ALUMNUS ROBBED SATURDAY NIGHT ON FRENCH STREET

A Temple alumnus was robbed at gunpoint around 9:45 p.m. Saturday on the 1700 block of French Street, police said.

Two males approached the victim and displayed a handgun, Charlie Leone, executive director of Campus Safety Services said in an email. The suspects took a wallet, keys and a cell phone.

One suspect was described as an 18-year-old male of medium height and build, wearing a gray hoodie with a dark coat and holding a handgun. The other suspect was described as an 18-year-old male of medium height and build, wearing dark clothes.

No injuries were reported.

The victim did not wish to pursue the incident further, Leone said.

-Lian Parsons

PLRB TO HOLD HEARING WITH ADJUNCTS, ADMINISTRATORS

The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing in Harrisburg March 19 to decide whether or not an election can be held for Temple’s adjunct professors to join a union.

The Temple Adjunct Organizing Committee has said it wants an election to decide whether adjuncts can join the Temple Association of University Professionals, the union for full-time faculty. Several adjunct professors had sent signed cards to the labor board to show that at least 30 percent of the group wants to unionize.

The hearing will include Temple administrators and outside legal counsel for Temple, as well as adjuncts and PLRB officials.

-Joe Brandt

GRADUATE SCHOOLS CLIMB U.S NEWS & WORLD REPORT RANKS

Programs at four of the university’s schools and colleges – the Fox School of Business, Beasley School of Law, College of Education and College of Engineering – jumped in the 2016 U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Grad Schools” rankings.

The business and law schools both reached all-time highs in the rankings, with Fox’s full-time MBA program – the Global MBA – rising seven spots to No. 41, and the Beasley School of Law climbing nine spots to No. 52.

“These rankings reaffirm what our faculty and students know to be true – indeed, what they have worked together to create,” President Theobald said in a press release. “Temple is a red-hot institution that provides education of the highest quality and fosters world-class research.”

Fox’s new ranking makes it the only business school located in the Greater Philadelphia Region, other than the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, to place in the Top 50 of U.S. News’ rankings. Similarly, Temple Law joined the University of Pennsylvania’s Law School as the only law schools from Pennsylvania to earn a spot in the Top 70.

The top-ranked business school in the nation is the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, which tied with Harvard Business School and Wharton for the first spot last year. The leading law school is the Law School at Yale University, staying in the same position as the 2015 rankings.

-Steve Bohnel

CASELOAD DASHBOARDS TO BE LAUNCHED IN PA

Last Thursday, Pennsylvania’s judiciary launched criminal caseload “dashboards,” allowing the public, court staff and researchers to use “web-based data visuals” to examine criminal-case data across the state, according to an Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts press release.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin said the new dashboards will make statewide criminal-case information more effective.

“Dashboards have proven to be valuable resources that continue to help judges and court staffs make informed decisions about court operations,” Eakin said in the release.  “They also make it possible for Pennsylvanians to see the important work being done by the judiciary, and provides this data to the public in an accessible format.”

The three caseload dashboards – Statewide, County and Case Type – combine data from the general civil and criminal trial courts of Pennsylvania, Courts of Common Pleas, and Philadelphia Municipal Court.

The dashboard also includes data from civil cases, Protection from Abuse cases, child dependency and financial information, the last of which includes court distributions and court collection rates.

All of the preceding information can be found at pacourts.us on the “Interactive Data Dashboards” page through the “Research and Statistics” tab.

-Steve Bohnel