OPINION Dueling thoughts on whether texting fine-tunes or hinders students’ academic writing.
temple-news.com VOL. 91 ISS. 4
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2012
LION’S DEN, p. 20
The football team travels to State College, Pa., this weekend to take on Penn State.
TUBE TRAVEL, p. 17
Columnist Amelia Brust compares underground travel in London with that of Philadelphia.
RIVER PLUNGE, p. 9
Red Bull’s Flugtag Philadelphia allowed makeshift vehicles to dive into the Delaware River.
Year-long bout for Frazier’s gym continues Architecture professor and students push forward with their effort to preserve Joe Frazier’s historic gym, located on North Broad Street.
A
Wingert-Playdon soon became chair of the architecture department. So when Playdon, while djunct professor driving to Main Campus in AuDennis Playdon gust 2011, saw a “For Sale” sign said he’s been on the façade of Frazier’s old studying the gym on North Broad Street, preservation of arhe decided he chitecture for “all wanted to use of his adult life.” a class he was Growing teaching to up, he studied in preserve the South Africa at a gym. boarding school “My first that he said douthought was bled as a boxing ‘How could school, where this be?’” students listened Playdon said. Dennis Playdon / architecture to Joe Frazier and professor “I was going Muhammad Ali to take a picfights on the radio ture of it and send it to all of the and hosted their own boxing sports magazines in the country, tournaments in their spare time. but I didn’t because I was busy Playdon taught architecture at with the class at the beginning the University of Pennsylvania of the semester. I thought, ‘I’ll from 1988 to 1997 before pregive it to the class. Let’s see serving architecture with an Inwhat we can do about it.’” dian tribe in Santa Fe, N.M., for Through a year-long effort, five years. Playdon and his students had the He returned to Philadelgym registered on local and naphia in 2008 to teach at Temple, tional historical building Joe Frazier’s gym, which was converted to a furniture store, sits on North Broad Street near Glenwood Street. An architecture where his wife M. Katherine FRAZIER PAGE 3 professor and students have been fighting to preserve the late boxing legend’s gym. | TIMOTHY VALSHTEIN TTN
JOEY CRANNEY Sports Editor
“I thought, ‘I’ll
give it to the class. Let’s see what we can do about it.’
”
LGBT resource University trails peers in endowment launches online
SEAN CARLIN News Editor
Temple announced one of its first responses to the Gender and Sexuality Climate Assessment’s results last week when it launched a website filled with resources for the LGBT community. The website, housed on the Executive Office of the President’s page called “Diversity and Inclusion: Community Perspective,” went live on Wednesday, Sept. 12, and contains numerous resources on and off of Main Campus for the LGBT community. Vice President and Chief of Staff William Bergman said that the main focus of the website is to act as a central repository for information for people looking for resources on and off Main Campus. “What we hope is that this resource list helps people, that’s first and foremost,” said Bergman, who also chaired the Gender and Sexuality Climate Task Force that commissioned the survey. “[The website] helps people find services they need, find people that they think they can talk to and really any resource that would help them adjust to university life, adjust to the city.” The survey was administered in Spring 2011 and its results were made public in
May. The results were generally positive for Temple, as 81 percent of its respondents – which included undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff – answered that they felt “very comfortable” or “comfortable” with the overall climate at Temple. However, 13 percent of the survey’s respondents reported experiencing discriminatory action, harassment or offensive behavior at Temple due to their gender, age, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or other factors. Also, the task force’s forward to the survey results “noted the lack of a central source of information on what support was available on campus and throughout Philadelphia to LGBTQ students, staff and faculty.” The website was in response to this apparent need for a central source of information. Assistant Vice President Anne Nadol said one of the main goals of the website was to provide a resource list that encompassed the entire city, not just Temple. “One of the great things about being in Philadelphia is that there are so many resources that are already out there in the city that people can just as easily tap as they would tap a resource on campus,” Nadol, a member of the task force, said. “So, we wanted to put that out there especially for people who are new to Philadelphia and haven’t ventured out and know what’s out there.” Nadol added that the launching of the website was
JOHN MORITZ Assistant News Editor Temple’s $262 million endowment lies well beneath the multi-billion dollar endowments of state-related counterparts Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh. Still, Temple continues to compete in terms of expenditures, financial aid and, now, sports. Temple, which historically
has been, and to a lesser dePrivate schools, such as gree continues to the University be, a commuter of Pennsylvaschool, relies nia, typically primarily on rely off of larger state funds and endowments tuition to pay for because its anits annual budnual funding is get. not supported The endowby the state. ment, which Penn, an Ivy turns over a 4.5 League school, percent annual has the largest interest on its endowment in 12-quarter averPennsylvania at age market value David Unruh / senior vice president $6.58 billion, of institutional advancement according to the into designated programs, canschool’s latest not provide similar support of financial reports. larger schools in the state. However, other state-relat-
“Students didn’t
historically have the same kind of emotional attachment to the place.
”
ENDOWMENTS
ENDOWMENT PAGE 2
EXPENDITURES
262
MILLION
1.12
698
MILLION
BILLION
1.83
BILLION
2.54
2.20
BILLION
PENN STATE
4.26
BILLION
1.96
BILLION
BILLION
PITT
LGBT PAGE 3
NEWS DESK 215-204-7419
ed schools far surpass Temple in terms of endowment. Pitt leads the state-related schools in Pennsylvania with an endowment of $2.54 billion and Penn State follows with $1.83 billion. Lincoln University is the only state-related university in Pennsylvania with a smaller endowment, which sits at $5.43 million. Nearby New Jersey state school and fellow Big East member Rutgers University boasts an endowment of $698 million. The university’s annual expenditure, however, does reflect as wide a gap when compared to
RUTGERS
TEMPLE
Source: University public financial statements.
NEWS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM
ILLUSTRATION JOSEPH PASKO TTN
Website made in response to climate survey creates LGBT resource base.
New fundraising looks to support financial aid, faculty support and athletics.