders in
Canada inquiringing about the
shot and was also told the shot
was featured in an Irish news
report.
While those at Molly’s don’t
mind sharing the recipe, they