BERKS ST. COMMUTER LOUNGE OPENS

A new commuter lounge located at the corner of Warnock and Berks streets opened last Monday after construction started on the project in early November.

The lounge, which can house between 40 and 60 people, requires students to swipe their Owl Card to gain access. Saige Café, an indepently-run coffee shop, is still under construction next door and will be open to the public. Temple will receive rent money from the Café, which will open next month, a spokesman said.

Gaming and television spaces, a small kitchenette, general seating and storage lockers make up the interior of the lounge, which is 1,750 square feet. According to the website for Temple’s Office of Construction, Facilities and Operations, the project cost $450,000. Its hours are 8 a.m to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.

There are two HDTVs with cable service inside, as well as a third TV near the front door with SEPTA schedules listed along with other transportation updates and information.

The lounge was constructed by Temple’s Project Delivery Group and Olaya Studio, an architectural design firm based in University City.

-Steve Bohnel

TEMPLE CHIPOTLE TAKES PORK OFF MENU

The Chipotle on the western end of The View at Montgomery, is one of four in Philadelphia to stop serving pork.

Around a third of the restaurant’s establishments have pulled the topping from their menu, because of a standards violation by one of its major suppliers, The Washington Post reported.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said the supplier wasn’t adhering to the company’s standards involving animal treatment.

“This is fundamentally an animal welfare decision and it’s rooted in our unwillingness to compromise our standards where animal welfare is concerned,” Arnold told the Post.

One of the company’s missions is “serving food with integrity,” or that they use meat from animals that have not been given antibiotics or hormones. According to Chipotle’s website, the motto is more than a decade old and “one that will never end.”

-Steve Bohnel

TUH OFFERS SURGICAL IMAGING TOOL

Temple University Hospital is the first hospital in the Philadelphia region to offer a surgical imaging tool that will provide “diagnostic quality images” for use in operating rooms, the hospital announced in a press release dated Jan. 15.

Airo Mobile Intraoperative CT (computerized tomography), which is distributed by Brainlab and designed by Mobius Imaging, allows for doctors to take CT scans of their patients at more angles and positions than previous devices, because of its 107-centimeter diameter.

Airo can easily be transported throughout hospitals due to its slim design (75.5 inches tall by 90.1 inches wide), a front-facing camera, and a centrally-powered electric wheel. Dr. Michael Weaver, chair of the department of neurosurgery at Temple University’s School of Medicine, said the scanner is a great addition for Temple Hospital.

“Temple University Hospital is home to a world-class surgical team, and this new tool enhances our ability to provide our patients with top quality surgical care,” Weaver said in a university press release.

The new scanner was first installed at Duke University hospital in April of last year, after being cleared by the FDA in Sept. 2013.    

-Steve Bohnel

ADJUNCTS CRITICAL OF OBAMA PLAN

Obama’s recently proposed plan for two years of free community college could cause a problem for adjunct professors, who comprise 70 percent of all faculty members at such institutions, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Because the plan requires the federal government to pay for around three-quarters of tuition costs without an increase in money that community colleges receive per student, adjuncts fear that much of the expenses will fall on them.

“Our biggest concern about this is, is it going to be funded on the backs of adjuncts? Is it going to lead to more exploitation?” Maria Maisto, president of New Faculty Majority, an advocacy group for contingent faculty members, told the Chronicle.

The plan will be further detailed in Obama’s State of the Union address, which takes place on Tuesday night.

-Steve Bohnel

NCAA REINSTATES JOE PATERNO’S WINS

The NCAA will reinstate the 112 wins vacated by Penn State between 1998 and 2011, and the university will pay $60 million to charities serving sexually abused children in Pennsylvania as part of a new deal stemming from the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

In a statement released by the NCAA on Friday, the college athletics organization announced that it had reached an agreement with Penn State to settle a lawsuit challenging the terms of a 2012 consent decree between the two parties that was instated in the immediate aftermath of the scandal involving former Nittany Lions Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

As part of the deal, the $60 million Penn State had to pay to protect children from sexual abuse will go to charities operating within Pennsylvania, rather than nationwide, as was originally stipulated.

In addition, the reinstated wins again put the late Joe Paterno at the top of the list of winningest Division I college football coaches with 409. Paterno lost his job – which he had held since 1966 – during the hight of the scandal. He died in 2012.

The NCAA had already ended Penn State’s post-season ban and reinstated all the university’s football scholarships last year.

-John Moritz