Penn

[Mountain Hawk]

Gents, it’s a tear down.

Sterrett too. Thanks for everything Joe but the entire positioning of Lehigh and Patriot League athletics need to be evaluated.

[lu90]

Gents, it’s a tear down.

Sterrett too. Thanks for everything Joe but the entire positioning of Lehigh and Patriot League athletics need to be evaluated.

The only problem is the guy with the bulldozer keys created this problem. Add in, do you think the new Presidents 1st move is to remove a long standing AD? While absolutely warranted on both cases, doubt an in-season will be made. After the season, most likely...I think. Removing Brisson now may be Gilmore's last gasp attempt to keep his job. I mean how does anyone justify keeping this going at this level of futility?

[LUFAN]

Gents, it’s a tear down.

Sterrett too. Thanks for everything Joe but the entire positioning of Lehigh and Patriot League athletics need to be evaluated.

The only problem is the guy with the bulldozer keys created this problem. Add in, do you think the new Presidents 1st move is to remove a long standing AD? While absolutely warranted on both cases, doubt an in-season will be made. After the season, most likely...I think. Removing Brisson now may be Gilmore's last gasp attempt to keep his job. I mean how does anyone justify keeping this going at this level of futility?

+1

[IPSY1975]

Yes LUFAN ..the first yardstick we can measure new Pres H is the changes he makes between now and January 1st..namely a new LU Commitment to Excellence for all Colleges and Departments

And Let Joe Sterret take his 33 year old bulldozer with him straight into Retirement. Maybe he will help T Gillmore find a job in construction after he is booted along his crap assistants. Personally I am not interested if TG gets rid of Brisson ..he would only replace him with some other loser no doubt

[HFO]

It is my experience that if you are going to be world class competitive, leadership has to make the decisions necessary for change in organizational culture. People are reassigned or they are asked to take retirement. Then new vision is implements. If LEHIGH truly wants to be a QS Top 300 university, it has to be world class in academics, research dollars, research output, university experience, which in USA includes nationally competitive teams.

1. AD is long in the tooth. The scope of the role has surpassed his capabilities. Gonzaga was once a sleepy little Jesuit university in nowheresville western Washington.

2. College of Health is on life support. Allocated $150 million of university assets toward a building and initial hiring of faculty. Less than 1% of freshmen are choosing it as a major. Of the 5178 undergrads at Lehigh, only 1% are in College of Health, so that works out to 52 students and the major is now 2 years old, so attracting less than 30 students per year. That's a lot of dollars $$$$ of fixed costs over a very small population of students. A total boondogle of a Board of Trustee decision and previous President who was as clueless as they come. A complete disaster at his time at UVA where he was essentially driven out of the university. Lehigh board was stupid enough to have him come in and poison the university with his poor management and dumb ideas of a College of Health.

Nearly everything in College of Health could have been courses offered in mathematics department, systems engineering, biology, chemistry, economics, business or political science departments. Absolutely no need for a College of Health.

Board of Trustees needs a cleaning of house. Less parents and non-affiliated Lehigh people, and more Lehigh successes in business world, more CEO of major PA/NJ/NY publicly traded corporations and Lehigh grads who can actually lend critical decision making skills to a world class organization.

Lehigh is at a cross-roads where it has to decide if it wants to be like a Carnegie-Mellon or a Brown. The future in academia is not in residential undergraduate education, but in research dollars and graduate education. So put me down for being more like a Carnegie-Mellon.

MITx offers 1/3 of its courses now for MS-Finance on EdX for $450 per course. 50,000 students globally signed up. If you make it through 5, you can then apply to come to campus to complete your full degree in 9 months. Thus saving a full semester of tuition. This is the stuff of the future.

Lehigh as an institution has to wake up to the realities of the world of global higher education. I go into any field and look at Top 100 citations by authors by university and LEHIGH is essentially non-existent. So it begs to questions, what are Board, Presidents, and Faculty been doing for past 20 years other than resting on the laurels of an institution which built its reputation from 1865-1995. Other than more applicants for a limited number of so called "ELITE" private universities, I have not seen too much great output from Lehigh by any of these Presidents and Faculty over the past 25 years. It's been highly questionable how Trustees and Presidents have operated Lehigh since Likins left for University of Arizona.

So yes, this new President better bring back into Lehigh a level of hyper competitiveness and even the tradition of the past that "D" and "F" grades are actually given out. "C" grades used to be the norm at Lehigh unless you were exceptional by more than 1-2 standard deviations over your classmate.

So Sterrett resignation should be effective academic year end July 2022. Let Gilmore's contract run its course giving him ample notice that he will not be renewed. Givens him time to find a new role someplace else as well save Lehigh from early severance clause money.

School of Health needs to be closed down in 2025. Let that run its course for accepted students in major to graduate. Stop accepting applicants for the major this year immediately. The faculty and courses can be absorbed into the other colleges.

[CHIP72]

I didn't read the entire thread, and I did not see the Lehigh/Penn game yesterday*, but it's time for Tom Gilmore to be relieved of his duties, or at least be let go after this travesty of a 2021 season is over. Yes, Gilmore was at a disadvantage recruiting-wise because of his predecessor Andy Coen's medical issues the last 1-2 years of Coen's tenure. Yes, COVID-19 made recruiting tougher, though that's true for all schools, particularly in the Patriot League. But if Gilmore was getting the job done, the Mountain Hawks would be competitive in many of their games, even if they were struggling for wins due to a lack of talent. Lehigh is a lot worse than that; they are historically bad relative to the program's history and maybe even DI-AA/FCS over the last 10 years. Whoever heard of a team that has gone its first six games of the season scoring ZERO touchdowns and averaging 1.5 points per game? The Mountain Hawks' performance this year should be considered an embarrassment for everyone associated with the Lehigh athletic program and Lehigh University's administration as a whole.

*This weekend I was planning since before the season started to attend either Kutztown/Bloomsburg in D2 or Lehigh/Penn, with a personal preference towards the former because I had never attended a game at Bloomsburg and had been wanting to get there for a few years. However, one of my brothers said he might prefer to go to Lehigh/Penn so he could see a game at Franklin Field for the first time. My two brothers and I ultimately decided on Saturday morning to go to KU/BU, in part because of Lehigh's historically inept offense.

[CHIP72]

When is the last time Sterrett fired a coach in any sport for performance? Has he ever done it? I don't follow all the Olympic sports, but the last coaching change for wins and losses that comes to mind is Sal Mentesana 20 years ago. And he had about 4 years of having among the worst teams in the country.

That's probably the best indication of whether or not a move is likely.

You know things are really bad when a coach is being mentioned in the same sentence as Sal Mentesana unless it is in the context of "he's a lot better than Sal Mentesana".

[CHIP72]

If LU doesn't (score a TD or) win a game all year, does it get the first pick in the lottery or an extra scholarship next year?

Or, it would be cool to see some promotion/relegation in American football.

28-17, Penn ...

Be careful, Muhlenberg could probably knock off Lehigh if the Mountain Hawks were relegated to D3 and moved to the Centennial Conference.

[LUopa]

I was at the game yesterday. I saw TG interacting with a players in a much more positive matter than in previous years. The defense played really well until last 5 mins of game when they dealt with so many 3 and outs by offense. I believe our talent was just as good as theirs. Saw new young guys on oline getting a look. I just can see a change of coaching staff until after season when everything gets evaluated including the players.

[LUEngineer]

If I were Sterrett, I would force Brisson out as OC now this week & let Gilmore finish this season & see what kind of recruiting class he brings in.

Does anyone know when Gilmore contract expires?

No one on this board has been able to give an assessment of the last 2 recruiting classes. Has Gilmore brought in quality kids or not? Do we have any all-state kids other than Garcia who was a transfer in the past 2 years?