Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 4

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 4
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Lehigh alum Dent will not seek re-election
CBE receives $5 million gift for new program
By MARISSA MCCLOY
Designer
Rep. Charlie Dent, ’93G,
announced Sept. 7 he will not seek
re-election in 2018 as the con-gressman
for Pennsylvania’s 15th
Congressional District in the U.S.
House of Representatives.
The Lehigh alumnus has served the
district, which includes Bethlehem
and Allentown, since 2004.
Dent, who is in his 27th year of
public service, said he decided to
retire because it is the right time for
him. He is 57 years old and said he
remains in good health.
When he leaves the House, Dent
will have served 28 years between
his time in the Pennsylvania General
Assembly, Pennsylvania House,
Pennsylvania State Senate and the
U.S. House of Representatives.
Anthony DiMaggio, a professor of
political science at Lehigh, met Dent
at the Cultural Vistas Workshop last
fall. He said he was not surprised by
Dent’s decision not to run in 2018.
“He was very clear with communi-cating
to the students at this event
that he was not terribly happy with
the direction that the Republican
party has been moving,” DiMaggio
said, “particularly under Donald
Trump and with this idea that the
Republicans need to be loyal to him.”
However, Bethlehem Mayor
Courtesy of Charlie Dent
Rep. Charlie Dent announced on Sept. 7 that he is not seeking re-election in 2018. Dent is
the representative for Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District.
Robert Donchez said he thinks the
people of Bethlehem were surprised
by Dent’s retirement. Donchez, a
friend of Dent, said he too was sur-prised.
Two Pennsylvania state represen-tatives,
Ryan Mackenzie and Justin
Simmons, have announced their can-didacy
for Dent’s seat. Dent said he
has not endorsed a candidate at this
time, but he had good things to say
about Mackenzie.
“Justin Simmons would be a ter-rible
choice in my view,” Dent said.
“He simply doesn’t have the back-ground
knowledge, temperament or
work ethic to be a congressman.”
On Sept. 6, Simmons, a conserva-tive
and one-time supporter of Dent,
announced he planned to challenge
Dent in the 2018 election.
“Dent has been on the wrong side of
every major issue from ObamaCare,
spending, border security and the list
goes on,” Simmons said in a video on
his campaign website.
As a moderate Republican in
Congress, Dent said he has been
involved in compromise and agree-ments
that advanced the country on
basic fundamental issues.
Dent is a co-chair of the Tuesday
Group, an informal caucus of about
50 moderate Republicans in the
House. The group was founded in
See DENT Page 3
By CHRISTOPHER D’AGOSTINO
B&W Staff
Lehigh’s College of Business and
Economics received a $5 million gift
from alumnus Sanjay Shah, ’89, the
founder and CEO of Vistex, Inc.
The gift is for the advancement of
the executive education program at
Lehigh.
The program was started in 2015
and currently offers a certificate
course through the business school.
On Thursday, Shah presented the
check in front of faculty and col-leagues
in Tamerler Courtyard out-side
Rauch Business Center.
The check will name the new Vistex
Institute for Executive Learning and
Research at Lehigh. The new institu-tion
will focus on creating an engag-ing
and immersive experience for
students by focusing on relevant and
real-world business research.
Accounting professor Joseph
Manzo sees this as a big step for the
business school.
“Executive education started as
an idea three years ago and now we
have an endowment of $5 million,”
he said. “That’s big.”
Manzo said he expects this new
program will encourage students to
be more engaged in the business
community.
Economics professor Frank Gunter
hopes this will break the mold of
how a “traditional” business school
operates.
“The days where a business stu-dent
lives in a bubble is gone,”
Gunter said. “In order to maintain
the quality of a business school, stu-dents
must engage with the commu-nity.”
Evidence of a push for engage-ment
can be seen through other
business school initiatives. Both
the LehighSiliconValley program in
California and visits to accounting
firms in New York City take stu-dents
out of the classroom and into
business environments.
“Students are going to get a peek
into what real-world life in corporate
America is like,” Shah said, “which is
important because that’s where they
are going to end up.”
After graduating from Lehigh with
an MBA in 1989, Shah entered the
corporate world. Ten years later,
Shah founded the global software
company Vistex, Inc.
Today, the company has 20 offices
and 1,300 employees. Shah credits a
lot of his success to Lehigh.
“This has been the gateway for
me,” Shah said. “Not only to this
wonderful country but all the oppor-tunities
that an MBA gives you.”
The implementation of executive
education at the univeristy resonat-ed
with Shah.
In his speech addressing the
Lehigh faculty, Shah said he was
“pumped up” about this new initia-tive,
calling it a “game changer.”
He said he wants to help executive
education at Lehigh reach a new
level.
“Education and continuous learn-ing
are drivers for all that happens
in the real world,” Shah said.
He said his endowment check will
grant students an opportunity to
conduct research that matters.
Georgette Chapman Phillips, the
dean of the College of Business and
Economics, said this was an import-ant
moment for the business school.
She said this program will enable
the college and Lehigh to create rela-tionships
by becoming an intellectual
partner to the business community.
She thinks this is the push the pro-gram
needed to get off the ground.
“We have broken out into a full
run,” Phillips said.
Courtesy of John Kish IV
From left, President John Simon, CEO of Vistex, Inc. Sanjay Shah, ’89, and College of
Business and Economics dean, Georgette Phillips, pose together Thursday in Tamerler
courtyard at Rauch Business Center. Shah donated $5 million to the college to create the
new Vistex Institute for Executive Learning and Research.