No matter what role you serve at Lehigh, and no matter what your individual life has looked like for the past four months, we can all agree this semester has been a chaotic one for the Lehigh community. One that, perhaps, none before can compare to and may never be topped.
To name just a few unpredictable things that occurred:
Unseasonable heat and drought set the forests of Blue Mountain ablaze.
An evangelical protester on the border of campus deemed Muslim and LGBTQ+ students hellbound, as well as people of other minorities or identities and recorded students without their consent.
Four former students were arrested on campus and charged with forgery and theft of services. They are currently awaiting the outcome of their trials.
Community members and students braved record-high voter turnout, broken machines and record-breaking six-hour wait times at the Banana Factory on Election Day: a voting experience so unprecedented it garnered celebrity and national attention and coverage by outlets like The New York Times.
Our football team dominated our Lafayette rivals to win the Patriot League — triggering what may have been the greatest demonstration of school pride in years — with a Goodman Stadium goal post being ripped from its turf, carried more than four miles and tossed into the Lehigh River.
The list could go on.
Housing shortages, hazing investigations, contaminated water, power outages and continued protests and activism about wars across the world also played a part in the semester. And yet — despite everything — the days raced forward, leaving little time to process it all.
But this semester wasn’t just about chaos. It was also about connection.
It’s easy to feel as though our small university nestled in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania is somewhat insignificant to the greater world.
But with a slight shift in perspective, you’d realize we’re perched between some of the nation’s most powerful cities, in one of the largest counties of the “swingiest-swing” state, surrounded by history so rich it dates back centuries.
And in many of the oddities of this semester, there’s a common theme: national and international issues arrived at our doorstep.
Most of which most college students can’t say they’ve experienced first-hand.
With presidential candidates spending the final days of their campaigns in our area, UNESCO heritage site recognition being bestowed upon local sites, UN ambassadors from war-stricken countries visiting our university and global conflicts being protested on our campus, Lehigh was a microcosm of the world at large this semester.
A trying yet simultaneously gratifying time for your larger community may make you rethink the ongoings of your personal life. Maybe that internship season stress can be pushed aside for a moment, and maybe that exam week exhaustion isn’t so bad in the grand scheme of things.
This isn’t to say your struggles and successes are insignificant, but in the face of larger community burdens and progress, they do shift. And we’d urge you to take a step back from the immediacy of your own life to see the weight of the world.
Like in most other semesters, we’ve seen both good and bad this fall. The strengths and weaknesses of our classmates, our administration, our city and the world have bared themselves in many ways, and we’ve watched as issues have both divided and united.
But through all the local, national and global matters our community has carried — no matter the harmony or lack thereof — the people of our community were drawn to action, and most often, they delivered.
So, as we close out this semester, let’s carry forward lessons of empathy, resilience and perspective, remembering to consider our broader community in addition to ourselves.
With that, no matter what 2025 brings, we think we can handle it.
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