Brown and White Vol. 117 no. 22

              Vol. 117 No. 22
Friday, November 20, 2009
‘All the Lehigh News First’
THE BROWN AND WHITE
Lehigh University’s Student Newspaper Founded in 1894
SPORTS
The big game:
Lehigh-Lafayette
Page 20
ONLINE
Panhel holds
leadership dinners
www.thebrownandwhite.com
Twelfth Night shakes up Zoellner
Page 9
LIFESTYLE
Racing for the rivalry
B&W photo by MATT BREITEL
B&W photo by BRIAN CASTELL
Students participate in Bed Races on Wednesday night as part of Lehigh-Lafayette week festivities. For the men’s bracket, Team ’10 won for the third year in a row. For the women’s side, Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, or “Team U.S.A” won their race.
By JENNIFER McCUSKER
Pennsylvania’s House of Rep­resentatives is considering a mea­sure to ban the use of handheld devices while driving.
On Nov. 10, the House Transportation Committee unani­mously voted in support of the bill, which mainly targets texting while driving.
Amendments to the bill, such as prohibiting drivers from talk­ing on handheld cell phones, may be added later when it goes on the House floor.
While the bill is still in the House and needs the state Sen­ate’s approval to be incorporated into Pennsylvania law, many other states have already banned drivers from using their cell phones, and Pennsylvania may be next.
Chief of Police Edward Shupp declined to offer his own opinions on the matter, but said that cell phones are a distraction.
“Cell phones are a problem when people are driving,” he said. “Just taking your eyes off the road for a second creates an unsafe atmosphere for everyone on the road.”
Courtney Rice, ’12, a resident of Pennsylvania, believes texting while driving is a problem.
“I would support this measure because I think it would make driving in Pennsylvania much safer,” she said.
Many Lehigh students have experienced this kind of legisla­tion being incorporated in their home states and have varying opinions on the prospect of Penn­sylvania banning texting while driving.
Liz Thomas, ’11, said driv­ing while texting or talking in her home state of New Jersey is illegal.
“I rarely talk on the phone or text when I drive,” she said. “I crashed my mom’s brand new BMW a couple years ago while texting. Pennsylvania should ban texting and talking on the phone while driving because studies have shown texting and driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving.”
Some students support this measure for safety reasons but still text while driving.
Rachel Kaplan, ’12, is from Connecticut, where texting and talking on a cell phone is illegal while driving. She said she is guilty of talking, texting and driving.
“I talk on a speakerphone
Pa. law could end cell phone use while driving
See TEXTING Page 3
n A proposed law would make it illegal to use handheld devices on Pennsylvania roads.
By SAMANTHA MAES
The United Nations chose Lehigh to create and run a Twitter page with the latest up­dates from Darfur.
Ramu Damodaran, deputy director of the Outreach Divi­sion of the Department of Pub­lic Information of the United Nations, contacted Bill Hunter, Lehigh’s director of the Global Union and Lehigh University/United Nations Partnership to initiate the project.
Damodaran initially con­tacted Hunter to obtain student feedback on the U.N.’s state­ment called the Academic Impact.
The Academic Impact is a contract that was sent to uni­versities worldwide to ask them to subscribe to the ideals of the U.N. The universities that were interested then chose to sup­port and actively do program­ming for the U.N.
Lehigh students were chosen to review the document to see how identifiable the document was with college students, not just administrators.
Because of Lehigh’s work with the Academic Impact, Damodaran approached Hunt­er about creating a Twitter page dedicated to information coming out of Darfur.
Darfur is an eastern region of Sudan undergoing a geno­cide that began in 2003 and currently affects 4.7 million people of the 6 million who live there, according to the SaveDarfur Web site.
Damodaran asked Hunter to select students who would up­date a Twitter page about the conflict in Darfur with informa­tion not only from the U.N. but from other sources as well.
Hunter said Damodaran did not want the page to be in any way censored by the U.N., and ultimately the goal of the page is to become the primary source of information about the conflict. Essentially, the students choose issues about Darfur and tweet a summary of the latest news.
“They’re providing the person who’s following them and seeing the information a chance to see the original source material, which is a huge credibility thing on Twit­ter,” said Jeremy Littau, who studies social media in the department of journalism and communications.
Littau said Twitter was the chosen information medium because it was not directly tied to journalism, and people could see not only what the U.N. was releasing, but other sources on the subject all in one place.
“There’s power in this idea of passing on ideas,” Littau said. “Twitter is, in a lot of ways, a social sharing of news and ideas.”
Hunter contacted every col­lege at Lehigh to obtain the
See TWITTER Page 3
The UN’s Twitter page dedicated to the conflict in Darfur is being maintained by Lehigh students from all colleges.
Students update
Twitter for UN