NBC SUSPENDS BRIAN WILLIAMS

Longtime NBC anchor and reporter Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay for his actions concerning false reports about his role in a helicopter during the Iraq War in 2003, the New York Times reported.

Williams, the managing editor for “NBC Nightly News,” received the Lew Klein Excellence in the Media Award from Temple in September for his success in the field of journalism. Throughout a Q&A session with Temple students at Tomlinson Theater, Williams talked about various experiences during his career, including his time reporting in Iraq in 2003.

While students in attendance expressed approval in what Williams had accomplished in his career, Temple journalism professor Christopher Harper told the Inquirer last week that NBC was at fault for Williams’ mistake.

 “NBC has not monitored the crossover between Brian Williams as news anchor and Brian Williams as entertainer,” Harper told the Inquirer. “NBC is in the crosshairs because it has made more mistakes than CBS, ABC, or CNN.”

An investigation into Williams’ reporting is ongoing.

-Steve Bohnel

KHALILI RECEIVES NIDA GRANT

A five-year, $7.4 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will allow researchers from Temple’s School of Medicine to examine how HIV-1 and cocaine interact to cause brain impairment, according to a university press release.

The leader of the study will be Kamel Khalili, chair of the Department of Neuroscience and director of Temple’s Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center. He said he’s been interested in how HIV impacts the body since it was first discovered.

“I have been interested in the central-nervous-system impact of HIV-1 since the very first days of the disease,” Khalili said in the release. “We realized that the impact is not as simple as the virus directly infecting neuronal cells, but rather a series of highly complicated events that lead to neuronal injury and death and ultimately dysregulated brain function.”

Last July, The Temple News reported that Khalili had led and successfully achieved an effort in developing a technology that destroys the HIV-1 virus from human cells in a laboratory – the first time such an accomplishment had ever occurred.

Past research conducted in Khalili’s lab suggests that cocaine causes the virus to disrupt neuronal cell function and even kill neuronal cells. He said that although the grant was given to his team to specifically focus on damage to the central nervous system caused by HIV-1, the research could lead to more treatment options for those with neurocognitive disorders.

“This area of AIDS research is very novel, and we are just scratching the surface in terms of scientific information and knowledge,” Khalili said. “Through this grant, we hope to answer several important questions that could help in the next phase for the development of therapeutic molecules.”

-Steve Bohnel

DNC WILL COME TO CITY IN 2016

The Inquirer reported Friday that the 2016 Democratic National Convention will be hosted in Philadelphia in July of that year. The city’s bid beat contenders Brooklyn, New York and Columbus, Ohio.

Mayor Nutter said Philadelphia will be on a global stage when the convention rolls around next year.

“This was a rigorous, grueling, and appropriate process for the kind of decision the DNC had to make,” Mayor Nutter said following the announcement last Thursday. “This is a very serious matter. The world watches what happens in American politics.”

Former Gov. Ed Rendell told the Inquirer that U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, was key in helping the Democratic National Committee make its decision.

Rendell said the projected cost of the convention would be $84 million, according to Philadelphia 2016, the nonprofit organization that is coordinating funding for the event.

He added that nearly $5 million has been raised, and the organization has another $12 million in pledges.

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told the Inquirer that hosting the DNC and Pope Francis – who will visit Philadelphia in September as part of the World Meeting of Families – within a 10-month span won’t require specific security measures.

“They’re different, but crowds are crowds,” Ramsey said. “You learn every time you handle a large event, whether it’s the pope or the DNC. You get better at handling it. And we’re pretty damn good at handling these things.”

-Steve Bohnel

WASHINGTON BILL WOULD CHANGE STATUS OF ADJUNCTS

A Washington State Senate bill would accredit adjunct faculty members at colleges as public school substitute teachers, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

State Sen. Christine Rolfes, a sponsor of the bill, wrote that “there are hundreds of highly qualified part-time college instructors with degrees in math, science, English, history, and the arts who would step in and help if their qualifications were better recognized and the process streamlined.”

The bill was drafted in response to the widespread shortage of substitute teachers in the state of Washington. Rolfes and other sponsors of the bill argue that it is “absurd” for the state to require college instructors to obtain formal teacher training to qualify as public school substitutes.

Rolfes told the Chronicle that “a lot of work” still needs to be done to the bill, which is scheduled for its first Senate-committee hearing next week.

-Allan Barnes

A conference call scheduled on Feb. 10 to discuss an election for adjunct unionization was canceled after university officials “raised technical and legal objections,” said Art Hochner, president of the Temple Association of University professionals.

Adjuncts filed for authorization cards in mid-December with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board to unionize for TAUP, which represents about 1,400 full-time faculty members, not including those who instruct in the health professional buildings.

“[The university doesn’t] seem to want the adjuncts to unionize,” Hochner said. “This is simply about giving adjuncts the chance to vote. Temple doesn’t have to do anything but let them have their self-determination.”

The next step for unionization is a hearing scheduled on March 19 with the PLRB in Harrisburg where the university, adjunct and adjunct representatives can discuss differences to hopefully reach an agreement on an election date.

Until then, a rally and vigil “in support of a collective bargaining election for adjunct faculty” will be held at 11 a.m. on Feb. 23 at the corner of Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

Hochner said the event is being held to “get Temple’s attention so maybe they’ll change their mind.”

Sharon Boyle, associate vice president for Human Resources operations, could not be reached for immediate comment.

ENDOWED CHAIR NAMED FOR DIAZ

A $450,000 donation was made to Temple’s Beasley School of Law, the university announced in a press release on Thursday.

Exelon, a local energy company, gave the gift under the name of Nelson Diaz, who graduated from Temple in 1972 and is on the corporation’s board of directors.

Diaz, who also is a member of Temple’s Board of Trustees, said in an interview with The Temple News that he has raised an additional $250,000, bringing the total amount donated to $700,000. The money is being raised to help create an endowed chair in civil rights that would be named after Diaz, the release said.

The chair would also seek to help Latino students at Temple, Diaz said.

“Essentially, it’s trying to bring to bear the contributions of many in the civil rights movement, including a lot of Latinos who have contributed to that and bring professors around the country on a semester basis and also to provide some assistance and scholarships for Latino students,” he told The Temple News.

Temple trustee Daniel H. Polett will help Diaz in raising the remaining money for the chair, which would be named the “Judge Nelson A. Diaz Chair for Civil Rights,” according to the release. $550,000 is still needed in order to establish the chair.

“My life has been dedicated to making a difference,” Diaz said in the release. “I want this gift to continue in that long tradition, and I thank Exelon for being a part of that commitment.”

-Steve Bohnel and Christian Matozzo

GROWTH RATE DECREASE FOR PART-TIME INSTRUCTORS

Due to an increasing amount of full-time non-tenure track professors, the growth rate of the number of part-time instructors in universities and colleges has decreased, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

New synthesis of federal data obtained by the Chronicle shows that doctoral institutions are the only universities where growth in the number of part-time instructors has remained constant, along with an increase in full-time professors not on a tenure track.

According to the study, which spanned from 2005-13, “our largest and most prestigious universities are the ones that are most culpable in the employment trends that are upending the tenure system and spreading low-wage labor as a routine means of educating undergraduates.”

Steven J. Shulman, a professor of economics at Colorado State University at Fort Collins and research director at its Center for the Study of Academic Labor, conducted a study in response to the federal data, which stated that “the tenure system … seems likely to continue to weaken faculty and graduate student employment at U.S. colleges and universities.”

Kiernan R. Mathews, a director of the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, at Harvard University, said a change in how the government counts full-time and part-time instructors – which occurred in 2011 – might have skewed the new federal data.

But Mathews added that there has been “an interest in consolidating teaching into more full-time, non-tenure-track positions,” because it provides stability to students and faculty and increases the amount of faculty who can contribute to non-instructional duties, like those linked to public service and shared governance at institutions.

-Steve Bohnel

The Philadelphia Media Network will begin a collaboration with Temple’s Center for Public Interest Journalism in an effort to provide in-depth reporting on Philadelphia’s mayoral race this year.

Stan Wischnowski, vice president of news operations at the Inquirer, Daily News and philly.com, said in an email on Tuesday that “‘The Next Mayor’ project will provide voters with critical, timely content on mayoral candidates and the major issues facing Philadelphia.”

Wischnowski added that the project is being funded by a $350,000 grant by the Wyncote Foundation, which issues grants in many different fields, including arts & culture, education, the environment, health & human services, preservation and public media & journalism, according to its website.

Other outlets that will be involved in the project include WHYY/Newsworks, Young Involved Philly and The Committee of Seventy, Wischnowski said.

He said he hopes that “The Next Mayor” is the start of further collaborations between media outlets.

“We hope ‘The Next Mayor’ project will pave the way for other initiatives that similarly support innovative news practices, while retaining our journalistic mission and integrity,” Wischnowski said.
Steve Bohnel can be reached at steven.bohnel@temple.edu or on Twitter @Steve_Bohnel.