How I ended up interviewing President Ann Weaver Hart on the veranda of the National Constitution Center with a belly full of free champagne and Filet Mignon is the best story of my short journalistic career. It made me realize that with the right questions and a certain amount of serendipity, you can parlay a formerly context-less story into something massive in the future; and, as in my case, spend a whole night in luxury without paying a dime.
The genesis of my invitation to the Constitution Center occurred back in September when I was reporting on the new Temple advertising campaign. The creative director of the ads told me that they were aimed at a larger capital drive Temple was pursuing. Eager to frame the story in a larger context, I called my go-to man for the story, Chief Communications Officer Mark Eyerly, and asked for more info.
Upon hearing my question, Mark paused. Then he prefaced his response with the sexy caveat that always hits my journalistic erogenous zone.
“Off the record?” he asked. Lay it on me, Mark.
He said that the university was planning to announce its $350 million fundraising campaign at a gala at the Constitution Center in a few weeks but that the campaign was still in its private phase. I agreed not to print anything about it in my story, and he agreed to set me up with vice president of Institutional Advancement Stuart Sullivan for a long interview. I would be writing the story about the biggest development at Temple in the school’s recent history. And best of all, I would get to attend the gala.
Weeks later I visited Stuart’s office on Liacouras Walk – an unadvertised, mildly Gothic building whose purpose you would never know unless someone told you. Stuart, gray-haired and of towering height from my stunted perspective, came out into the waiting room and brought me into his office, where I was greeted by an equally tall and bespectacled Mark Eyerly. Seated at Stuart’s mahogany conference table in their suits, there was a strange aura of authority that surrounded them both, and I felt they could have just as easily been Washington lobbyists as university employees. Stuart gave me a comprehensive overview of what was happening – which was good, because I didn’t know a damn thing. He told me I would have plenty of chances to speak with more people at the gala on Friday, which he said was a black tie event. I would finally get to don my perpetually closeted suit, I thought. It excited me to a degree that’s probably not normal.
Friday came. The event was at 6:30. I had just finished writing my latest (and hopefully last) article on AlliedBarton at the Temple News office and decided that I would leave my things there and return later in the night to write the fundraising story. I left for my Francisville apartment and arrived at around 6:10, ready to suit up and schmooze the night away.
And, of course, I forgot my house keys.
They were in my backpack at the office. I biked my as fast as I could, grabbed my backpack, and biked back. It was 6:25 when I got back. My tar-filled lungs had practically collapsed and I was so sweaty that I had to sacrifice precious minutes to shower. Panic inevitably set in. Was I going to miss a major announcement? Was Hart offering golden quotes from her podium as I tried for the second time to correctly tie my tie? Was all the champagne gone? No time to worry. I suited up and to the Independence Visitor Center, where there would be a gathering before dinner at the Constitution Center.
It was almost 7 when I ran through the doors of the Visitor Center, ready to have missed everything of substance. Thank God, I walked into a softly lit foyer packed with stylishly dressed alumni and administrators chatting amongst themselves. As a classical guitar played in the background, men in tuxedoes introduced their wives. An official-looking nametag adorned with the Temple logo was printed for me and placed in an even more official plastic covering. Combined with my dapper suit, I blended seamlessly with the most concentrated crowd of rich people I’ve ever seen.
I walked over to the bar for a glass of water, followed by the night’s first glass of free booze. A woman standing next to me said I looked familiar and asked if I worked for the office of such and such. Wonderful, I thought. Not only has the bartender broken with tradition by not assuming that I’m 15 years old, but this woman thinks I work for Temple. No, I told her, I’m actually writing a story for The Temple News about the capital drive.
“Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” I asked.
Luckily, she was, er, socially lubricated enough to divulge everything she could about her job and take it upon herself to bring me to two high-level administrators for more info. Both times she introduced me with an enthusiasm that made me thank the stars to have found her after she had consumed a few glasses of wine.
“So-and-so, this is a young reporter who’s doing a story on fundraising and how it’s done and what we do to steward people and such and he’s looking for people to talk to, so do you think you could help him out?” she lilted.
Neither of them yielded anything crucial, but it felt good to schmooze. Soon, scores of the stylish began to file out of the Visitor Center to migrate to the Constitution Center for the main event.
The main hall of the Constitution Center is enormous, and I felt like I had walked into the grand banquet of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Small chatter reverberated through the room. I walked over to a table with seating assignments and told a woman my name. I wasn’t on the list, but the woman told me in an eager-to-keep-this-official-looking-guy-with-a-nametag-happy voice not to worry, for everything would be taken care of. I picked up a glass of wine at table in the back. The man who poured the wine asked me if I was allowed to be drinking because “you look like you’re 19.” Eh, four years older than usual. I took my wine and stood around for awhile before the woman approached me and told me that I wasn’t actually registered but that I would still be able to have dinner. “Why don’t you come over here and wait with Ray Betzner?” she offered.
My relation to Ray is interesting. Up until that point it had existed strictly over the phone and through emails that consisted of mostly boilerplate statements concerning the university’s neutrality towards AlliedBarton guards. Coincidentally, he’s also my ultimate boss at my job for the Fox School of Business PR department. Mark joined us shortly thereafter, and the chance to finally get to know them both was somewhat thrilling. I was truly pleased with the personalities that for so long had only been at the other end of the phone line. We talked about their past experiences as journalists and how they settled down in PR when both of them, as Ray said, “had a family and kids and a dog and a cat and all that.” They both praised me for not majoring in journalism.
I was offered to join them at their table. Seated next to me was a young ebullient woman who was the head of the Temple University Student Alumni Association with whom I had an ultimately unused interview. The TUSAA is basically a delegation of students who, after undergoing a lengthy interview process act as archetypes of the modern-day Temple student for alumni. Their job is to tell potential donors how wonderful Temple is today and how much they love going to school here and generally re-instill the Temple pride that has long withered for many alumni, and at some point it’s supposed to impress alumni enough to break out their checkbooks.
At some point during the dinner there was a video tribute to Howard Gittis, the late Board of Trustees member. Gittis’s name was somewhat of a buzzword among labor groups who advocate for AlliedBarton guards, as he was also on the board of directors for AlliedBarton and its holding company. I had likely had more contact with these groups than anyone in the room, and seeing a giant tributary film of him reminded me of my unique neutral position at the event. Of course, I was about three wine glasses deep when all this occurred to me – not drunk, but loose enough to suddenly urge to lean over to the TUSAA woman next to me and tell her all about it.
“You know,” I began, “I’m sort of in an interesting position here. See that guy? That guy was on the board of trustees at Temple. But I’ve been writing all these articles on this company called AlliedBarton and how these groups are saying the university doesn’t give them benefits and stuff, and a lot of these groups think that the reason Temple has been neutral for so long is ‘cause that guy, Howard Gittis, was on the board of trustees, so it’s like this conflict of interest. I mean, that’s just what they say. Ha, I don’t know, it just puts me in this sort of funny position for some reason, I’m not even sure why.”
It took her about two seconds before she offered what was really the only response one can politely offer to an incoherency that she couldn’t care less about. “Ok,” she said. Yeah, that’s cool, I thought. Dinner was served, and it was delicious.
There was a moment when I realized the gravity of all that was going on. Temple hadn’t just solicited a lot of money; they had actually strategized to form emotional bonds with old students as a means to an end. The alumni associations, the events, the polished videos of a highly desirable Temple, the reunions, the publications, the ad campaign. The entire schematic was suddenly revealed to me in an elating rush. In essence, the university was pushing a new Temple that is as a place alumni want to be. That ad campaign was specifically a branding campaign. They’re branding this school, and they’re doing it on a massive scale.
I’m not judging this, of course, and I hope that’s not the impression given. This is protocol for all great universities. Temple, however, never did it. While all the other guys blitzed ahead with their fundraising and their endowments, Temple stayed static. Now, they’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
The meal ended and Bob Sagat, emcee of the night, came on to direct us upstairs to dessert and champagne, “Where I’m sure there will be events that will end up in racy diary entries,” or something to that effect. The jazz band playing in the background as I climbed the stairs to the veranda to grab a glass of champagne. I went back inside briefly and met with Stuart Sullivan. He gave me the donation rate of the university and some other unmemorable bits of info. “The person you should really be talking to about all this is President Hart,” he said.
I became giddy. “Really? You know, I’ve always want to meet her.”
“Sure, come on.”
As we neared her, there wasn’t any big maelstrom of thought in my head, nothing I did to prepare myself. The only thing I thought was that this was the most sugary icing on top of a cake I’d been eating for three hours.
And there she was on the veranda, signature hairstyle and a dress of an unnamable color, holding a glass of champagne. Stuart introduced me. “President Hart, this is Andrew Thompson. He’s doing a story for The Temple News on the capital drive.”
The only other person I’d seen strictly by images who I had met in person before this was Ben Savage and he was an asshole. Hart wasn’t. She exuded geniality and she expressed true pleasure in meeting me. There is something about finally meeting someone who you constantly hear about that is difficult to describe – a horrible quality for an aspiring writer, I suppose.
“Oh, hi! It’s so nice to meet you,” she said, shaking my hand.
I told her that Stuart said it would be good if I spoke to her, and could she maybe answer a few questions?
“Sure, sure, of course.”
In what I soon found out to be typical Hart fashion, she actually broke with her group and led me to sit down with her at a table, just the two of us. Hearing her responses to my questions and sitting there exclusively with her, I realized exactly why the board elected Hart to be president. Every response sounded like it had been concocted by a speech writer, and she has the ability to make everyone she comes in contact with feel important. At one point in the middle of the interview, an alumnus approached her and raved about his Temple education, saying that he wishes he went to Temple right now when all this great stuff was happening.
As written in the article, she responded: “You’re part of Temple still.” Any wonder why the campaign is going more swimmingly than ever?
She never told me she had to leave. It was only when the veranda was clearing off that we got up from our seats.
After a brief interaction that need not be chronicled here, I wound down the stairs of the Constitution Center and had a few useless interviews with alumni. I officiated myself as the Temple News Swanky Event beat writer, found my bike and rode off back to my apartment.
