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
