Recent Progress on the Path to Prominence

Dear Members of the Campus Community,

Over the course of the past year, we have made significant progress toward the implementation of our Path to Prominence plan, and as you most certainly noticed upon your return to campus, the summer months brought even more progress—and more changes. As our new academic year begins, we wanted to provide you with an update on all of these efforts.

Our vision under the Path to Prominence calls for a significant expansion in our research enterprise, and we understand that we cannot achieve our ambitions in research unless we make significant investments in our academic infrastructure. Toward that end, we recently received approval from the City of Bethlehem Zoning Hearing Board to move forward on the proposed Health, Science and Technology (HST) building. This cutting-edge research facility will provide crucially important lab space for our faculty, serve as home to our new College of Health, and serve as an important new gateway between campus and our neighbors in South Bethlehem.

At the intersection of Brodhead and Packer Avenues construction continues on the new SouthSide Commons residential facility. This new living and learning community, scheduled to open in time for the 2019-2020 academic year, stands as an important first step as we begin our work to expand our undergraduate and graduate student population in the years to come. Further up the hill, preliminary work has begun on yet another planned student living facility. The Bridge West residential development, which will eventually be home to more than 700 students, is set to open in time for the 2020-2021 academic year. To clear the way for that project—one that we believe will bring new vitality to the heart of campus—work crews last month demolished the former Building No. 82 and cleared a plot of land just south of the Trembley Park Houses. In the months to come, additional infrastructure work will be conducted in the area in preparation for formal groundbreaking on Bridge West as well as the planned expansion and renovation of the historic University Center.

Important progress continues on other major projects as well. This summer, construction began on the $31 million renovation of historic Chandler-Ullmann Hall, which is being updated to more adequately serve the needs of a 21st century university. Work also concluded at Mountaintop Building C, now home to the departments of Art, Architecture and Design, and Computer Science and Engineering, and some Industrial Systems Engineering faculty, as well as the Mountaintop Initiative and the Institute for Data Science and Computational Intelligence.

These facilities and infrastructure projects support our broader ambitions to advance Lehigh and bolster our efforts in the realms of teaching, research and community impact. As we continue our efforts to reshape our physical campus, we are also making important and strategic investments that will enable us to strengthen our academic programs, improve the student experience, expand access to Lehigh for students of all backgrounds, and serve as an agent of positive change in both the Lehigh Valley and around the world.

Some highlights include the following:

• We have launched a national search for the inaugural dean of our innovative new College of Health. Aided in large part by two esteemed Lehigh alumni—former Trustee Vince Forlenza ’75, chief executive officer of Becton Dickinson, and current Trustee Stephen Klasko ’74, president and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health—we are confident that we will bring to Lehigh a dean who will position our college as a center for innovation and thought leadership in the fast-growing health care sector.
   
• We continue to build on our efforts to expand access and help support students, with the ultimate goal of substantially diversifying and growing our undergraduate population. Our participation with the American Talent Initiative aligns Lehigh with top universities nationwide in an effort to attract students from more diverse backgrounds. We are also partnering with the New York based Posse Foundation to recruit a cohort of high-achieving, lower-income students from the San Francisco Bay area. More recently, Lehigh joined the Mentor Collective, another national program that pairs incoming students with upper-class students who can help guide the younger students’ educational journey and assist them in acclimating to an often-challenging new academic and social environment.
   
• We have developed and are rapidly expanding our presence on the West Coast. The Lehigh@NasdaqCenter—launched in 2016 and created in partnership with the nonprofit Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center—provides Lehigh with an important presence in San Francisco and extends Lehigh’s educational experience to more students than ever before. The acclaimed LehighSiliconValley program immerses students in the dynamic world of startups and entrepreneurships, and a number of successful pilot programs were launched this summer, including the Startup Academy and the Iacocca Global Entrepreneurship Intensive-Silicon Valley. We’ve been encouraged and excited by the level of enthusiasm we’ve encountered on the part of our alumni in that region who are very supportive of our presence there and very open to creating more opportunities.

These initiatives build on the momentum we have created over the course of the past year, one that saw us expand our global footprint through new partnerships with Ashoka University in India and the Innova Schools of Peru; the establishment of three high-impact Interdisciplinary Research Institutes that will enable Lehigh to take a leading position on the national and international stage; making key strategic hires to strengthen our senior leadership team; continuing to recruit outstanding faculty and staff to Lehigh; recruiting the most competitive and selective first-year class in our history; and starting the formal planning for the launch of our upcoming capital campaign, which will provide Lehigh the resources needed to fully realize our ambitions under the Path to Prominence.

These are truly exciting times for Lehigh. We have much to be proud of, and we look forward to sharing additional developments and updates with you in the months to come. We thank you again for your hard work and support as we collectively work to strengthen our great university.

Sincerely,

John Simon
President

Patrick Farrell
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Patricia Johnson
Vice President, Finance and Administration