Smith arrived at Lehigh in 2008, elated to experience college life and dismissing cautions by some upperclassmen that as a minority student she might sometimes feel unwelcome on the 146-year-old campus and on its social scene, including parties in the hilltop fraternity houses.
A few months into her freshman year, though, Smith and a group of Black friends waited in vain outside a frat house while a member waved others in. And at times she felt uneasy being the only Black face in the classroom, despite doing well in her business and German courses.
By the next winter, she was gone, joining the roughly 25 percent to 40 percent of Black and Hispanic students who start at Lehigh but don’t finish. The institution that had worked so hard to attract Smith hadn’t done such a good job of keeping her, spotlighting a problem seen at colleges nationwide.
