Lehigh Launch to end after five years, closure receives backlash

Lehigh Launch, a program that sends first-years abroad during their first semester, will end after this year, according to an email sent to students who have participated in the program. 

The program was advertised on a webpage, which has since been removed, as an “experimental, integrative learning experience” for incoming students. According to the email sent to Launch alumni, “the program’s model proved difficult to sustain long-term due to its intensive structure.”

Over the past five years, the Lehigh Launch program has sent five groups of students to the American West and four groups to Latin America, with the final cohort studying abroad this fall in Chile.

The program offered a class structure focused on experiential learning, including hands-on activities such as backpacking and museum visits while studying history, according to the former Lehigh Launch website. 

Jennifer Jensen, a political science professor and program coordinator of the Lehigh Launch American West program, said the decision to end it was made by Provost Nathan Urban. 

Jensen said after seeing a low number of applicants this year, Urban told her she needed to notify students the program was ending.  

“While Lehigh Launch was no more expensive than, say, a junior year abroad, it is still a resource-intensive program, and (the administration) did not see it growing,” Jensen said. 

Cheryl Matherly, the vice provost and vice president of international affairs whose office led the Chile track, said the university is rethinking its approach to abroad programming for first-year students. 

Matherly said she’s working on ways to create opportunities similar to Lehigh Launch that offer the same level of impact without overlapping with the fall semester or requiring staff to be away from campus for an extended period of time. 

She also said she plans to form a group representing a cross-section of people from the university to review what did or didn’t work with the Launch program. 

“I think I would be very interested in making sure there was a way to capture some of the input of students who had participated in the program,” Matherly said. “They have a lot to tell us about what worked.” 

Cole McVeigh, ’28, a member of the last American West Launch group, said they weren’t surprised by the news of the program’s closure. 

McVeigh said they had the impression the program wasn’t permanent and were not surprised, particularly because of funding cuts in the current political climate. 

McVeigh also said that because of Lehigh Launch, they had access to many opportunities including a summer internship at Delaware State Park, which might not have been possible without the experience. 

They said the program offered a distinctive perspective of the West, including how people rely on the land for their livelihood and how to carefully interact with the natural environment.

McVeigh said they applied those skills during their second semester at Lehigh and at their internship, where they worked on conservation easements similar to the land trusts they lived on in the American West.

“I definitely wouldn’t have as close friends as I do,” McVeigh said. “I wouldn’t be as fearless. After Launch, I started going out more. Exposing yourself to new things and learning about other cultures and other people is really important.” 

Allie Williamson, ‘28, a member of a Chile Launch group, said she and her friends from the program are disappointed and are pushing for the experience to stay. 

She said she plans to lobby for the program by  writing emails and speeches to send to the university along with members of other Launch cohorts. 

“I feel like it’s hard,” Williamson said. “No one has been talking to us about it, even people in the cohort.” 

She said it’s surprising for a program that goes to South America to be cut because of how important it is to experience other cultures, especially when people often view the region as only one place and environment when, in reality, it’s highly diverse. 

She said the classes she took while in Chile strongly influenced the fields she’s interested in exploring. 

She also said being thrown into the culture and studies in Chile allowed her to better understand Spanish and overcome the anxiety of being in a new place. 

“In the utopia class, it really pushed me to think about education and how pretty much the problems in our society (are) boiled down to lack of education and problems in education systems,” Williamson said. 

McVeigh said they would love for the program to continue but understand if any outside pressure influenced the decision.  

“If it was the (Lehigh) administration making the decision, I would think they should reconsider and talk to more Launch people who have done it,” they said.