Continued Progress on the Path to Prominence

Dear Members of the Campus Community,

As we begin a new semester and continue to move forward on our Path to Prominence plan, I wanted to take a moment to highlight our significant progress.

The Path to Prominence is about academic excellence. I am convinced that the Lehigh experience is one that shapes our students in remarkable ways, nurturing and encouraging a thoughtful and creative approach to problem-solving, ceaseless intellectual curiosity, highly competitive spirit, strong leadership capacity, and an unwavering commitment to contributing to the world in inventive and meaningful ways.

In realizing the broad and ambitious goals we’ve outlined in our plan, we have the opportunity to expand our capacity to offer this exceptional Lehigh experience to more students – with more varied backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints.

We have the opportunity to bring new faculty colleagues to Lehigh as well, expanding the number and diversity of scholars who choose our academic community as the place to exercise their passions for creating new knowledge and cultivating young minds. As we pursue our broad and ambitious goals, our singular intent is that the Lehigh experience deepens, and our impact on the world increases.

These developments – while exciting – also present challenges. Our campus culture is shifting. Our physical landscape is evolving as we build new state-of-the-art research and learning spaces and new residential communities, while restoring some of our historic structures. Our student body and faculty are growing. Change can be difficult, as we must now think in broader, more expansive ways. And there will be missteps as we move forward. We will need to minimize these, learn from them, and still move forward with purpose and confidence.  

I’ve heard the concern expressed that we may be doing too much, moving too fast, and that we need to retain what has always made Lehigh distinctive. I completely agree with the latter, and strongly believe we can remain distinctive and still innovate and move quickly. In fact, given the changes occurring in higher education, I believe we have little choice. 

We are creating the Lehigh of the future – instantly recognizable in the capacities and contributions of our graduates, in the quality of our scholarship, and the cohesiveness of our community – yet with more audacious goals as educators and scholars, and with expanded global presence and influence. Through investments in our faculty and student body, our academic programs, our infrastructure, and our global engagements, we are well on our way.

Many of you attended the launch of GO: The Campaign for Lehigh in late October, which was marked by that extraordinary, high-energy event here on campus, and in receptions at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City and at the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The enthusiasm for this ambitious campaign is remarkable, as is your support of a Lehigh that continues to evolve as an institution that embraces excellence in all that we do.

Our progress toward our overarching goal is evident in many arenas. Below are just some of the highlights and milestones:

• We are currently launching the College of Health, and will be announcing the college’s inaugural dean in the next week. Provost Pat Farrell and I thank our faculty and staff committees that served to shape the intellectual and operational structure of the college, our regional and national collaborators who have helped frame the opportunities for Lehigh University to create leaders in health, and our many alumni who are themselves leaders in health today and are willing to partner with us to ensure a successful launch of our college. Working together, the key areas of focus of the college were defined, building on our institutional strengths to position Lehigh to have an impact on a rapidly changing health care system. A top research university needs top research facilities, and we are nearing completion of the design development phase for a new state-of-the-art science and technology building on the northeast corner of campus. This new Health, Science & Technology building (HST) will provide crucially important lab space for our faculty and flexible, collaborative spaces where interdisciplinary research work can flourish and where undergraduate students can work alongside faculty and graduate students. We are moving through the pre-construction approval phase with the City of Bethlehem now and hope to obtain trustee approval and break ground this year.
• Other capital projects on campus are continuing. The $31 million renovation of the historic Chandler-Ullmann academic building will modernize the interior spaces to better serve the needs of the 21st century student. That project will be completed by this summer. The SouthSide Commons residential complex (with the capacity to house roughly 420 students) is on track for occupancy by the start of the next academic year. In December, we hosted a groundbreaking for the first phase of the Bridge West residential complex, which will house more than 700 students. We expect that Phase 1 of this project will be completed by the start of the 2020-21 academic year. And, thanks to the generosity of Chair of the Board of Trustees Kevin L. Clayton ’84, ’13P and Lisa A. Clayton ’13P, we can move forward on an extensive renovation of the iconic University Center, which will be transformed into a true student center in the heart of the Lehigh campus. The $20 million Clayton gift – which kicked off the public phase of our $1 billion-plus fundraising and engagement effort in late October – is supporting one of the campaign’s key initiatives: the renovation and expansion of the University Center to create a welcoming environment where students can grow into capable, thoughtful, and compassionate leaders. The renovated University Center will be known as the Clayton University Center at Packer Hall.
• Since launching our partnership with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in January 2017, more than 500 students have engaged with programs and resources made available through the Lehigh@NasdaqCenter. Lehigh and Nasdaq are co-designing high-impact, immersive learning experiences that develop entrepreneurial thinkers and prepare students to be leaders and change makers in the rapidly evolving workplace. This past summer, the College of Business and Economics partnered to launch Startup Academy, a 10-week internship that embedded Lehigh students in the trenches of six early- to mid-stage startups. The Dateline Silicon Valley course (Arts & Sciences, Department of Journalism) is an example where the partnership enables students across disciplines to have regular interactions with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and alumni on the West Coast. The students – called “Lehigh@Nasdaq Media Fellows” – traveled to the Bay Area during the fall semester to conduct on-camera interviews with Silicon Valley thought leaders in the Nasdaq Center’s broadcast studio. Earlier this month, the Baker Institute’s successful and innovative LehighSiliconValley Program made the Center its home base and leveraged its network to support the following tracks, enabling the students to take a deep dive into specific areas of interest: Start Up, Arts Entrepreneurship, FinTech, and Software Engineering. And just last week, Vice President and Vice Provost of International Affairs Cheryl Matherly partnered with the Lehigh@NasdaqCenter to host a summit on Entrepreneurship and the Future of Education, continuing our institutional efforts to connect our students with entrepreneurial opportunities around the world.
• We are fortifying our efforts in interdisciplinary research. Lehigh has always been a place of high collegiality, with easy access to colleagues in other fields yet limited venues for growing shared programs. Our engineering faculty recently involved colleagues in other colleges in the conception and founding of three Interdisciplinary Research Institutes – each organized around an area of substantial societal relevance and relevant faculty expertise – that are now working to convene members of the faculty across colleges to conceive and incubate multi-faculty research programs. The Presidential Research Initiative on the Nano/Human Interface is advancing the application of artificial intelligence to understand the most effective, visual human learning strategies to accelerate scientific discovery. We are committed to interdisciplinary research and education, with investments focused on faculty and student talent, new research, and academic programs that work across colleges, as well as the expansion of campus facilities that support interdisciplinary research and learning. The power of interdisciplinary collaboration is central to Lehigh’s culture and vision, and key to our taking a leading role on the national and international stage.
• Our international footprint continues to grow. We continue to attract more students from all over the globe, who are drawn to Lehigh for the abundant opportunities it offers. Our first-year class includes 127 students from 38 countries, one of the most internationally diverse in Lehigh’s recent history. The Iacocca International Internship Program was awarded the 2019 IIE (Institute of International Education) Andrew Heiskell Award in recognition of its innovative approach to strengthening student mobility in both directions and preparing students to enter the global workforce. This program is now featured by the IIENetwork as a “best practice” in international education. And, thanks in part to the Iacocca Internship Program, we are sending more of our students out into the world, allowing many of them to design unique experiences that enhance their cultural competency and take advantage of extraordinary living and learning opportunities. On an institutional level, we have joined in new partnerships with Ashoka University in India, the Innova Schools of Peru, and, most recently, a dual degree program between the College of Business and Economics and Tongji University in Shanghai. We hope that the Shanghai partnership will lead to additional initiatives with institutions throughout Asia, which is becoming increasingly recognized as a center for education leadership. David Morency, a Presidential Scholar who will graduate from the Integrated Business and Engineering Honors program at Lehigh with dual majors in finance and industrial systems and engineering, became Lehigh’s first student to win a prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship for study in China. He will study at the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. We are also implementing several initiatives to strengthen ties with a substantial and growing international alumni base. As I’ve noted on many occasions, I strongly believe that a Lehigh education should fully prepare students for the world they will face when they graduate, and global competency is a significant part of that preparation. Our efforts to expand around the world are emblematic of our broader focus on creating a university of truly global involvement and impact.
• Our expanding student body is contributing to a vibrant campus community that attracts and retains the most talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. We are committed to providing the support and facilities to ensure our students excel at Lehigh and beyond. We have already made a number of investments and have forged strategic partnerships to support this goal. In addition to selecting a new vice provost for admissions to lead our efforts to attract, recruit, and admit students from a broader demographic base, we also joined with national programs such as the American Talent Initiative and the Posse Foundation to enhance the residential academic experience for all students, as well as the Mentor Collective to improve retention of our talented cohorts by connecting them with on-campus resources that assist with navigating our rigorous academic environment. We want all talented and ambitious students to come to view Lehigh as a place where they will always feel welcomed and supported.

I am honored to be a part of Lehigh’s rich legacy, and I’m energized by the potential for its future. With your ongoing support, I know we can create a university that will be recognized throughout the world for its excellence, and for the extraordinary thinkers and doers that it has produced for more than a century and a half.

Please join me in looking forward to a promising and productive 2019.

Sincerely,

John D. Simon ’19P
President