Celebrate Lehigh’s Sesquicentennial

Founder’s Day at Lehigh has always been momentous. This year, as the university celebrates its Sesquicentennial and installs its 14th president, it will be especially so.

A celebration a century and a half in the making, Lehigh@150 will feature four days of events to honor the past, present and future of Lehigh University. All friends of Lehigh—students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members—are encouraged to attend the celebration, which will take place Oct. 1-4.   

“The Sesquicentennial is a chance not only for Lehigh to celebrate our storied past—the many contributions of our faculty, staff and alumni through the years—but it is also a terrific opportunity to tell the story of who we are today and where we are going as in institution and a community,” says Joe Kender ’87, vice president for advancement and co-chair of the Sesquicentennial Committee.

The focal point of the celebration will take place on Friday, Oct. 2 at 4 p.m. in Packer Chapel. This year’s Founder’s Day ceremony, one of Lehigh’s oldest and most revered traditions, will feature the installation of John D. Simon as Lehigh’s 14th president. Tickets are required.

"Founder's Day has always been one of my favorite events at Lehigh, mostly because of its comfortable decorum on a beautiful October day,” says Vince Munley, deputy provost for faculty affairs and co-chair of the Sesquicentennial Committee. “This year's ceremony will combine this dimension with the festivity that characterized the Rivalry 150 weekend in New York City. I anticipate that its totality will become a lasting memory for everyone of Lehigh shining at its brightest. The ceremony inaugurating President Simon in Packer Chapel will truly be something special.”

In addition to the presidential installation, the Founder’s Day ceremony will include a new work from Steven Sametz, the Ronald J. Ulrich Professor of Music and director of Lehigh University Choral Arts. Darest Thou, O Soul sets Walt Whitman's 1868 poem, Darest Thou Now, O Soul, in a cross-disciplinary, multi-media work scored for digitally delayed choir, saxophone, brass, percussion and organ. During a ten-week Mountaintop project, Sametz and a team of undergraduate and graduate students created what promises to be an unforgettable performance.

"Working on the piece with these students has been one of the great pleasures of my career here at Lehigh," said Sametz. "Their intellect and energy exemplify the underlying message of the piece: that what we observe and learn from the universe, interpreted  through our intellects, perceptions, art and research, creates our university today and the universe for those who follow. At this time when we commemorate our past as we celebrate our future, we can, in Whitman's words, move ‘towards that Unknown Region,’ where ties are loosened and ‘all waits, undreamed of.’”

A community parade will follow the ceremony, with Lehigh’s Marching 97 leading participants down East Packer Avenue to the Tamerler Courtyard of the Zoellner Arts Center for the Brown and White Birthday Celebration. This campus party will feature a buffet dinner, a birthday toast and a special performance by Lehigh’s music students, faculty and collaborators that will weave Lehigh’s history with music, video, art and writings by Lehigh’s creative writing students and faculty. Tickets are required for the birthday celebration.

Celebrating campus and community

Festivities will also include the Sesquicentennial Block pARTy, a four-day community event beginning on Thursday, Oct. 1 that will celebrate the arts in all forms.

“The idea behind the Block pARTy is to celebrate and connect 150 years of creativity through the arts—visual, performing, literary, technical, and engineering,” says Andy Cassano, administrative director of the Zoellner Arts Center. “Our campus has a wealth of writing across the disciplines. We look at technical gadgets as sculpture. We see work on poster displays as fascinating artwork. We see how crossing the disciplines can create amazing innovation which we want to celebrate. We also want to commend our South Side partners in their work in education, community service, arts, food and culture and innovation.”

The Block pARTy will provide “a compelling and imaginative selection of events that capture the creative talent and spirit of innovation at Lehigh and in our local community,” says Cassano. Programming will  include local musicians; displays of projects by faculty, staff and students; food from South Side restaurants; engaging family activities; a wide variety of creative outdoor performances and workshops; and a keynote lecture by famed string theorist and theoretical physicist Brian Greene.

Other scheduled events include the renaming of Campus Square in honor of Gregory C. Farrington, Lehigh’s 12th president; the dedication of the newly renovated Williams Hall; and, on Saturday, Oct. 3, tailgating festivities and the homecoming football game, in which Lehigh will take on Yale. 

For more information visit www.lehigh.edu/150. For event registration, visit http://mylehigh.lehigh.edu/lehigh150.