Monthly Archives: April 2016

Longtime employee named BOT secretary

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A longtime university employee was appointed vice president and secretary to the Board of Trustees last week.

Anne Nadol has been a Temple employee since 2000 and a member of the executive office of the president for 15 years, according to a university press release.

According to the release, Michael Gebhardt, who was university counsel and secretary to the board, will remain university counsel.

“It’s a big job, but I’m looking forward to it,” Nadol said. “I know most of the trustees pretty well, so that relationship already exists.”

The BOT separated the positions of university counsel and secretary of the board because “it is a more common structure that universities use,” said Brandon Lausch, a university spokesman in an email.

“The prior arrangement was a historical holdover,” Lausch added. “The new structure is now in line with best practices in higher education.”

Former university counsel and secretary to the board George Moore consolidated the two positions 25 years ago, Nadol said.

“Both jobs are pretty big jobs to begin with. … [They were] two separate positions that happened to be held by one person,” she added. “It will help us streamline and funnel information to the board in a way that will be simpler.”

Responsibilities of the secretary of the board include overseeing the operations of the board and its committees and keeping the board informed about the university.

Ray Betzner, another university spokesman, said Nadol “knows this place really, really well.”

“Keeping the board informed and making sure their questions are answered are a big job,” he said. “Her long experience with how the university operates and the trustees will be helpful on both sides.”

Lian Parsons can be reached at lian.parsons@temple.edu or on Twitter @Lian_Parsons.

Last finalist revealed in CLA dean search

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Jeff Manza, a sociology professor and former chair of the sociology department at New York University, is the last finalist to visit Main Campus in the university’s search for a new dean for the College of Liberal Arts, according to information on TUportal.

Manza—who has previously taught at Penn State and Northwestern University—studies and teaches classes based on inequality, public policy and political sociology. At Northwestern, he had served as the university’s associate director and acting director of the Institute for Policy Research.

According to TUportal, Manza is scheduled to meet with students, faculty and staff on May 2.

Steve Bohnel can be reached at steve.bohnel@temple.edu or on Twitter @Steve_Bohnel.

Third finalist identified in CLA dean search

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Richard Deeg, a political science professor and senior associate dean for Faculty and Research at Temple, is one of the four finalists in the university’s search for CLA dean, according to information on TUportal.

Deeg, who previously served as chair of the political science department from 2010-15, currently oversees faculty affairs, research promotion and strategic budget management. His primary area of research focuses on the German and European political economy.

According to TUportal, his meetings with students, faculty and staff are scheduled for April 27 and 28.

Steve Bohnel can be reached at steve.bohnel@temple.edu or on Twitter @Steve_Bohnel.

News in brief: 4.19 Issue

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POLICE ARREST TWO FOR AGGRAVATED ASSAULT

Two Temple Police officers were assaulted in two separate incidents April 9 on the 1600 and 1700 blocks of French Street, according to university crime logs.

The first incident occurred at 12:05 a.m. outside 1601 French St. when police tried to separate two men engaging in an argument, said Charlie Leone, executive director of Campus Safety Services.

20-year-old Wallic Maull punched Officer Elijah Lewis in the face once the argument was broken up, Leone said. Maull was immediately arrested and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another and disorderly conduct, according to court records.

Almost two hours later, Leone said Temple Police responded to what “started out as a domestic” incident.

He said a 17-year-old girl threw a brick through the windshield of her ex-boyfriend’s car. When police placed her in a patrol car, she attempted to kick out its windows, he added. Officer William Egan attempted to subdue the girl, and she spit in his face, Leone said.

Leone explained that the incident was reported as an aggravated assault because bodily fluid is considered dangerous.

Neither suspect was Temple-related or had alcohol or other illegal substances, Leone said.

-Julie Christie

POSSIBLE ROBBERY AT WILLIAM PENN HIGH SCHOOL

Thirty-year-old Zachary Ducko will face a preliminary hearing today after Temple Police arrested him for stealing $10,000 worth of copper from William Penn High School over winter break, according to Temple Police.

Ducko and another suspect, Robert Lewandowski, allegedly broke into the school by cutting a hole in a fence and then accessing the high school through the lower level ramp, said Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone.

Leone said Detective Chad Harvey eventually “cracked the case” after reviewing security footage from a nearby charter school.

The video showed that two men entered the school around 2:30 a.m. on Christmas Day with their pickup truck parked alongside the building, Leone said. He added they spent about two hours inside the school removing copper.

Leone said the two men returned a week later but were stopped by Philadelphia Police for loitering.

“Detective Harvey spent hours viewing video from the charter school and working with their computer services folks pulling together the stills,” Leone said.

Philadelphia Police arrested Ducko April 5 at 12:35 a.m. before transporting him to Philadelphia Police’s 9th District Headquarters, Leone said. According to court records, Ducko was charged with burglary, criminal trespassing, conspiracy, criminal mischief, theft and receiving stolen property.

Leone said Lewandowski is still wanted.

-Julie Christie

RESTAURANT NEAR MAIN CAMPUS BRIEFLY CLOSED 

The Philadelphia Department of Health temporarily shut down the Wendy’s restaurant at 1708 N. Broad St. near the Liacouras Center after an inspection on April 13.

According to a report filed by Office of Food Protection Inspector Tanisha Robinson, the restaurant had three new and two repeat violations.

Robinson cited the restaurant for first-time violations of not being knowledgeable of Pennsylvania Food Code and having employees with “persistent sneezing, coughing, and/or [a] runny nose” as a result of excessive smoke in the preparation area due to poor ventilation.

The report said repeat violations included the women’s restroom trash can missing a lid for sanitary napkin disposal and broken ceiling tiles in the storage room.

“Due to conditions observed during the inspection … the establishment has agreed to discontinue food operations and voluntarily close until it is approved by the Department [of Public Health] to resume operations,” the report summary stated.

-Julie Christie

MAYOR JOINS NATIONWIDE EFFORT FOR LGBT RIGHTS

Mayor Jim Kenney joined 10 other mayors across the country on Saturday in a pledge against any places that pass anti-LGBT laws.

The pledge, titled Mayors Against Discrimination, is an agreement among the 10 mayors that they will not do business with North Carolina or Mississippi and will not allow public funds to be used for travel expenses to those states, CBS3 reported.

Kenney told CBS the steps these mayors in the pledge are similar to those that brought down apartheid in the 1990s.

The actual impact of the pledge on Philadelphia’s travel is unclear.

-Gillian McGoldrick

CITY EARNS $3.5 MILLION TO LOWER PRISONER COUNT

Philadelphia has received a $3.5 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to help fund a plan to cut the city’s prison population by more than 30 percent during the next three years, the Inquirer reported.

The foundation picked Philadelphia from a pool of 191 applicants. The grant will be used in a variety of ways to try to keep nonviolent offenders out of the prison system, move those already incarcerated out of prison more quickly, and use more alternative headquarters, the Inquirer reported.

There are more than 7,000 people in the Philadelphia Prison System, according to city statistics.

The project costs $6.1 million—$2.1 million of which will be paid by the city, and $500,000 through private sources, the Inquirer reported.

-Steve Bohnel

ALUMNUS WINS PULTIZER 

An alumnus from the School of Media and Communication won his second Pulitzer Prize yesterday.

Joby Warrick, who graduated with a journalism degree in 1982, won a Pulitzer in General Nonfiction for his novel “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS.” He visited SMC March 14 to discuss the novel.

“Black Flags” is “a deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State,” according to the Pulitzer Prizes’ official website.

Warrick, a reporter for the Washington Post since 1996, previously won a Pulitzer for Public Service with two colleagues that same year for exploring hog waste pollution in North Carolina.

-Steve Bohnel

University selects candidates for CLA dean

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Temple has selected two candidates in its search for a new dean for the College of Liberal Arts.

Sue Roberts, professor of geography at Kentucky University, and Eric Arnesen, professor of modern american labor history, are listed on TUportal as two of four candidates that could replace former CLA dean Teresa Soufas, who resigned in January 2015 due to health issues.

Roberts has been a faculty member at Kentucky since 1991, and received her Ph.D and master’s degree in geography from Syracuse University in 1992 and 1986, respectively. Arnesen has taught at George Washington since 2009, and earned a Ph.D in history from Yale University in 1986.

Both candidates will attend scheduled meetings with students and CLA faculty members next week, according to information on TUportal. Neither could immediately be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

The other two candidates, who have not been selected yet, are scheduled to visit Main Campus in late April and early May.

Steve Bohnel can be reached at steve.bohnel@temple.edu or on Twitter @Steve_Bohnel.

Shooting reported near Duckrey Tanner School

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Temple Police are investigating a shooting that occurred northwest of Main Campus earlier today.

Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said a 36-year-old man was shot seven times on 16th Street near Susquehanna Avenue and is listed in critical condition at Temple University Hospital.

The man was shot two times in each calf, once in the thigh and twice in the buttocks.

Police sent out a TU Alert around 5:40 p.m. warning students to avoid the area of the shooting.

Leone said the victim was “not cooperating with the investigation.”

Julie Christie can be reached at julie.christie@temple.edu or on Twitter @ChristieJules.

News in brief: 4.12 Issue

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ALUMNUS DONATES $2 MILLION FOR NEW CHAIR

Last Wednesday, the School of Media and Communication celebrated the creation of the Steve Charles Chair in Media, Cities and Solutions.

The chair was formed by SMC alumnus, Steve Charles, who donated $2 million, the largest one-time donation in the school’s history.

The chair’s purpose is to support and study solutions-based journalism and media. It is designed to make a positive difference in urban neighborhoods like North Philadelphia.

SMC Dean David Boardman said the chair will provide a new innovative approach and will help Temple strengthen its relationship with Philadelphia.

He added media usually focuses on the negative too much and this chair could have a profound impact to improve the surrounding communities.

David Bornstein, a New York Times columnist and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, said journalists should seek out the success of this kind of journalism by shifting their attention to providing resources and solutions in their stories.

Charles—who graduated from Temple in 1980 with an advertising degree—later founded immixGroup, a firm helping technology business work with the federal government.

He also established a scholarship fund in 2011 for SMC students who graduate from a school in an urban environment.

-Tom Ignudo

ARCHITECTS DISCUSS DETAILS OF $190 MILLION LIBRARY

Temple and Snøhetta architects met April 6 at the Temple Performing Arts Center for a panel discussion of the university’s new library, Curbed Philadelphia reported.

Selected panelists, moderated by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron, discussed the purpose of the building’s architecture and the evolution of the plans for the library.

Craig Dykers, founding partner and architect at Snøhetta said the library will attempt to encourage people to take the stairs rather than elevators with its open and “voyeuristic” design.

Dykers also spoke about the use of a“Book Bot,” an automated retrieval system that will store 90 percent of the 2 million books Temple owns. He said the bot will create 35 percent more open space in the library.

Peter Conn, executive director of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, said the system would segregate people from the books, the “core material of the library.”

University Architect Margaret Carney said the original plans for the library placed it west of Broad Street, however President Theobald’s ideas for the library moved it to the center of Main Campus.

The location of the library within the campus will hopefully draw community members onto the campus to use it, said Anne Fadullon, director of planning and development for the city.

-Julie Christie

ATHLETIC DIRECTOR JOINS LOCAL ’40 UNDER 40′ LIST

The Philadelphia Business Journal recognized Temple’s Athletic Director, Pat Kraft, in its 2016 “40 Under 40 list,” which features young business leaders.

The Journal also recognized six other Temple alumni.

Kraft said he was honored to be on the list and Temple’s athletics would not have had the success it had without the help from President Theobald and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Clark.

In Kraft’s first year as Temple’s AD, the football team got off to its best start in school history.

The Owls started out 7-0, were nationally ranked for the first time since 1979 and earned bowl eligibility for the fifth time in the past seven years.

Temple’s men’s basketball team also won the American Athletic Conference regular season in 2015-16.

The men’s appeared in the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time in nine years, while women’s basketball team played in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament for the second straight season.

-Tom Ignudo

UNIVERSITY DOCTOR CHOSEN TO LEAD NATION COLLEGE

Dr. Darilyn Moyer has been named president-elect of the American College of Physicians, according to a Temple Health press release. Moyer is a professor of medicine, executive vice chair for education in the Department of Medicine, internal medicine residency program director and assistant dean for graduate medical education at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine.

Moyer’s term will begin during the ACP’s Internal Medicine Meeting, the annual scientific meeting held in Washington, D.C. in May.

Moyer’s background includes serving on ACP’s Board of Regents, which is the main policy-making body of the organization. She has been an ACP fellow since 1995 and has also served as the Chair of the Board of Governors, according to the release.

-Lian Parsons

CITY EMPLOYEE SALARY DATA RELEASED LAST WEEK

Last week, Philadelphia released a dataset with salary and overtime pay information for all city employees.

Technical.ly Philly reported that Mayor Jim Kenney has supported making salary information public.

“There’s no reason why [city employee] salary information shouldn’t be available,” he told Technical.ly Philly in January.

City spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said the new dataset means journalists will not have to fulfill right-to-know requests concerning employee salaries, which was a common request.

Chief Data Officer Tim Wisniewski had been working with his department and the city’s Finance Department to make the data public.

“It’s not an easy dataset,” he told Technical.ly Philly. “These are real people. These are real departments. These are real concerns.”

He also wanted to make sure city employees and departments knew the data was going to be publicly released.

“We didn’t have to get buy in from each department, but we didn’t want them finding out from the press release,” he told Techincal.ly Philly.

-Steve Bohnel

Police car misused in Center City

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Temple Police are investigating the misuse of a police vehicle this afternoon in Center City at 23rd and Market streets.

Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said a person had picked up the unmarked Ford Explorer for its routine maintenance at Preferred Auto and had used the emergency lights inappropriately on the way to Center City, 

Media outlets had initially reported the car was stolen, but later indicated that the car was taken by a driving service that never notified the university.

“The Philadelphia Police believed the vehicle to be stolen, since the driver was not in police uniform,” Leone said.

He added the driver could face vehicle code violations because he or she was not authorized to use emergency lighting in the vehicle.

“It’s hard to say why they would use the lights, but certainly nothing official,” Leone said.

Julie Christie can be reached at julie.christie@temple.edu or on Twitter @ChristieJules.

News in brief: 4.5 Issue

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SEXUAL ASSAULT REPORTED IN PEABODY HALL 

Temple Police banned the guest of a student from campus after they received a report of a sexual assault March 24 in Peabody Hall.

An 18-year-old female student was assaulted by a 22-year-old male on Feb. 13, according to Temple Police. The man, who was identified, is not associated with Temple.

Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said the man touched the student inappropriately and then attempted to continue sexual contact, but failed. He added the student does not want further involvement from Temple Police.

-Julie Christie

REC CENTERS WILL RECEIVE CITY FUNDING THIS SUMMER 

The 8th and Diamond, Amos, Penrose and MLK recreation centers are still waiting on funding from Mayor Jim Kenney’s $600 million proposal for parks, recreation centers and public libraries.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Kenney, said in an email that money from the proposal will be part of the 2017 fiscal year, which begins this July.

The Penrose Recreation Center on 12th Street and West Susquehanna Avenue had its monthly event meeting on March 23 to talk about fundraising and highlight community involvement.

Judy Newton, a 20-year-old community member at the meeting, said city funding would bring additional volunteers and structure to Penrose and other centers’ activities.

“More people would come in without the [recreation center] problems,” she said. “We don’t have enough resources or enough hands, and doing more for the kids will bring more of the community out.”    

Jeff Murray, a volunteer at the MLK Recreation Center, is behind Kenney’s proposal. He agreed that Philadelphia’s public spaces need to be updated.

He added, however, he is confident the funding will arrive later this year.

“We have organizations and discussion groups that have sat down with [Kenney] and I know that’s one of his main goals. It’s to improve the city,” he said.

-Dominic Barone

UNIVERSITY FORMS TEXTILE RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP 

Temple was selected by the U.S. Department of Defense to be a partner in a $75 million national research institute dedicated to U.S. textile manufacturing uses.

Temple Now reported the partnership was established with the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America, a resource center for industry and government agencies for the development of new fabrics, fibers and materials.

The insititute is comprised of 31 academic institutions and 16 industry partners, like Nike and Microsoft. Twenty-six startup incubators and venture capital groups have also committed support to the cause.

The research includes prototyping new materials for new uses spanning from everyday consumer products to protective armor as well as healthcare and architecture.   

Many Temple faculty members will participate in this research effort.

-Dominic Barone

TU FLIGHT ADDITION OF NIGHT TIME VAN 

Flight, the newest shuttle service for Temple, is adding a temporary vehicle in response to an increase in demand.

“It’s experiencing almost double the demand,” said Student Body President Ryan Rinaldi. “That’s why we added the van temporarily until a permanent fix is made next semester.”

The vehicle is called the Temple Express, and it picks up at the Tech Center every half-an-hour from 6:30 p.m. to midnight. It debuted yesterday and will run through the end of the semester. 

Rinaldi said Flight provides an average of 3,900 rides during a full week, or about 550 rides per day. He expects those numbers to rise during finals week.

-Dominic Barone

SEN. SANDERS TO HOLD RALLY AT LIACOURAS CENTER 

Sen. Bernie Sanders is holding a rally at the Liacouras Center tomorrow. The event is free to attend, but admission is on a first-come-first-serve basis. Doors open at 5 p.m. and attendees are encouraged to sign up at go.berniesanders.com.

-Lian Parsons

JUDGE POSTPONES COSBY CASE IN CALIFORNIA 

A California judge postponed Bill Cosby’s deposition in a lawsuit indefinitely as a result of the comedian’s ongoing criminal case in Montgomery County.

Judge Craig Kaplan said the deposition would violate Cosby’s right to not incriminate himself, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit in California comes from Judy Huth, who accuses Cosby of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 years old at the Playboy Mansion in 1974.

Former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Dmitry Gorin told Reuters the delay in California could lead to similar situations in other lawsuits taking place around the country, including one in Massachusetts, where eight women are suing Cosby for slander.

The delay in Cosby’s California deposition will not stop the depositions from other witnesses, including Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine.

-Julie Christie