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Lafayette’s Technology Clinic will present its final recommendations concerning its work with Easton’s Main Street Initiative 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 14 in room 108 Van Wickle Hall.
For the past year, the Tech Clinic has been focusing its efforts on a revival of downtown Easton and improving campus and community relations. The group has worked closely with Kim Kmetz, manager of the Main Street Initiative program; Richard McAteer, vice president of the Easton Heritage Alliance board of directors; and the Easton Business Association (EBA).
“Our main goal for the project has been to help improve the general aesthetics and quality of downtown and really to make Easton a better place,” says Tech Clinic student Karen Ruggles ’08 (Easton, Pa.), an English and art double major.
The Clinic has helped initiate EBA’s All Access Pass to Easton booklets. The incentive-based program provides customers with discounts and giveaways at 66 Easton establishments. The passes have been distributed on campus through the mail and were handed out at the Homecoming football game.
EBA and the Clinic paired up again for the Easton Local Merchant’s Fair in November. Almost 200 students and 20 Easton businesses attended the event, which provided the Lafayette community with a look at the numerous services and products Easton has to offer.
A project the group is currently working on is the Artist-in-the-Window Program. Through Artist-in-the-Window, emerging artists temporarily rent vacant storefronts as studios.
The Clinic is also designing a website focusing on an entertainment calendar and real estate inventory of Easton. The website will provide an avenue for customers to search for restaurants, galleries, or shops in the Easton area, as well as allow prospective business owners with a look at available locations.
Students enrolled in the course are Tom Harju ’07 (Richardson, Tex.), a mathematics major; George Armah ’08 (Accra, Ghana), a mathematics and computer science double major; Marquis Scholar Danielle Koupf ’08 (Randolph, N.J.), an English major; Lauren Menges ’08, (Vestal, N.Y.), an English major; and Ruggles. The facilitators are Larry Malinconico, associate professor of geology and environmental geosciences, and Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology.
According to Malinconico, the clinic’s mid-project presentation in May brought many local businesses and organizations together to discuss new publicity avenues, and he hopes the final presentation will have similar results.
Bauer believes the Clinic’s work so far has set a solid groundwork for the city.
“This is the final presentation for the Tech Clinic, but it is a step along the way toward Easton’s renaissance,” he says.
Recent Technology Clinic projects have resulted in a walking DVD tour of Hugh Moore Park in Easton, plans to revive the Easton and Phillipsburg riverfront area, recommendations for improving traffic on Cattell Street, and ideas for developing the North 3rd Street corridor at the foot of College Hill in Easton. Other projects include an automobile tour on CD to boost tourism and local awareness of historical assets in Nazareth and its surrounding rural municipalities, a self-guided tour and other enhancements at Bachmann Publick House in downtown Easton, and improvements in the experiences of patients at the offices of doctors within Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group.