Selected Media Coverage: April 6, 2006

America's Best Graduate Schools
04/10/2006 - U.S. News & World Report (cir. 2,022,383)

Lucent sale concerns workers
04/05/2006 - Columbus Dispatch, The (cir. 251,045)

Tough-talking Miller's latest target Delphi
04/04/2006 - Baltimore Sun, The (cir. 320,912)

Put It on the tab
04/01/2006 - KITPLANES (cir. 80,000)

Standardized Tests
03/31/2006 - Here and Now - WBUR-FM (cir. )

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />America's Best Graduate Schools
04/10/2006 - U.S. News & World Report (cir. 2,022,383)
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Lehigh’s graduate programs in education and engineering are once again ranked among the Top 50 in the nation in the just-released U.S. News & World Report 2007 Best Graduate School rankings.
The College of Education is ranked 32nd among colleges of education, with high marks for Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) scores and research expenditures. The P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science is ranked 47th among colleges of engineering and continues to rank high in GRE scores and faculty membership in the National Academy of Engineering.
Both colleges have consistently ranked among the Top 50 schools in the U.S. for the past seven years.
Details of the rankings are available on the USNWR web site. For a complete view of the article, please click on the paperclip above.

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Lucent sale concerns workers
04/05/2006 - Columbus Dispatch, The (cir. 251,045)
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Lucent Technologies workers in Columbus could have new reason to worry after their employer’s announced sale to a French competitor.
As part of Alcatel SA’s plan to buy Lucent, about 8,800 jobs will be cut from the companies’ combined work force of 88,000 after the deal closes.
Lucent spokeswoman Mary Ward said it’s too early to say which jobs would be cut or if any of Lucent’s 1,259 workers on E. Broad Street will be affected. The cuts will be phased in over the next three years, Lucent said.
But some workers are concerned, especially after massive job cuts at Lucent in recent years, said Don Clarkson, president and business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2020.
They’re pretty worried because there’s not a lot of trust left between corporate Lucent and its employees, because of the outsourcing, Clarkson said. Local 2020’s membership has dwindled to about 250 workers because of job cuts.
In the first three years of this decade, Lucent shed 4,000 employees in Columbus, and 75 percent of Lucent’s total work force was cut.
Local 2020’s remaining members test wireless products that are then sent to customers, Clarkson said. Other Columbus employees work for Bell Labs or in purchasing, Ward said.
Probably 75 percent of the people when I started here were second- or third-generation employees, Clarkson said. My parents both retired from here. Back then, you expected to have a job for life. That’s just not true in this country anymore.
A history of strong work from the Columbus operation might save employees here, Clarkson said. On the other hand, Lucent is the smaller of the two companies that will merge, he said.
Experts said the sale to Alcatel is a part of continued telecom- industry consolidation. Companies need to merge to provide enough of a market presence, said Greg Brewster, associate dean at DePaul University’s School of Computer Science and Telecommunications.
I think this (the sale) is tremendously significant, he said. They (Lucent) came out of the old Bell system and they were the only game in town for decades and decades. But I see it as sort of a sad thing for the U.S.
Lucent’s roots date to the late 1800s, around the time Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. Bell Laboratories would later develop such things as the first commercially viable system for adding sound to motion pictures and the first long-distance TV transmission.
The sale to Alcatel makes sense geographically, said Hank Korth, chairman of computer science and engineering at Lehigh University. Korth started working for AT &T in 1995, not long before the company spun off Lucent in 1996.
For a bunch of historical reasons, Alcatel has not had success in the North American market, and Lucent has, Korth said. One of the biggest reasons was being part of the old AT&T. Lucent has maintained closer relationships with regional Bell operating companies, like Bell Atlantic and Ameritech.
Bell Atlantic merged with GTE to form Verizon, one of Lucent’s key customers.
Lucent retirees have threatened to ask the U.S. government to block the merger unless the combined entity guarantees pensions and benefits. Ward said the pension fund is fully funded and that the company would continue to find ways to manage rising health-care costs.
The pension plans cover 20,00 workers and 120,000 retirees, including Larry Buynak, 75, of Gahanna. Buynak worked for 35 years at the AT &T division that would become Lucent.
What we’re concerned about is we’re talking about different cultures, Buynak said.
The general feeling is that Lucent started out reaching way back to Alexander Graham Bell, and it’s always been an American company. There’s a great deal of anxiety out there.

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Tough-talking Miller's latest target Delphi
04/04/2006 - Baltimore Sun, The (cir. 320,912)
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Tough-talking Miller's latest target Delphi As CEO, he asks bankruptcy judge to void labor unions threaten to strike By Kurt Blumenau Originally published April 4, 2006 Robert S. Miller is no stranger to unpopular decisions. As the last chief executive officer of Bethlehem Steel Corp., Miller moved in 2003 to cut off health care insurance to about 95,000 retirees and their dependents, saying the company could no longer afford billions of dollars in costs. Also, the federal government took over the company's underfunded pension plan, leading to pension cuts for some workers who had retired early. Now Miller is taking a tough stand as CEO of Delphi Corp., the auto parts maker, which asked a federal bankruptcy judge Friday to void its union contracts.
The bankrupt company claims high costs of wages and benefits prevent it from competing. Miller's moves in Bethlehem, Pa., were partially successful at best. Bethlehem Steel's mill at Sparrows Point in Baltimore County and another in Indiana stayed open, but the company lost its independence, selling out to International Steel Group. And blue-collar retirees continue to struggle with health care costs. Friday's announcement could have even bigger stakes Delphi's unions have threatened to strike, which could not only cripple Delphi but drag General Motors Corp., its largest customer, toward bankruptcy.
I think we're looking at high-risk gambling at this point, said Mary Deily, an associate professor of economics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, who studies industries going through shakeouts. It's really not a good situation. Miller was not available for comment. In a written statement, he defended his latest requests as tough medicine for a troubled company - the same justification he used for his moves at Bethlehem Steel.
Emergence from the Chapter 11 process in the U.S. requires that we make difficult, but necessary, decisions, he said in the statement. We are mindful of the impact this plan will have on some of our stakeholders, including our employees and communities, he added. Yet ultimately, these actions will result in a stronger company with future global growth opportunities. Delphi's unions, including the powerful United Auto Workers, are not buying in. Union leaders accused Miller of abusing the bankruptcy process to escape the company's commitments to its workers. Yesterday, about 50 people protested outside the building in which Miller spoke to the Detroit Economic Club.
They carried signs and chanted slogans like Steve Miller/Dream killer and Not one dollar, not one dime/Cutting wages is a crime. It's a sad day for the Delphi workers that our plants are being closed, said Jonell Sayles, 53, who has worked at a Delphi plant in Flint for 30 years. We're out here today to send a message to the world and our co-workers that somebody is trying to make a difference. Friday's announcement could sow the seeds of an acrimonious break with those unions, if Bethlehem Steel is any precedent.
Jerry Green, president of Bethlehem's Local 2599 of the United Steelworkers of America, said the cuts made by Miller remain a bitter pill to retirees stripped of their benefits. He accomplished nothing - him and the rest of his cohorts, Green said. In an interview last year, Miller said he was proud to have kept the plants open, but regretted not being able to do more for retirees. When I left town, I had very mixed emotions, he said. Another turnaround job proved more successful for Miller.
He helped arrange the federal bailout in 1979-80 that saved Chrysler Corp., now DaimlerChrysler. The next few months will tell whether Miller's bid to rescue Delphi fares as well. U.S. Judge Robert Drain has scheduled a hearing on Delphi's request next month and will decide after that whether to void the labor contracts. Miller's request is not unprecedented, Lehigh's Deily said.
Financially struggling Delta Air Lines and Northwest Air Lines both raised the idea of voiding pilots' union contracts last year. I don't think it's a good sign, Deily added. It means they couldn't somehow agree to do something in a negotiated way. Kurt Blumenau writes for The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call. The Associated Press contributed to this article. Copyright 2006

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con_paperclip.gif alt= />Put It on the tab
04/01/2006 - KITPLANES (cir. 80,000)
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Joachim Grenestedt, associate professor, mechanical engineering and mechanics, was quoted in an article for Kitplanes magazine. For a complete view of the article, please click on the paperclip above.

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Standardized Tests
03/31/2006 - Here and Now - WBUR-FM (cir. )
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Here & Now
Standardized testing
A look at efforts to ensure that students are getting an academic bang for their buck.
Dr. Carl Moses, deputy provost for academic affairs at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania
Moses discussed standardized testing at the collegiate level, and how a few universities like Lehigh are currently piloting testing programs. According to Moses, the goal for such tests is to help institutions assess their students' academic progress. However, the Collegiate Learning Assessment pilots may not be completely effective as they solely measure critical thought; the program is a break from more traditional tests that are multiple choice and depend on direct response questioning. The federal government, led by the US Department of Education, are advocating assessment testing, but are letting individual schools determine how they're prepared and implemented. Inevitably, such testing may allow schools to chart progress on a quantitative scale, but because there are different No Child Left Behind standards for different schools, there are a variety of assessments being piloted. He added that in the end, with some tinkering, colleges will have a protocol in place, although it is highly doubtful it will be ready by the fall.