Volume 91, Issue 25

SPORTS Connor Reilly moves to the No. 1 quarterback spot after two years as a backup.

temple-news.com

VOL. 91 ISS. 25

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

Library designer discusses vision, challenges Snøhetta designed North Carolina State University’s library.

JOHN MORITZ Assistant News Editor In designing modern libraries, Snøhetta looks to the ancient times, when ideas and writings were passed along in the plazas

of classical Greek and Roman civilizations, said the firm’s cofounder Craig Dykers.

Snøhetta, the Norwegian firm set to design Temple’s next library on North Broad Street, was represented by Dykers at the Temple Architecture Alumni Lecture on April 4 to give the keynote address to a crowd of architecture students and alumni.

University Architect Mar-

garet Carney introduced Dykers before his speech and announced that the university had chosen Snøhetta to design the library. The official decision and announcement came in August 2012 after a review by the Board of Trustees and submission to the commonwealth.

Snøhetta has designed the Alexandria Library in Egypt, the James B. Hunt Memorial Library at North Carolina State

University and the Ryerson University Library in Toronto.

Other projects by the firm include the September 11 Memorial and Museum and the Oslo Opera House.

In every space, Dykers spoke of redesigning the environment in ways that brought people together to explore their surroundings and make connections with others.

“Redefining what a library

is today is a very difficult job,” Carney said, adding that it was Snøhetta’s experience in building libraries for both universities and public places that made the firm stand out among other candidates.

“Libraries have been tremendously challenged, as soon as you talk about the library, everyone says, ‘What do you need a library for? People don’t need books, if it doesn’t exist

in Google, it doesn’t exist anywhere,’” Dykers said.

In order to make libraries more appealing, Snøhetta’s designs largely feature wide meeting spaces, use of natural sunlight, vibrant colors and state-of-the-art technology to connect readers with their students.

“A library has never been about books. It has never been

LIBRARY PAGE 3

Campus, Philly cops unite to combat crime A relationship between the two departments has led to decreased crime.

ALI WATKINS The Temple News Carl Bittenbender remembers when the Liacouras Center was nothing more than a hole in the ground. The block where 1940 Residence Hall would eventually rise housed an old church. The armory, which sat at Broad Street and Susque-

hanna Avenue, had just burned down, leaving room for White Hall.

When students showed up on move-in day, Temple Police distributed “safe corridor” pamphlets, detailing what streets to stay away from and what areas to avoid.

“We would give you a pamphlet when you came here, of where to walk. Safe corridors... where we put additional patrols.

And [we] told people, ‘Don’t walk on this street,’” said Bittenbender, executive director of Campus Safety Services, laughing as he recalled Temple’s ear-

lier days. “The whole place is a safe corridor now.”

A lot has changed since Bittenbender and Deputy Director of CSS Charlie Leone started working together at Temple more than 17 years ago. They remember a much different campus, environment and policing strategy.

Bittenbender has seen Temple move from a daytime commuter campus to an inherent part of the city. As the university made the shift, so did its police force.

“Our relationship was al-

CRIME PAGE 2

Added courses to focus No smoking gun on financial literacy

Firefighters respond to a February Morgan Hall fire. | ANGELO FICHERA TTN FILE PHOTO

Morgan Hall fires illustrate difficulties in identifying an arsonist.

I

SEAN CARLIN News Editor

n the weeks following a series of five cases of arson in two days at Morgan Hall in February, which prompted federal agents to investigate the fires, officials have yet to charge anyone in connection with the fires.

Though the social media hype and publicity surrounding the incidents has subsided – even after two small fires were reported in March – the absence of any arrests in the case speaks to the essence of an act that has

one of the lowest conviction rates of any major crime.

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, in 2007, only 5 percent to 7 percent of arson offenses resulted in convictions.

Specific to arson, conviction is difficult because witnesses to the crime are often rare and motives are hard to substantiate.

On top of that, prosecutors must prove the crime was committed and rule out any accidental causes, according to FEMA and the USFA. It’s extremely difficult to prove arson based on circumstantial evidence, University

Fire Marshal John Maule said.

“You almost have to see someone light the fire,” said Maule, who spent 30 years with the Philadelphia Fire Department.

While it’s hard to prove arson, Deputy Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said the crime doesn’t differ much from other property crimes in how difficult it is to prosecute.

“It’s difficult to prosecute, difficult to find evidence because it’s sometimes destroyed in the fire,” Leone said. “But it’s

ARSON PAGE 2

The new courses are expected to debut this coming fall.

JOHN MORITZ Assistant News Editor Jonathan Scott wants his students to know their numbers, and while many steer clear of algorithms and derivatives, he knows he can attract them with one large sum: $7 million.

That is the number Scott, a finance professor at Fox School

of Business, tells his students they will need to save for their future retirement, adjusted for inflation.

To help prepare students for reaching that goal, Scott will begin teaching a financial literacy course aimed at freshmen this fall, as part of a new curriculum developed under President Neil Theobald.

Theobald, who came to the university on Jan. 1 after serving as CFO at Indiana University, helped conduct a year long study at his former institution to gain an understanding of what

financial problems were facing students and what action could be taken to alleviate problems students were having with debt.

The study determined that students often did not have a complete understanding of the loans they were taking out, or how much interest they were piling up.

“The greatest problem facing higher education is the level of debt that students are taking on,” Theobald said.

The solution Indiana University came up with was five

COURSES PAGE 2

Junior leads marriage campaign at Liberty Bell A group of students launched Philly Supports Liberty over the weekend.

LAURA ORDONEZ The Temple News Emily Srader has decided to turn a simple class exercise into a social media campaign.

Prompted to envision an art intervention at the Liberty Bell, Srader, a junior visual studies major, decided to apply the bell’s message to marriage equality.

As the nation waits for the Supreme Court rulings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marraige Act, Srader and other Temple students launched on

Saturday, April 6, Philly Supports Liberty, a Facebook and Twitter campaign to rally support for marriage equality in the city.

“Why not Philly? The bell is an international icon for our American ideals as it has been used for several equality movements,” Srader said. “I just want to add one more fight to its history as opposed to doing a quick assignment for class.”

The group distributed campaign stickers and other LGBT gear to tourists and passers-by at the Liberty Bell Center for them to wear when taking pictures with the bell and then post the pictures to the campaign’s page.

“Around 1 million people visit the bell every year,” Srader said. “This is our way of turning individual action into a collec-

WORLDLY HOME, p. 9

The first earthship, an eco-friendly home, in a major U.S. city may be in Philadelphia.

NEWS DESK 215-204-7419

tive effort.”

“Stickers are the way to people hearts,” Derek Bakal, a sophomore visual studies major, said moments before he ran out of materials to distribute. “I guess we successfully reached to tourists with a higher cause.”

Srader said she hopes to join efforts with LGBT organizations across the city, several of which praised the campaign, but could not attend given that the event was promoted at the last minute.

Posters and other visual materials are available on the campaign’s page for anyone who wants to take a picture with the bell, she said.

For Eric Torres, a junior accounting major and visitor, the

LIBERTY PAGE 2

Members of Philly Supports Liberty hand out LGBT rights stickers. | LAURA ORDONEZ TTN

COMPUTER CRUSADING, p. 5 Daniel Craig and Charlie Ries offer differing opinions on social media advocacy.

NEWS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

SPECIAL DELIVERY, p. 7

Three students capitalize on the lack of a food truck delivery service.

NEWS temple-news.com

PAGE 2

NEWS IN BRIEF Stairs collapse at party during weekend

A party west of Main Campus took a scary turn Friday, April 5, night when the basement steps collapsed, leaving party goers stuck in the basement, said Deputy Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone.

Police and firefighters arrived at the party on the 1700 block of Arlington Street at approximately 11:35 p.m., Leone said in an email, and helped students out of the basement and to safety. No injuries were reported, Leone said.

The residents of the house on Arlington Street were unavailable for comment Saturday afternoon.

Leone said the students will be in contact with their landlord.

-Ali Watkins and John Moritz

TSG elections to be held Tuesday and Wednesday Today, April 9, and tomorrow, April 10, Temple Student Government is holding its elections for next year’s leaders of TSG. Visit uvote.temple.edu to cast your vote.

-Sean Carlin

Thank-a-Donor Week kicks off To celebrate Temple’s first-ever Thank-a-Donor Week, the university is encouraging students to hand write thank you notes to the donors who contributed $38 million to the university last year.

Tables will be set up around the Bell Tower, or, in the event of rain, in the Student Center atrium, between noon and 5 p.m. to encourage students to write their own personal thank-yous through April 11.

The university has set a goal of receiving 2,500 thank you notes to send to donors.

More than 48,000 people contributed to the university last year.

-John Moritz

SMC to host first dean candidate The School of Media and Communication will present the first of four candidates for its open dean position this week when Jeff Springston gives a lecture titled “Tailoring Health Communication” today, April 9, in Annenberg Hall.

Springston, the associate dean for research and graduate studies for the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, will give a presentation followed by open meetings with college faculty and students.

While the other finalists for the dean position have yet to be announced, each will be giving a speech for SMC in the next several weeks. Springston’s lecture will begin at 1:15 p.m. in Room 201 of Annenberg.

-John Moritz

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

Damage to building about $100K ARSON PAGE 1

not unlike other property crimes like burglary or vandalism, where, unless somebody sees it, it’s a little tough to figure out who did it.”

Nobody has been seriously hurt by the fires at Morgan Hall, which have been predominantly small rubbish fires, but damage to the building is hovering around $100,000, said Senior Vice President for Construction, Facilities and Operations James Creedon.

The most significant fire occurred on the building’s 18th floor in an electrical room on Feb. 11.

“That one had probably the most significant potential of threatening and damaging [the building],” Leone said.

One of the issues facing the investigation is the lack of cameras in the building at the time of the fires, Creedon said.

“If you’ve got somebody on camera lighting something [on fire], that’s the best case, but we don’t have cameras throughout the building during construction,” Creedon said. “A lot of times with arson people

Fires, declared arson, have plagued the in-construction Morgan Hall since February. But identifying the person or persons guilty of arson is a tall order. | JOHN MORITZ TTN use an accelerant of some sort, something that’s going to cause it to light up a little bit more. For the most part we haven’t really seen that.”

Creedon said although the fires haven’t caused a delay to construction at the $216 million building, which is slated to open this fall, the fires posed an issue to the workers at the site.

“We were very fortunate that it hasn’t caused any problems,” Creedon said. “It’s not fair to put the men and women there, the people working there, through that.”

The fires are still being investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ citywide task force and is being supplemented by

CSS. ATF Special Agent Steve Bartholomew said the two fires in March are being treated as “separate incidents,” but wouldn’t rule out the possibility that those were lit by the same person or persons who set the five fires on Feb. 11 and 12 in the 27-story high-rise. Bartholomew added that the two

fires in March were intentionally set, but caused minimal damage.

There is currently a joint reward of $15,000 being offered by the ATF and the construction manager L.F. Driscoll for information leading to arrests in the case.

Since the fires in February, CSS has increased its presence at the construction site.

“After the arsons, obviously we had to step it up quite a bit, so we partnered with [L.F. Driscoll] and used our resources to assist in a lot of ways,” Leone said.

Even though the incidents are being investigated by a number of agencies, Creedon said he empathizes with the investigators because of the difficulty of the investigation.

“I sympathize. You see them all roll in and you think the federal ATF should be able to identify [the problem] right away, but you soon realize that it’s tough,” Creedon said.

“Tough for even the experts.”

Sean Carlin can be reached at sean.carlin@temple.edu or on Twitter @SeanCarlin84.

Crime down almost 19 percent Group hopes to near Main Campus this year CRIME PAGE 1

ways good with [the Philadelphia Police Department],” Bittenbender said. “But as it became more of a residential community, the collaboration became much more important than it ever had been.”

Dating back to 2000, the two departments began joint efforts to tackle crime near Main Campus, which sits in Philadelphia Police’s 22nd District.

It began with joint efforts to link the forces’ systems in order to coordinate policing on and around campus.

“Prior to [2000], you could have a Temple police officer walking on Broad Street, a foot beat, and you could have a Philly police officer walking. And neither would know what the other was doing,” Bittenbender said.

“However, now we operate our radio...we have a line here that goes to 1235 Market [St.], and bounces to the [Philadelphia Police Headquarters], which has all the police 911 calls that come in to the city.”

This open communication has evolved into a dynamic

working relationship that extends to all levels of the two forces.

“Carl and I talk three to four times a week, if not every day,” said Detective Christine Coulter, a central division inspector for the Philadelphia Police Department, who added that the forces meet every two weeks to discuss crime and policing strategies. “[It’s] at every level. My cops talk to Temple cops, supervisors meet with supervisors, from the top all the way down.

There’s no gap.”

Bittenbender said the open lines of communication can be traced all the way back to the police academy, where many future Temple and Philadelphia police officers train in the same class.

“You meet other police officers, you establish relationships.

This way, when [PPD officers] come to the 22nd [District] and our folks come here, you’re familiar with people,” he said.

Among the many formal strategies coordinated between the two forces, Coulter recently assigned two Philadelphia

detectives specifically to the Temple area in order to further streamline the investigative processes. Prior to the change, campus crimes could be handled by any number of central detectives. Three different detectives could be assigned to three different crimes in the same area.

“We changed that to ensure that there would be better information flow between our investigators and [Temple’s],” Coulter said. “Now, it’s the same detectives for every crime.”

This working relationship has yielded results. CSS has noted a steady decline in crime rates since 2011, and yearto-date comparisons haven’t bucked the trend. 2013 crime rates already indicate a nearly 19 percent decrease in crime on and around Main Campus.

With the university’s changing landscape, Bittenbender said it’s a trend worth noting.

“If you look at the growth, the amount of square footage, the amount of students that live here, the amount of visitors to the campus; count in stats for

thefts of phones at the Liacouras Center, drunk students at raves,” he said. “Take that all combined, and yet, we are doing better than 17, 18 years ago.”

As students continue to take up residence in the surrounding neighborhood – including the fledgling east end of campus – Bittenbender and Coulter both said the forces’ collaboration will continue to adjust to maintain a safe environment for students.

“It’s not just one thing.

It’s a constant process every single day,” Bittenbender said.

“If there’s an incident, there’s no waiting until 8 a.m. the next morning for a response. I can pick up the phone and call the deputy commissioner...All of this work and the collaboration with [Philadelphia Police] has yielded huge results. We’re certainly not perfect, but it has paid tremendous dividends.”

join other activists LIBERTY PAGE 1

waiting line for the bell was smooth and fast.

“Two of the security guards took a lengthy look to my poster and sticker before they let me in, as if they were making sure we were not protesters,” Torres said.

Srader said she will hold a similar event before the end of the semester with more material and myriad entertainment.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to help people understand that marriage equality is not a gay problem, it is an American problem,” she said.

Laura Ordonez can be reached at laura.ordonez@temple.edu.

Ali Watkins can be reached at allison.watkins@temple.edu or on Twitter @AliMarieWatkins.

Courses aimed at first-year students COURSES PAGE 1

hour long classes in the student center teaching students about debt topics from credit cards to students loans to working part time while being a full-time student.

Coming into his new position as university president, Theobald said he approached the Dean Moshe Porat of the Fox School of Business about adding financial literacy courses to the university’s curriculum.

“Inve$ting for the Future,” a general education quantitative literacy course, as well as a new freshman seminar class in financial literacy taught by members of the Bursar’s Office, will both enter the curriculum next semester in an attempt to teach students about wise financial decisions and investing for their future.

Scott, who formerly taught personal finance in an honors introductory financial markets course for six years, said one of the biggest struggles in teaching students financial literacy is

their general reluctance toward using difficult equations.

In order to engage his students, Scott’s curriculum addresses students with what needs they will have and what responsibilities they will shoulder in heading toward retirement, followed with a path toward planning that requires no more than high school algebra.

Although most students will not face retirement for close to 40 years after graduation, Scott said, many students’ interest perked when he told them they would need $7 million saved by the time they retired. “[Students say,] ‘I can’t do that,’” Scott said. “But it is possible. You’ve got to keep your eye on why you are doing this.”

Scott’s class will also teach students how to calculate future tuition costs, make sound investments and whether graduate school is worth the cost of a few extra years of education.

Rose Kohles, a sophomore finance major, was selected by Scott to be a Diamond Peer

Teacher for the Inve$ting for the Future class next fall, said she was interested in helping teach the class because of the lack of understanding of finances she saw amongst her peers.

“It’s something that even if you’re not a business major, it’s something you’re going to have to deal with, and personal finances are something that a lot of people are kind of scared of because they don’t really understand how the systems work,” Kohles said.

In the one-credit freshman seminar, which will be co-taught by David Glezerman and Celeste Roberts-Ruffin of the Bursar’s Office, freshmen will learn financial responsibility along with the new-found freedoms of a college lifestyle.

“We want students to be prepared for their future, and have the tools and the skill set to understand that what decisions they [are] making may have certain implications based on their finances,” said Glezerman, assistant vice president for the Office of the Bursar.

One of the responsibilities the freshman seminar will teach is the need for students to take enough credits per semester to graduate within four years.

Full-time students paying base tuition are able to take between 12 and 18 credits per semester without paying for extra credit hours.

Roberts-Ruffin, the assistant bursar of credit and collections, said she plans to show students in the class how they can balance a 15-credit course load with their social lives, a 10-to-15-hour work week and still manage to obtain good grades in order to avoid adding an additional year onto their student debt.

Prior to this new freshman seminar, the Bursar’s Office runs a page through its website called “Money Matters,” which provides facts, tips and links to help students manage their financial obligations and control student debt.

The Bursar’s Office is planning to roll out an enhanced student loan and money man-

agement site in early summer, Glezerman said.

Theobald said that at the courses taught at Indiana as a result of the study filled filled a hole often left by online pages dedicated to student financial literacy. Students don’t often know what they don’t know, Theobald said, and classes give students the ability to ask questions about things that may confuse them.

“Temple is unique in the sense that we have courses for credit that really are attuned to financial literacy and those concepts. A lot of schools have tried to do this and not had any success,” Glezerman said.

John Moritz can be reached at john.moritz@temple.edu or on Twitter @JCMoritzTU.

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

No word Edge to host on official yogurt store design contract The Edge plans to fill vacancies in its first floor retail spaces.

LIBRARY PAGE 1

about computers, these are simply technologies,” Dykers said.

“Really what [libraries are] about, are places for people to interact with one another and share knowledge.”

Dykers made a comparison between the design for the Ryerson University Library, which sits on Young Street, a main commercial street in Toronto, and Temple’s new library, which would sit on North Broad Street in place of the Student Pavilion near Berks Street.

In the Ryerson Library, architects designed street-level shops into the building to build a connection with the surrounding street.

The new Temple library is intended to be a “signature building” on North Broad Street, according to the university’s 20/20 plan.

The official design process with Snøhetta has yet to start, both Dykers and university officials said.

Dykers spent most of his address talking about his firm’s history and philosophy in designing architecture. Snøhetta is the name of a mountain in Norway. Dykers said the firm’s name was chosen in part because it did not lend its name to any one founder.

Snøhetta’s main offices are located in Oslo, Norway, with an additional office in New York City. One interesting feature of its office, Dykers pointed out, is a beer tap in the reception area, meant to provide a relaxed atmosphere for clients coming in to broker big deals.

Many of the photographs Dykers presented to the audience showed workers bent over design tables, using technology from 3-D printers to colored blocks to create building concepts, often surrounded by a few bottles of beer.

“We have high expectations that it will be a great process with designing a building that is everything we envision for great architecture and a significant building,” Carney said of the upcoming design process with the firm.

The design cost approved by the Board of Trustees is $17.5 million out of a total budget of $190 million. An official contract has not yet been announced by the university, and no figures have been provided on how much the university will be paying Snøhetta or its local partner in the design process, Stantec Consulting Services.

Carney said during the design project, her office will try to work with the Temple Architecture Department to develop ways to incorporate the design process into students’ education, though no specific plans have been made.

Carney and Provost HaiLung Dai visited the Snøhetta designed James B. Hunt Memorial Library at North Carolina State during its construction and were both pleased with what they saw, Carney said. The Hunt Memorial Library officially opened on April 4, the same day as the alumni event.

Carney said the Oslo Opera House in Norway, also a Snøhetta design, is “No. 1” on her list of architectural sites to see next.

John Moritz can be reached at john.moritz@temple.edu, or on Twitter @JCMoritzTU.

MARCUS MCCARTHY The Temple News With the return of warm weather, a popular West Coast dessert is coming to Main Campus.

Luv’n Spoonful, a selfserve yogurt bar, is close to opening at the base of the Edge, in what appears to be the beginning of more stores to come for the location.

“They’re all going to have a completely different taste,” Dustin Ciukurescu, Luv’n Spoonful’s owner and Temple alumnus, said.

Frozen yogurt bars have become most popular in California, where franchises such as Pinkberry and Red Mango were founded then expanded to include more than 150 locations each worldwide. The astounding success of these companies is what first sparked the idea for Ciukurescu and his father and co-worker, Steve Ciukurescu.

“In California you could have one of these [frozen yogurt bars] on every corner,” Steve Ciukurescu said. “A friend of ours from California said, ‘Hey man, you need to do this.’”

Dustin Ciukurescu, then a Temple sophomore sports management major, suggested to his father that they search in the Temple area to set up a new frozen yogurt brand. After a few other locations fell through, they landed a deal with the Edge to develop space, then use it for storage.

For the Edge, this is the first of a series of companies it plans to bring to these spaces.

Assistant Vice President of Operations at the Edge Andrew Hansen said the Edge is talking to four other businesses, and potential leases have been created for four more companies interested in the other slots like the one Luv’n Spoonful will be operating in.

“There are a lot of potential options,” Hansen said. “This is one of the most populated areas.

There are just so many people for a good business to do well.”

These slots at the Edge were originally designed for use by private businesses including a tea shop, package store, smoothie shop and sandwich restaurant. All of these businesses were soon gone with the exception of Jimmy John’s.

“It was a little wild the first year,” Bruce Torres, general manager of the Jimmy John’s branch at the Edge, said. “But

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we just knew that it was going to succeed.”

The empty slots were then used by the Edge for storage.

However, new management took over last fall and shifted the focus back to using the space for businesses.

“We are a fresh and experienced team,” Hansen said. “We can do better than the past.”

Hansen envisions a variety of stores for these slots possibly varying from a tech store to tanning shop to a mini-market, he said. He said he believes the potential is now there due to the steady economic growth in the local area. Torres also sees potential in the area with his business being well established.

“The fact that we’re here can only help now,” Torres said.

Luv’n Spoonful’s opening has been delayed due to city approval procedures, but Dustin and Steve Ciukurescu aim to open April 17 in time for Spring Fling, they said.

“We just have to make sure every ‘I’ is dotted and ‘T’ is crossed,” Steve Ciukurescu said. “It will be a great place when we open.”

Marcus McCarthy can be reached at marcus.mccarthy@temple.edu.

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Edge prepares for fall without Temple contract Management has taken steps to operate independently of the university.

JOE GILBRIDE The Temple News After Temple announced its contract with the Edge will cease after this semester, the housing facility has come under new management that will put changes in place for Fall 2013 as it transitions into an independent apartment complex.

Director of Leasing Ryan Purnell said the facility will move away from a dorm-style living environment and focus more on an apartment atmosphere.

“We have totally new management,” Purnell said. “Everyone has just come on in the past few months and are planning a lot of improvements.”

Anticipating the change this fall, Purnell said management has already taken steps to improve the Edge’s current services. Residents had expressed concerns about faulty wireless Internet connections, leading the facility to put in new processors and connection points to increase the speed. A new laundry company was also hired and replaced the Edge’s old washing and drying machines.

This year, the Edge will expand its retail outlets on the first floor, Purnell said, adding a frozen yogurt restaurant next to Jimmy John’s.

Purnell said that after Tem- allows students to use their fiple’s contract with the Edge ex- nancial aid plan from Temple to pires this year, the facility will live here.” change some of its polices to Purnell said the focus is still provide a more apartment-style on attracting students wanting to living space to residents. live near Main Campus, but the “We will still have 24-hour Edge will be open to everyone. security, but we’re changing our Currently, students from Drexel guest policy,” Purnell said. “It University and the University of won’t be the same as the univer- the Arts are also leasing rooms sity.” at the facility, he said.

Purnell said staff will fo“Our location is better for cus on providing more private students because we offer a rooms and the building has 10-month lease term, while othreduced its bed count for the er places only offer a 12-month upcoming semester. A studio term,” Purnell said. “Students apartment is among the new don’t have to rent for the whole room types that will be single year, because our term coincides units rather than with Temple’s shared ones. schedule.”

Now that its No services contract with the will be taken university will away as a result not be renewed, of the contract Purnell said the ceasing, Purnell Edge has planned said, and will to reduce rates continue to keep for most rooms a working reby about $100. lationship with D u r i n g the university.

Temple’s conPurnell tract with the said the Edge housing facility, Ryan Purnell / edge director of will continue to leasing do business for students could rent rooms at the years to come, Edge through the MyHousing despite Temple’s decision not to website. Starting this year, stu- renew its contract. dents will have to lease rooms “Right now, all the resithrough the Edge’s own web- dence halls are full,” Purnell site, Edgeavenorth.com. Purnell said. “Housing is always going said the website allows rent- to be an issue.” ers to select rooms and make Joe Gilbride can be reached at monthly payments. joseph.gilbride@temple.edu.

“Our relationship with Temple is still very strong,” Purnell said. “We are offering a financial aid payment plan that

“Everyone has

just come on in the past few months and are planning a lot of improvements.

”

The first floor of the Edge is expected to receive a yogurt bar, Luv’n Spoonful, later this month.| DALEXIS PEGUERO TTN

College Democrats plan for rest of academic year TCD officers said they have their eyes on women in politics.

ADDY PETERSON The Temple News With only five meetings left before the end of the semester, the Temple College Democrats and the organization’s officers are aiming to make the best of the time they have left.

TCD President Dylan Morpurgo said that along with the group’s participation in Relay for Life last week, TCD’s board and its members are going to continue to support campus events and to focus their attention on women in politics.

Looking back on the semester, Event Coordinator Sonia Galiber said there were a “number of great events” that promoted awareness toward women in politics. She said TCD’s Women in Politics panel,

held after the presidential election, was one of the most meaningful events the group hosted this academic year.

“We went to our state convention two weekends ago. Part of that is you give a presentation on what your chapter has done throughout the year,” Morpurgo said. “The thing that I was personally most proud about and that we were able to pull off was our Women in Politics panel.”

Positive feedback from the attendees and TCD members about the panel led to conversation to form a LGBT panel, Morpurgo said.

The LGBT political discussion panel, set to be held April 25, is one of the main events the group has lined up but is still in the beginning stages of planning, Morpurgo said.

Though this panel is still in its early stages, Morpurgo said TCD has reached out to professors, legislators and alumni and asked them to get involved with the panel, with the overall mes-

sage aiming toward informing the student body of the LGBT community in politics.

Along with the success that came from the panel, Morpurgo said creating campus-wide awareness from the previous presidential election and registering students to vote was an accomplishment that exceeded members’ expectations.

“In August, the minute that freshmen started moving into campus, we were on campus registering people to vote. At the end of the registration period, we registered over 3,000 people,” he said.

With help from other organizations that were active in getting students registered, they were all able to register more than 5,000 students. Morpurgo said that at the end of the last academic year, TCD introduced a resolution to Temple Student Government that worked toward getting expiration dates on new Owl Cards that were distributed at the beginning of this

year. A unanimous TSG decision complemented the university’s move toward issuing new IDs. Temple students registered in Pennsylvania were able to use their cards as a valid voter ID. “Over the summer, I sat down with administration and TSG, and we talked about the logistics. But fortunately, they added those expiration dates, so now 40,000 students can vote with that ID card,” he said. “It was definitely the most important thing we did.”

The overall message Morpurgo said he wants Temple students to take away from this year is to become aware and active in politics. Creating a strong and respectful relationship with the Temple University College Republicans and also creating a bipartisan conversation with the group added to that message.

“We’ve done so many events with [TUCR] throughout the year, so it’s been good to foster that bipartisan relation-

ship, which in the past didn’t necessarily exist,” Morpurgo said.

Future plans for TCD include electing new members to its executive board, hosting city controller candidates at weekly meetings, co-sponsoring a leadership dinner with Temple Israel Public Affairs Community and TUCR to correspond with Israel week and supporting a rally for Temple alumna Edith Windsor, a plaintiff in the current Supreme Court case on the Defense of Marriage Act. Morpurgo said the rally is planned for May 3. Queer Student Union is hosting the event to keep up the “momentum” of the case until the ruling is decided in June.

Addy Peterson can be reached at adlaine.braquel.peterson@temple.edu or on Twitter @adlainebraquel.

OPINION

A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.

Angelo Fichera, Editor-in-Chief Cara Stefchak, Managing Editor Sean Carlin, News Editor Zachary Scott, Opinion Editor Luis Rodriguez, Living Editor Jenelle Janci, A&E Editor Joey Cranney, Sports Editor John Moritz, Asst. News Editor Ibrahim Jacobs, Asst. Sports Editor Lauren Hertzler, Chief Copy Editor Brandon Baker, Copy Editor TJ Creedon, Copy Editor Saba Aregai, Multimedia Editor Dustin Wingate, Multimedia Editor

temple-news.com

PAGE 4

Chris Montgomery, Web Editor Patrick McCarthy, Asst. Web Editor Andrea Cicio, Social Media Editor Kate McCann, Photography Editor Abi Reimold, Asst. Photography Editor Addy Peterson, Designer David Hamme, Advertising Manager Kathleen Smith, Business Manager Morgan Hutchinson, Marketing Manager

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

The Temple News is an editorially independent weekly publication serving the Temple University community. Unsigned editorial content represents the opinion of The Temple News. Adjacent commentary is reflective of their authors, not The Temple News.

Visit us online at temple-news.com.

Send submissions to letters@temple-news.com.

The Temple News is located at: Student Center, Room 243 1755 N. 13th St. Philadelphia, PA 19122

EDITORIALS

Partner for protection

T

hroughout Temple’s decades-long transition from a commuter school to its current, more residential incarnation, Campus Safety Services has been forced to react to a change that’s resulted in students flocking to off-campus housing and major construction projects sprouting throughout the area.

As Ali Watkins writes on P. 1, part of that change has allowed CSS and the Philadelphia Police Department to collaborate on crime-stopping measures on and near Main Campus that have contributed to a nearly 19 percent drop in crime in 2013. This not only means good news for students who are a little safer near Temple because of this partnership, but represents progress for the men and women who are tasked with maintaining a safe environment near Temple.

Executive Director of CSS Carl Bittenbender said that before 2000 – when the two departments started the joint effort – a Philadelphia Police officer

A

Ring a bell

n interactive social media campaign organized by students is giving a new ring to the iconic Liberty Bell – and it sounds a lot like wedding bells.

In an attempt to give social importance to a class assignment, students, namely junior visual studies major Emily Srader, have developed the campaign Philly Supports Liberty – aimed at spreading the message of marriage equality.

The Temple News believes this effort, both in its intentions and execution, is deserving of applause.

The timing is, quite obviously, no mistake. Not only do polling data show that support for gay marriage is on the uptick, the U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering cases concerning California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. While social media, for better or worse, continues to be a hotspot for social activism – a point debated by Opinion columnists Charlie Ries and Daniel Craig on P. 5 – it’s certainly an influential platform to spread ideas.

Combined efforts of law enforcement have helped make Main Campus safer. and Temple Police officer could be patrolling foot beats near each other and “neither would know what the other was doing.” Because of the partnership, this is no longer the case.

The Temple News has previously reported on the influx of Philadelphia Police officers that Temple pays for in the area west of Main Campus, a location where student residency is known to be quite high. While this increase in officers in general can dissuade crime, the efficiency and open lines of communication between the two departments is encouraging to students who rely on these officers every day.

Bittenbender remarked about previous CSS strategies, which included telling students where safe corridors were and what areas to avoid near Main Campus: “The whole place is a safe corridor now.” The progress made by CSS and the PPD in lowering crime in the area is striking and the partnership between the two departments continues to discourage criminals.

Student advocacy for marriage equality has utilized new mediums.

Even so, it’s nice to see that the days of taking to the streets with a clear message aren’t gone either: The student-led campaign is dishing out materials and asking recipients to take photos with the Liberty Bell and post them to the campaign’s page.

“Stickers are the way to people’s hearts,” sophomore visual studies major Derek Bakal said.

Bakal’s right. This type of movement rightfully combines human interaction with the reach of social networking platforms.

The Temple News has long stood by the LGBT community at Temple and worldwide in supporting marriage equality, and we reaffirm that at what appears to be – and what we sincerely hope ultimately is – a monumental time in the country’s history.

Likewise, we hope the university community recognizes the importance of utilizing Temple’s positioning in the country’s birthplace as a means of adding social value to what could otherwise be a trite assignment. Students should take that idea in matrimony.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Of course, listeners of all

music genres can be found guilty of occassionally picking the store-brand, easily digestable version of something great, but in most cases, time has proven what happens with the store brands.

JULIANA COPPA TTN

PHOTO COMMENT

Freshman midfielder Kara Stroup powers her way through the lacrosse team huddle before the Owls’ game against St. Bonaventure on April 5. The Owls won the game 18-3 and are winners of three in a row. | DANIEL PELLIGRINE TTN

GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?

POLLING PEOPLE

21%

Yes; I post statuses that give my opinions.

13%

3%

Yes; I change my profile picture to reflect causes.

63%

Yes; I both post statuses and change my profile picture to advocate.

Letters to the editor may regard any current issue but must include your full name, position and location.

Students can give year and major. Submissions should be 350 words or fewer.

No; I do not.

*Out of 24 votes.

CITY VIEW

Posting persuasion A majority of social media users – 66% – report using the sites to express or promote political views or social causes, including through the means below.

38% - “like” or promote related political materials.

35% encourage others to vote.

34% post thoughts or comments on political issues .

33% reposted content related to politics.

31% encourage others to take action in political

Of those polled, 25% report becoming more active after discussing or reading posts on a social media site, and 16% report changing their views. Respondents of a Pew Research Center survey indicate that a large percentage of people only sometimes agree with the opinions expressed by friends online.

How often do you agree with political opinions or political content your friends post on social networking sites?

2% C

B

9%

D

7%

E

18%

or social causes.

64%

”

Kevin Stariker / Fear of Music, P. 9

Visit temple-news.com to take our online poll, or send your comments to letters@ temple-news.com.

Do you use social media to advocate for your political positions?

A

Only sometimes

B

Never

C

No response

D

Always/Almost Always

E

Most of the time

A Source: Pew Research Center / ANGELO FICHERA TTN

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

PAGE 5

POINT – COUNTERPOINT

Social media crusades Facebook users can avoid actual action really create change

DANIEL CRAIG

Craig argues that advocacy on social media gets lost amid other clutter.

M

y name is Daniel Craig, and I am addicted to clips of SpongeBob

on Youtube.

I hope to God my roommate isn’t reading this, because he has grown increasingly wearisome throughout the past couple of weeks after having to tolerate me and my buddy sharing hours of small clips from our favorite episodes and our hysterical cackling. At this point even a passing mention of a quote from SpongeBob enrages him but this doesn’t stop me and my friend from bombarding each other with our favorite clips on Facebook.

After reading the headline of this article, you’re probably wondering how this relates to advocacy, like the recent campaign for marriage equality. It doesn’t. That’s my point.

Let me make something very clear: You won’t find a bigger proponent for gay marriage than me. I could go in to the pure constitutionality of it and the sheer un-Americanism of using religion as reasoning for discrimination, but you have common sense. If you have gay friends, especially

those who are in or have been in relationships, you know they damn well deserve equality.

And I also need to preface that I am just as guilty as anyone of what I’m about to condemn. On occasion, I’ve used my Facebook and Twitter to espouse my political stances.

It’s hard to imagine that you don’t know what I’m talking about at this point. You’ve seen the profile pictures of equal signs, the reposted editorials concerning marriage equality, the memes mocking those against gay marriage.

This is not a negative thing. However, it is important to note that it is far from positive. When this trend started taking off after the Supreme Court took the case, I asked myself two questions.

One: How many people that I was friends with on Facebook actually had a differing opinion on gay marriage?

In other words, you pick your friends. Do you really associate yourself with a lot of people who feel differently about marriage equality? If not, what good is it bombarding their news feeds when they probably already agree with you?

Two: Even if someone did disagree with me, what shot in hell did my passive activism have on changing their minds?

Have you ever read a Facebook argument that ended in anything other than petty name calling? Me neither. My answers to these questions were very few and a resounding no respectively, which is why in this instance I held back in my political activity on social media. I want gays to be allowed to get married, and I don’t see how telling everyone else using the same site I use to play Farmville helps that.

I read one – count ‘em, one – meaningful Facebook post

on the subject. It was a friend of mine who shared a link to the website for Pennsylvania congressmen, stating that if you really supported the issue, then write your congressman a letter. Don’t just tell everyone how you feel.

I have to stress that I don’t think this form of activism is in any way a bad thing. Yet if you really want to make a difference, find a platform that might actually have an impact.

Write to your congressman as my one Facebook friend suggests. Start an advocacy club here at Temple.

OK, so I only have two ideas, one of which isn’t mine originally. But if you don’t like those possibilities, think of a better one. That’s how people create change.

Because no matter how meaningful or well-articulated your social media opinion is, those sites are too cluttered and oversaturated and it will ultimately get lost in a sea of SpongeBob clips and other nonsense. It’s important to know – and I’m talking to myself here too – that social media has its pros and cons. Sure, I can share a clip of that time Patrick is Pinhead Larry without pissing off my roommate.

But, unfortunately, my opinion on marriage equality is a grain of sand on a beach of useless content.

Daniel Craig can be reached at daniel.craig@temple.edu or on Twitter @Ohh_Danny_Boy.

The logic is that there is inherent value in creating a positive social awareness of a commodity. Subconsciously, what we see in advertising forms the basis of what we support with our dollars, votes and effort.

A Facebook profile picture of an equal sign is, among other things, an advertisement for the cause. As it turns out, it’s CHARIE RIES the most effective kind.

According to a Nielson Ries argues that study asking what form of adsocial media helps vertising people most trust, the No. 1 form was “the recomspread important mendation of a friend” at 90 political messages. percent. That is opposed to the 62 percent who place some degree of trust in paid television advertisements and 69 percent he Supreme Court who put some degree of trust in held opening oral arindependent news editorials. guments on the conAnd yes, that means that stitutionality of Caliyour Facebook recommendafornia’s Proposition 8 and the tions are probably more effecFederal Defense of Marriage tive at swaying public opinion Act on March 26. That day, a than this column could ever simple red and pink equal sign hope to be. became ubiquitous as a profile Advertising works primarpicture in support of marriage ily by affecting an individual’s equality. subconscious, but the second It’s easy to be cynical effect that social media advoabout this social trend, to scoff cacy has comes on the level of and make jokes about the Justhe general social environment tices consulting our Facebooks from which our opinions and before coming to a decision. actions spring.

But in their negativity, the cynIn Solomon Asch’s famous ics ignore the fact that public psychological experiment, a awareness and perceptions of single test subject was placed social normalcy undeniably afin a room along with four to six fect human action. actors. An obvious and simple Last fall, the Obama and question was given, for which Romney campaigns spent a the actors gave agreeing incorcombined $968 million on rect answers. When the true test advertising alone. Of course, subject was finally reached, the we all know that only an idiot incorrect answer was given 32 would base his or her opinions percent of the time. and actions solely on what they What that experiment see on a poster or in a commerdemonstrates is human opincial. ions are very much shaped by And yet, year after year what we perceive to be the and decade after decade, bildominant opinion of those lions of dollars are spent adaround us. A person may not vertising everything from believe too strongly one way deodorant to cereal, political or the other, or a person may be candidates to social causes. self-doubting in nature, and so

T

he or she will merely go along with what everyone else is perceived to believe.

The use of social media advocacy helps ensure two things: that those who would naturally be receptive to the cause of gay rights are not swayed by social fear – as Asch’s experiment shows we are so apt to do – and that those who may be undecided or moderately opposed to marriage equality do not have a sense of social dominance under which their opinions may strengthen and proliferate. In some cases, it may even change some of those opinions.

This is not mere speculation. According to a 2012 Pew Research study, 16 percent of social network users reported having changed their opinion on at least one political issue after discussing it or reading posts about it on a social network site. And to those who would argue that social media advocacy fosters a passive abdication of our real world civic responsibilities, the same poll found that 25 percent of social network users reported becoming more active in a political issue after reading about it on a social network site.

The easiest way to attack social media advocacy is to attack the considerable percentage of people who do nothing further to affect social change.

That is a valid criticism of fairweather activists. But the fact remains that if it weren’t for social media advocacy those people would in all likelihood be doing nothing at all. No one is arguing that social media advocacy is a victory in itself, but it plays a part in the vital first step of spreading public awareness.

Charlie Ries can be reached at charlie.ries@temple.edu.

Anti-multiculturalism is the new racism

M

SABA AREGAI

Aregai argues that Towson’s White Student Union’s meaning goes beyond Europeanhistory appreciation.

ulticulturalism.

Diversity. Two words constantly being pushed in our faces and vocabularies in order to avoid the most uncomfortable word in the English dictionary: racism.

In recent months Towson University has been the headquarters for controversy because of senior Matthew Heimbach’s forming of the White Student Union. Heimbach and members of the student union felt the white culture was being neglected in the university’s effort to recruit and welcome diversity.

Towson officials went on record saying the university had no affiliation with the organization and the group does not reflect the views of the university.

The group is protected by the First Amendment, so no matter how radical the ideas are, it has the right to assemble.

Recently, the group has organized a patron patrol in efforts to reduce crime, what it describes on its site as:

“Through armed thuggery the money of law abiding Towson students that is earned by the sweat of their brow is stolen and their lives threatened for simply walking down the street.” They not only blame the crime on the lack of authority but specifically on a “black crime wave.” By patrolling, the group hopes to restore security for all students on the campus.

Just last week, on April 3, hundreds of students and community members rallied on Towson’s campus in an effort to stop the organization’s plans in fear of any further advancements with patrolling and overall presence on the campus.

Matthew Heimbach, president of the WSU, is a former member of the Youth for Western Civilization and the American Third Position Party, both recognized as anti-multiculturalism groups. He is standing up for his organization through all the negative feedback. But with his radical views on race and culture in America today, it makes it difficult to not label the

organization as racist.

The concept of WSU is not new. Temple in fact had its time in the spotlight for allowing a white student union to organize in 1988. Though this organization didn’t last, this point of view can exist in any institution no matter the demographic or location.

In America there is a perception that since white culture is the dominant culture, expressing any kind of pride toward it can have negative connotations.

But this pride comes with baggage.

Since much of the nonEuropean history is left out from the media, books and classrooms, student unions and various political and social organizations often form to bond minority groups to feel a sense of pride, even existence. This

allows a platform for minorities to speak amongst themselves and eventually a broader audience which they may have not been able to do as individuals.

Because many believe we live in a post-racial society, a WSU might have come as a shock. In reality, racism is still very much present. What the members of the WSU don’t understand is that European history is the only history truly accepted.

People of all colors and ethnicities are silenced and forced to adapt to a culture that dismisses their own.

Even if minorities are said to be protected by the law, they are still not socially, economically or politically accepted like the majority culture. This nation has yet to heal from its past and it is hard to try with organizations like this.

“Because many

believe we live in a post-racial society, a WSU might have come as a shock.

”

There is endless coverage, varying from news stories to opinions from all perspectives about the WSU. Though these types of groups may seem surprising at first, we must not look past the crippling institutionalized racism that is oppressing minorities every day.

Actually allowing the Black Student Union or any other minority student union at Towson to express its views would have been a contribution to start discussion on the larger issue. It is time minorities are able to speak on their own behalf and not rely on the media to point out who they think the bad guy is.

If we do not desensitize the word racism as a society, organizations such as the White Student Union at Towson will become the new normal.

Saba Aregai can be reached at saba.aregai@temple.edu.

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

“Do you use social media websites to advocate for causes you support?

”

DALEXIS PEGUERO/ KATE McCANN TTN

OPINION DESK 215-204-7416

“It’s good...to hear what’s going on in Philadelphia.

I’ll find out about events.”

“[People] need to be able to feel that they can say what’s on their mind.”

CRAIG WEBSTER

ED BRAXTON

SENIOR | SOCIAL WORK

SENIOR | POLITICAL SCIENCE

LETTERS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

“I use Twitter and Facebook to advocate for animal rights.”

LINDSEY SMITH

SOPHOMORE | PSYCHOLOGY

OPINION

PAGE 6

WORD WEB...

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

on the

SOMEONE ELSE’S

OPINION

temple-news.com

Unedited for content.

MIKE HUNT SAYS ON “IANNELLI: BIG CHAIRS PRESENT SIZEABLE ISSUES” ON APRIL 4 AT 11:18 A.M.

Although this article may seem like a winner, it is just the tip of the iceburg. So much money have been wasted on ideas that would otherwise be irrelevant if the school can put money into more supplies, better printers and other improvements that Temple needs. I understand that saving money by amusing kids with big chairs and a stupid slogan seem like a good idea, but you can never put a band aid on a shark bite.

JGIRL SAYS ON “IANNELLI: BIG CHAIRS PRESENT SIZEABLE ISSUES” ON APRIL 3 AT 8:51 P.M.

Because Temple’s aesthetic means nothing? Let’s just all go to school in gray, Communist-era buildings (Weiss hall, basically). Forget the flags, the artwork, the green spaces, the many symbols of our school pride. To hell with creating common areas for student interaction and gathering.

Fine, the big chairs are a strange way to decorate our campus, but I don’t remember anyone complaining about the colorful adirondack chairs introduced last year. And those were easily a couple hundred, too. I agree with John: so you hate the chairs and want that money? Enjoy your fraction of a penny.

Try to be a little more lighthearted. If you took your bitter vitriol and directed it toward some real issues Temple has, you might actually change something. It’s just a damn chair.

GO FIND A BIGGER FISH TO FRY SAYS ON “IANNELLI: BIG CHAIRS PRESENT SIZEABLE ISSUES” ON APRIL 3 AT 4:41 P.M.

What an obnoxiously written article. You’re crying about few hundred dollars? The facilities guy made it himself. I bet for him and his family, the media attention it’s gotten is a great moment in his life to be a part of something bigger, which is what Temple Made is about. Temple doesn’t belong to just students, but to faculty, staff and the North Philadelphia community it sits in. This project is far from the first thing that deserves so much space decrying waste.

BRENDAN SAYS ON “IANNELLI: BIG CHAIRS PRESENT SIZEABLE ISSUES” ON APRIL 3 AT 11:19 A.M.

This may be the best article ever written. I can’t even put into words the amount I agree with you. Alumni money, my tuition, heck why not buy stupid over sized chairs, or a sizable amount of banners with students faces painted on it with a bad slogan. “Temple Made” me poor. Thanks for buying me a chair. That’s too big for anyone.

Cable customers can tune out

C

omcast, the biggest television service in the country, has been dragged through courts about its high rates since 2003. While it often seems easy to pile on the giant, inhuman corporation, what’s more important is that this action could inadvertently set an unsound precedent of people choosing to go to court with issues that HEND SALAH could simply be resolved by the plaintiff taking his or her busiSalah argues that ness Aelsewhere. class-action lawsuit was Comcast customers filed against the company in should have Philadelphia by subscribers to the cable television service due considered avoiding to their belief that Comcast viocable over lawsuits. lated antitrust law by charging too much in lieu of sufficient competition. Although Comcast lost the case in the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled in the company’s favor on March 26.

When the lawsuit was first filed, there weren’t too many cable providers in the city that were easily accessible, so viewers had to pay whatever price the company set for them in order to use the service. Since Comcast was essentially a monopoly, it had control of its service fees without being restricted by

competitors. The sole control that belonged to Comcast was seen as a perfect means for exploiting the market and forcing customers to pay more than they should.

Whether that is true or not, any company reserves the right to charge however much it wants for its goods and services. Comcast is no different. Its boundaries lie in what it decides is good or bad for business, not the morality of the amount being charged. Like every business, its objective is to maximize profit.

“The cost of service may or may not be what the market can bear, but the determinate in this situation is literally the market,” said John Dileonardo, an economics professor at Temple.

“Comcast can charge what they believe is appropriate for their business model. People may or may not leave, but that is their decision.”

If Comcast charges more, there will be either negative or positive effects on business.

People may leave, causing the company to lose money, or people can stay, allowing Comcast to profit from the heightened expense with little detriment. The

company itself takes a risk with every extra dime it asks of its customers.

This tends to work out very well for businesses where their goods and services are necessities. Cable is not one of them. It is a luxury that most Americans see as a basic need, thus leading them to believe it should be offered at a lower cost. No one absolutely needs to have cable in his or her home. People choose to pay to get that extra service, and this does not give them the right to set an asking price.

True, the amount Comcast charges for is borderline thievery, but it isn’t illegal or even unfair. The ruling in the company’s favor isn’t a “bias toward big business,” as I’ve heard so many people say.

The lawsuit was thrown out by the Supreme Court because it was labeled a “class-action suit,” even though all Philadelphia customers can’t be established as a class.

“A class-action lawsuit is made by a certain amount of people to sue a company on behalf of others affected because of damages it made to its consumers,” said Joe Hoeffel, a former Congressman and political

science professor at Temple.

This type of case could not be made because there have to be obvious class-wide damages.

Here, no damages could be calculated and so no class exists within the restrictions of the law. Therefore, the court decision was not only reasonable, but also seemingly unbiased.

Aside from this, customers are not forced to use Comcast. Ignoring the fact that basic channels have the most important and most watched programs, there are a plethora of other options to watch television. There are other companies that offer good deals on their services, and most things you want to watch can even be found on the Internet these days.

So, instead of paying the extra fees with cable, you can just use Comcast – or any other service – as an Internet provider.

Filing a lawsuit against a company when there are many other ways to get basically the same service you already have is pointless. It also seems like an unnecessary waste of both effort and money.

Hend Salah can be reached at hsalah@temple.edu.

Gap year convention would do more harm

N MICHAEL CARNEY

Carney argues that taking a year off would have negative repercussions on college transitions if it became commonplace.

ever in my life did I think that I would disagree with a recommendation from Harvard College, but in this instance I must.

In an article co-written by Harvard’s Dean of Admissions, Director of Admissions and a psychology professor, titled “Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation,” Harvard explains its endorsement of what is commonly known as a “gap year.”

Essentially, students graduating high school who want to go to college have two basic options: to begin school immediately following their high school graduation or take time off and begin college at a later date.

The Higher Education Research Institute of UCLA estimated, “1.2 percent of first-time college freshmen in the United States deferred admission to take a gap year in 2011.” Therefore, an immediate transition from high school to college is the most common option for students of my generation.

Harvard’s article states that its “overall graduation rate of 98 percent is among the high-

est in the nation, perhaps in part because so many students take time off.” However, Harvard states that only about 5 percent to 7 percent of each class take time off, yet still says that this has a statistically significant impact on overall graduation rates – an unlikely assertion.

Although a time off can give students an opportunity to work or travel, I believe that the disadvantages of this break outweigh the advantages.

Throughout high school I found it difficult to transition from a three-month summer to the fall semester of a new school year because the freedom of summer made me extremely reluctant to return to school. Although I began college the same year as my high school graduation, I suspect that taking a year off would have been so free and comfortable that I would have been deterred from ever going.

If one’s break is spent working, I believe it will provide consistency, stability and responsibility to the life of that student, making his or her transition to college slightly easier.

However, if one’s break is spent sleeping and partying with no schedule or responsibilities – as

I suspect most breaks would – that student’s academic routine would be destroyed.

Given an entire year and an opportunity to decide whether to do something productive or not, I believe that most students would spend their gap year irresponsibly, treating it as an “extended summer” of sorts, and would have a more difficult time adapting to college than a student who began college immediately.

Students who chose an unstructured gap year would likely see their independence from academics and responsibilities carry over to their freshman year, causing them to focus less on academics and more on maintaining their casual lifestyle of the past year. A student who encounters the independence of college simultaneously with rigorous academics will inevitably experience less independence than a student during a gap year because academics force responsibility.

The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2003 that 44 percent of high school graduates who went straight to college got their bachelor’s degree within six

years. About 15 percent of those who delayed college for a year, either intentionally or because of personal struggles, had their bachelor’s degree within six years of enrolling.

A gap year can lead to a student taking a semester off later in college or possibly even another year off, extending his or her time at a typical four-year institution to five years or more.

Students who take a year off may forget some of what they learned in high school or forget some of their academic habits, both of which would make the transition to college more difficult. Friends from high school who move on to college immediately would be enjoying their time in college while a student who took a year off is forced to watch most of their high school class move forward in life without them.

A one-year break between high school and college can eliminate the good academic and responsible routines that students develop in high school.

Michael Carney can be reached at michael.carney@temple.edu.

“Rather than following the mob, I started supporting samesex marriage as soon as I heard about homosexuals because indivudal freedom is important, and there didn’t seem to be a compelling reason for government to forbid it.”

Robert Maranto,

on philly.com in “Gays, straights and mob rule”

“Mandatory minimums reflect two of the biggest problems in Washington: The first problem is the idea that there should be a Washingtonknows-best, one-sizefits-all approach to all problems, be they social, educational or criminal.

This approach leads to our second problem: Washington’s habit of undermining the system our Founding Fathers created. Their system left as much power as possible in the hands of local and state officials, and sought to treat people as individuals, not as groups or classes of people.”

Sen. Rand Paul,

on washingtontimes.com in “Minimizing authority of judges”

“A closer look at the results tells us that it’s a wide-open race.

Republican voters are looking for a new face, not a familiar figure. But they’re also looking, it seems, for a reliably conservative face; no moderates need apply.”

Doyle McManus,

on latimes.com in “Let’s talk GOP and fantasy politics”

“The millennial generation is the generation of change.

Millennials’ views on a broad range of policy issues are so different from older Americans’ perspectives that they are likely to reshape the political dialogue faster than the political class can catch up.”

Charles M. Blow,

on the nytimes.com in “The Young and the Restless”

“Modern women aren’t supposed to talk about marriage, let alone embrace it.

They’re supposed to stay focused on their education and careers and assume the rest of life will fall into place. It’s all so sad, since getting married and having kids marks the beginning of life—not the end.”

Suzanne Venker,

on foxnews.com in “Whom to marry is the most imortant decision a woman will ever make”

LIVING temple-news.com

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

PAGE 7

Food delivery is ‘legit’ A student-run delivery service moves food from Main Campus trucks to doorsteps, mixing and matching food from different cultures.

Reggie Hawkins, Sarunyoo Tohchoodee and William Shanley founded Legit Delivery, which delivers food from trucks on Main Campus to students. | LUIS FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ TTN

ALEXA BRICKER The Temple News

I

t was dinner time and William Shanley, Reggie Hawkins and Sarunyoo Tohchoodee were hit by a case of the munchies for Temple’s usual food-truck fare. The problem? None of them were hungry for the same type of food. After factoring in the walk to each individual truck and waiting in line, the trip hardly seemed worth it.

At that point, they realized there was no service on Main Campus that could offer them a

meal with a mix of foods from different cultures. So, Shanley, Hawkins and Tohchoodee decided to open their own food delivery business: Legit Delivery was born.

Legit Delivery is exactly what it sounds like: a service that delivers food to students’ door. However, unlike other delivery services around, they cater to the customers’ unique palate, mixing foods from a variety of the trucks on Main Campus.

“We think the food trucks are a great combination of a lot of different cultures you see around the city,” said Shanley, a

junior advertising major. “Our goal is to make the foods from all those different cultures more accessible for students.”

The service also delivers to people living both on and off campus.

“Our service ranges from north and south [from Susquehanna to] Girard [avenues, and] east and west from Eighth to 20th streets,” Shanley said. “We understand not all students live directly on campus, so we made our delivery square much larger than some of our competitors.”

What really sets Legit Delivery apart from other services

is its ability to offer the Temple via our call center and from community a faster there we call and more personalin their order ized way to experiat whichever ence the cuisine of food truck some of the more – or trucks – popular foods in they choose,” the area. They Shanley said. also operate on the “Within five same schedule as minutes we these trucks, makhop on our ing them available bikes to pick for delivery, rain up the order or shine, whenever and then go the desired truck is on our way William Shanley / to deliver it usually open. legit delivery cofounder to the cus“Our customers place orders tomer.”

“We think the

food trucks are a great combination of a lot of different cultures you see around the city.

”

Instead of waiting in line, which can take more than 15 minutes, Legit Delivery has partnered with some of students’ favorites, including the Busz trucks and Wingo Taco, to ensure a fast and more affordable delivery process.

“We pay for the customer’s order out of our own pocket, and then upon delivery the customer pays the cost of the meal, plus a minimal delivery fee of $1.50 for our sponsored trucks and $2.50 for unsponsored places,” said Hawkins, a senior communications major. “We hope to

DELIVERY PAGE 17

Dancers explore human connection Megan Mizanty and Rori Smith present their theses in the final MFA thesis concert of the spring.

KRISTEN GILLETTE The Temple News Megan Mizanty and Rori Smith will each present their individual theses as part of “After Bodies,” the final master of fine arts in dance thesis concert of this semester at Conwell Dance Theater. While “After Bodies” isn’t the title of either of their individual pieces, Mizanty said the title encompasses both of the core ideas of their works.

“After Bodies has a few different meanings for us, I think,” Mizanty said. “My thesis deals a lot with technology and with how people are changing because of their technological devices and kind of looking more into the future of what’s going to happen when our reliance on technology becomes very, very prevalent in our lives.”

Part of the name came after the creation of their poster for

Megan Mizanty choreographs her dancers through her MFA thesis piece, “An Attachment.” Mizanty’s piece was inspired by observing her students’ needs to always be on their phones. | ABI REIMOLD TTN the concert, which features hundreds of tiny repeated images of

JESUS LIZARDS, p. 8

Tonia Hsieh’s lab surged in popularity after it was featured in a Temple Made TV commercial.

LIVING DESK 215-204-7416

Mizanty and Smith dancing.

“We did the photo shoot be-

fore we came up with the title of the piece and they kind of in-

“COLORBLIND,” p. 15

Marcie Anker explores how race is considered when casting in the theater department.

LIVING@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

fluenced one another,” Mizanty said. “When we were looking

through [the images] we were thinking it would be interesting if it were not only the two of us but lots of versions of the two of us and that kind of led us to the idea of multiplicity and numerous versions of oneself and that’s how we came up with ‘After Bodies.’”

The idea for Mizanty’s piece, “An Attachment,” came from observing how her students were constantly on their phones before and after her class.

“It made me start thinking,” she said. “People are really changing the way they navigate their daily lives.”

The piece focuses on human attachment to electronic devices and becoming devicelike, she said. It features dancers Minh Nguyen, Michael Nguyen, Melissa Rodis, Kate Abernethy, Crystal Albrecht, Joanna Martin as well as Mizanty herself. The performance also features the live vocal performances of Hilary Bucell and Joanna Martin.

Smith’s work also has a similar theme to Mizanty’s.

UNPLUGGED, p. 16

DANCE PAGE 15

Tech columnist discusses his decision to leave Facebook and his reason for returning.

LIVING

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TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

Tonia Hsieh studies basilisks, also known as “Jesus lizards,” and how they deal with environments they run through. Hsieh and her lizards were spotlighted in a Temple Made TV commercial last fall. | DUSTIN WINGATE TTN

Tonia Hsieh Hsieh’s lab has received more exposure after its lizards made their way into the Temple Made commercial.

DUSTIN WINGATE The Temple News Some stars have surfaced recently from the Temple Made commercial campaign launched last fall, and they’re not all human. Tonia Hsieh, assistant professor for the biology department who works on comparative biomechanics, had the lizards she worked with featured briefly in a Temple Made TV commercial.

The Temple News caught up with Hsieh to find out why Temple Made featured the lab’s lizards and why she is researching reptiles.

The Temple News: What is the main focus of the lab?

Tonia Hsieh: The focus of my lab is really looking at how animals deal with environments that they run through, which is highly complex. So we’re looking at what we call “control systems,” which is pretty much the idea that animals operate as machines. The programs that basically run through the neurological system that allow us to adjust for unexpected situations in the environment.

TTN: Can you talk a little bit about the Temple Made campaign? How did the lizards find themselves in the commercial?

TH: Well I think with the lizards they are fairly un-

usual. It’s one of those things where often times when I talk to people in upper administration or elsewhere, they say, “Oh, you’re the person who’s working on lizards.” So I think it’s one of those things where, because there aren’t really that many people working on campus – I think I’m basically the only one – they are still very dynamic, interesting animals, and that was largely one of the reasons why Temple Made targeted this lab.

TTN: Can you give a brief summary of your experience with the Temple Made commercial?

TH: Actually it was a very quick day. So the group that was filming everything was remarkably efficient and a lot of fun to work with. They pulled a huge amount of equipment into my lab, and in about an hour and a half, they were done.

They had us pull out a bunch of animals and go about a regular day of research.

TTN: Why do you think the Temple Made campaign

incorporated the lizards in the commercial?

TH: I think people like to see animals. Honestly, I think for the most part it’s fun for people to see something like animals, especially when you see a great big green lizard running down a track. It’s exciting to see something like that.

TTN: Did you see more interest in your lab and department after the commercial aired?

TH: I have gotten a lot of comments from people from the standpoint of I have colleagues scattered throughout Pennsylvania, and I’ve gotten random emails from people within Temple, as well as outside the university, saying things like, “You know, I’m sitting in the movie theater about to watch ‘Lincoln’ and oh my gosh suddenly your face was on the screen in front of me with a lizard running at me!”

So, it is impressive, the wide coverage that the Temple Made campaign has actually had.

TTN: What brought you

to Temple University?

TH: There are several things that brought me to Temple. One of those things I do is inherently one where I cross a lot of boundaries. I’m often combining biological theorem concepts with computer science, mechanical engineering [and] physics, and we’re constantly working across all of these different areas. So the thing about Temple that I really appreciated was that it had this very open worldview to the idea of disciplinary research, and there was also a lot of support for young faculty coming in to launch their research programs to really promote this type of work that goes on between departments. What I really appreciate since arriving here is that people in different departments are very open for collaboration.

I really do appreciate the fact that Temple has a very unique group of students who are very much engaged with this idea of learning and actually coming to class to learn material, which makes the teaching extremely

rewarding.

TTN: What plans do you have for the future of your lab?

TH: A lot. One of the new areas that we are really moving into is this area of the voluntary loss of appendages. There really are animals out there that will be like, “Oh, don’t really want this anymore,” and drop a leg or something. What we’re really interested in is beginning to more explicitly fuse that connection between biology and robotics. For example, trying to build more robust robots that can deal with the changing conditions. I’d say the five- to 10-year scenario for the lab is really going to be moving a little bit more explicitly in the neural control side of things, as well as getting into the mechanistic side of robotics.

Dustin Wingate can be reached at dustin.wingate@temple.edu.

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Reflecting on the empty nest

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LUIS FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ

Rodriguez reflects on the impact his parents’ separation has had throughout the past two years.

t was supposed to be a big day for me.

Two years ago, almost to the day, I was on my way to pick up my first press pass. Looking back now it’s eye roll inducing to think about how excited I was, but then again my freshman year is full of those of moments. At least this memory doesn’t begin with me consuming blue alcohol and 99-cent mixers.

I had to rush to the Kimmel Center to pick up my press pass for the first Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, because I had an appointment soon after with my future roommates and landlord on Main Campus.

I got off the train and walked up to the entrance to the Kimmel Center, and then I got the call. My mother had been trying to reach me for a few days, but I had the bad habit of screening her calls.

In my excitement, however, I was compelled to answer this particular call, as I was about to open the door to the Kimmel Center.

“I called to tell you I’m leaving your father,” she said, interrupting me as I tried to tell her how excited I was for my first press pass and attempt to explain what a press pass is in Spanish.

At that point, I was in the atrium of the Kimmel Center, and the press check-in table was in plain sight, but I couldn’t stomach it. I stormed outside as I felt my face flush and my throat close up; there was no press pass or celebrity interview that would have made that situation tolerable.

As my mother explained her reasoning for leaving my dad – and failing to recognize her lack of tact in giving me the news – I stood on Broad Street holding back tears.

Two minutes into her monologue, which showed no signs of ending anytime soon, I became extremely self-aware. The idea of being the kind of person who would casually cry while on the phone in the middle of the day on Broad Street was horrifying.

So I walked around to the side of the Kimmel Center and cried on the phone in the alley like a dignified human.

If my parents did any kind of assimilation correctly it was taking up the WASP tradition of repressing your emotions, especially in public.

After listening to her go on for about 20 or 30 minutes, she asked me how I was doing, and then instructed me not to stress out because it wasn’t really my problem. Thanks, Mom. We ended our conversation,

I wiped my tears, I collected my thoughts and I picked up my press pass. Thankfully that allowed me to forget what just happened, if only for a moment.

The rest of the day was a crash course in putting on a smile and acting as if nothing was wrong.

I went to meet my future roommates at the Saxby’s on Liacouras Walk so we could meet with our future landlord. He was running late, so I did what I do in my darkest moments and ordered pizza from Maxi’s while we waited.

Our landlord showed up, and I really couldn’t tell you anything he told us. There were hundreds of things racing through my mind without any sort of filter. It got to the point where I was just waiting for him to finish his spiel and give us the draft of our lease, so I could go to my dorm room and hide under my covers. I couldn’t even finish eating my food or my feelings, which is unlike me because at least once a week you can find me in a dimly-lit room eating my feelings in the form of taquitos, listening to show tunes – judge me – or late ‘90s to mid-2000s hip-hop.

My parents tried to salvage their marriage shortly after that

SPLIT PAGE 17

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT temple-news.com

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Page 9

ut of this world

Philadelphia is in the process of being approved as the first major U.S. city to house an Earthship – an eco-friendly home composed of recycled materials.

Patricia Madej The Temple News

E

ven the Big Bad Wolf would think twice before blowing down a house made of tires, recycled lumbers, cans and bottles.

Rashida Ali-Campbell, who once studied biology at Temple, is looking to build an Earthship in Philadelphia through her own company, LoveLovingLove Inc. Earthships are the brainchild of American architect Michael Reynolds and are a new, sustainable way of living promoted in his film, “Garbage Warrior.”

The structures are made out of recycled materials with thermal and solar temperature control, solar and wind electricity, and contained sewage treatment. The Earthships even have the ability to produce their own food with a pond for fish and areas for different kinds of plant growth during any time of the year.

“The city makes the largest carbon footprint, and it makes sense for this type of structure to be built in a major city, and we’re really sure this will be the beginning of something beautiful in terms of restabilization,” Ali-Campbell said.

She’s already proposed the idea to various city council members, organizations and universities, including Temple.

Lu Thain (left) and Eva Bryant apply a mixture of clay, concrete and paper shreds to an earthship greenhouse that is part of the garden at the Villiage of Arts and Humanities. | abi reimold TTN Ali-Campbell has been working on the project since about 2008 but is getting closer to breaking ground. She has the support as well as negotiated plans for its first building and now just needs the land to re-

ceive a permit, which she will likely get within a year’s time.

Though it’s been a long time in the making, once AliCampbell’s team starts building, the Earthship will be done in seven to eight weeks. It

would be the first Earthship in a major city.

Currently there are hundreds around the world, AliCampbell said.

She got the idea to build one after watching Reynolds’

documentary.

“I was so inspired, because I felt like this answered so many questions and so many problems we have in Philly,” she said.

Among these problems-

she said, are the cost of living, housing and the abundance of recycled materials that are found abandoned on the sides of the road. The latter is the foundation of building these

eco PAGE 13

Mumford & Sons, Lumineers rely Alumnus gives new on boring songwriting techniques life to Point Breeze

I

KEVIN STAIRIKER Fear of Music

Stairiker finds the simple structure of Mumford & Sons and Lumineers music boring.

must profess: upon the 2009 release of “Little Lion Man,” it could be said that I had something of a soft spot for Mumford & Sons. Whether it was manic banjo picking, the cute way Marcus Mumford pretended to buck authority with liberal sprinklings of “f---” throughout the chorus or even something as insignificant as the band name’s allusions to one of my favorite TV Land shows, something was there.

I listened to the song frequently, never really thinking that I’d care to hear another of the band’s songs or even a full album. Nevertheless, I tried to listen to the band’s first album, “Sigh No More.”

I really tried.

What I found was an album that essentially had two different types of songs on it: loud acoustic stomp-folk and soft, gently guitar-picked acoustic folk.

At times I wasn’t sure when one song ended and another began and as much as I enjoyed

in the clouds, p. 10

“I was

convinced that the ‘I belong with you, you belong with me’ of the chorus was the new Bing theme song.

Minneapolis band Cloud Cult is bringing its indie music to Johnny Brenda’s on April 12.

A&E Desk 215-204-7416

“Little Lion Man,” I wasn’t crazy about listening to 12 different variations on that particular theme. Two years later, the Mumfords won the Best Album award at the Grammys.

What ended up being even more confusing than Mumford & Sons’ initial and continued success was the emergence of sound-a-like songs and bands that followed in a similar “G chord and a smile” blueprint.

The Lumineers are the most clearly indebted, though the band at least has moderately different sounding songs.

Like most bands in the past few years, The Lumineers’ appearance in the collective music conscious was firstly due to rampant marketing. “Ho Hey,” the duller-thandull first single from a band I would soon learn is very good at that sort of thing, was featured in a commercial for perennially second place Internet search engine Bing. After seeing the commercial roughly 3,000 times, I was convinced that the

”

“I belong with you, you belong with me” of the chorus was the new Bing theme song, a sort of musical token of love from the search engine to the viewer.

Not only was I very wrong, but also it turned out that the band that gave its song to Microsoft ironically, and the band was one that wholeheartedly embraced the same prospector-style mindset that Mumford & Sons does.

Whereas Mumford & Sons merely suggests ties with bygone eras in its music, the Lumineers flaunt its old-timey persona openly with songs like “Charlie Boy” and “Flapper Girl.”

More perplexing still about the growing popularity of the aesthetic is that the people who look to the Mumfords and Lumineers as the flag-wavers for back-to-basics folk pop have so many better options. Take persistent Philly favorite Dr. Dog, for instance. Throughout the seven albums its released thus far, the band has gone through every variation of sunny pop music there is, mining various styles that predate it by decades in a way that doesn’t knock listeners repeatedly over the head with a proverbial frying pan. As

Gchord PAGE 11

POOR GAME, p. 11

Columnist Samantha Tighe criticizes EA Games for recent mishaps and mismanagement.

ARTSandEntertainment@temple-news.com

gacre said.

“We never would have been able to make these areas work [otherwise],” Longacre said.

“It’s my Fox [School of Business] degree at work. That’s the reality of it.”

Jenelle Janci Longacre was due to graduA&E Editor ate in 1996 but went back to complete his degree later.

John Longacre takes risks.

The Holland, Pa., native Calculated risks, that is. transferred to Temple from the Longacre has led high- University of Maryland in the stake real estate overhauls in mid-1990s. Longacre said he previously forgotten areas of immediately saw a difference the city, strategically choosing between Temple’s student popuwhere and how he’ll do it. He lation and the one of his previalso ran for city council. And ous school. when asked, he said he would “When I got to Temple, I do it all again. was shocked, because it wasn’t The Temple alumnus has what I thought it was, and all made a name for himself and the kids at Temple have an edge his company, Longacre Prop- to them,” Longacre said. “They erty Management Group, by were all aggressive. It’s like they rebuilding downtrodden neigh- were all on a mission.” borhoods from the ground up Like his classmates at Temthrough new businesses and ple, Longacre found himself on real estate opportunities. He’s a mission of his own – to revamp known primarily for the risks forgotten areas of the city. he took in South Philly’s Point Longacre landed an internBreeze neighborhood that paid ship during college in Ed Renoff – the area is now sought af- dell’s administration, which ter for its award-winning busi- gave him exposure to large econesses. nomic development projects, There’s a science to the like the Navy Ship Yard. Seeprocess of choosing which ing that led him to question why risks are worth it though, Lon-

John Longacre revamped the Point Breeze neighborhood with new businesses.

Longacre PAGE 10

peacing it, p. 13

Philadelphia-based SHARP Dance Company is putting on a Woodstock-themed show.

arts & entertainment

page 10

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Cloud Cult courtesy cloud cult

The Minneapolis band will come to Johnny Brenda’s on Friday, April 12.

JARED WHALEN The Temple News It is rare that you can find a band whose passion is shown both through its music as well as its actions. Minneapolis’ Cloud Cult does both.

Cloud Cult recently released its ninth studio album, “Love,” through its green record label, Earthology.

Cloud Cult formed in 1995 as the solo project of Craig Minowa and has grown into something much larger. The orchestral indie rock band has not only been active musically but has pioneered the way for many eco-friendly practices in the music business today.

Cloud Cult is Craig Minowa, vocals and guitar; Arlen Peiffer, drums; Shannon FridRubin, violin; Daniel Zamzow, cello; Shawn Neary, bass and trombone, Sarah Elhardt-Perbix, keyboard, French horn and trumpet; Connie Minow, visual artist; and Scott West, visual artist and trumpet.

The band of eight is embarking on its nationwide “Love Tour” to promote the new album and will be performing at Philadelphia’s Johnny Brenda’s on April 12.

The Temple News: How did Cloud Cult get started?

Craig Minowa: It stated off as a solo studio project of mine back in the ‘90s, and the album gradually picked up some popularity. We didn’t have a live band, so I just started asking musicians. We’ve had a lot of people come and go over the years, but we have a really, really great crew right now.

TTN: When you have a band this large, what is the writing process like?

CM: It’s still pretty much a solo studio kind of thing. I write and record the majority of stuff here at my home studio, and once I have a collection of songs I’ll send that to the band and then we’ll approach to record the live instruments for what I would have previously had a sample violin or something.

TTN: If you had to describe Cloud Cult’s music, what would you call it?

CM: Eclectic philosophical indie rap.

TTN: Being the primary songwriter and front man of the band, how did you personally get into music?

CM: When I was a young kid my mom played piano in the house a lot, and [my sister and I] started taking music lessons at a pretty young age. At my high school I was playing in bands

and started to write music, and that just kind of kept growing from there.

TTN: What has Cloud Cult been up to recently?

CM: Just finishing this album and getting the whole tour planned. Since we are totally independent, you know, we do all the management and business stuff ourselves. It’s a lot of work that goes into the music end, but also a lot work that goes into the business end.

TTN: Describe some unique qualities of the recording process for your new album.

CM: For the first time we did some group recordings outdoors back in the woods. We did some vocals back in the woods so there are spots in the recording where you can hear birds or wildlife. That was something [we hadn’t] done before.

TTN: How has having a band with eight people affect-

ed touring?

CM: You’ve got to have people who are really laid back...Actually, everybody is getting along really, really well.

We’re very careful about making sure that we communicate well about who runs what part of the machine. That way we can all take care of business and not be jumping down each other’s throat.

TTN: As a songwriter, what would you say the theme of the new album is?

CM: Learning how to work through the layers of personal baggage to be the best possible person that we can be. Our calling is to be loving people.

TTN: What has been a major influence for you and the band?

CM: Family has been huge.

We’ve had a couple of kids over the last three years. Becoming a father has been really challenging and has reawakened me to

the important things in life.

TTN: What was your experience like last time you played in Philly?

CM: It’s a beautiful city.

Last time we were there we got to do World Cafe Live, and that was a program we’ve all listened to out here, so that was a really big honor. I remember our first show out there was in 2004 and two people came. Literately two people came. So it’s nice to see that – well, Johnny Brenda’s is pretty cool and sold out right now – so it’s a nice turn around.

TTN: What are your plans for after this tour?

CM: We’ll be doing festivals and regional shows in the summer and then going back on tour in the fall.

Jared Whalen can be reached at jared.whalen@temple.edu.

Award-winning businesses owned by Fox alumnus similar projects couldn’t happen in areas like Point Breeze, he said.

“How could an area like Point Breeze have pockets that look like a third-world country yet be a nine-minute walk from Rittenhouse Square, which has the city’s most expensive real estate?” Longacre asked.

“This particular section of Point Breeze [before we rebranded it ‘Newbold’], suffered from extreme disinvestment,” Longacre said. “The area was riddled with crime, trash and dilapidated buildings. This was not an area that was viewed as a desirable location for many people to open a business.”

Longacre decided to carve out a section of the area to create a new neighborhood and further distinguish the change – and it stuck. Philadelphia Brewing Company even named a beer, Newbold IPA, after it.

The distinguishing factor of Newbold is a vital part of any successful neighborhood and something that the old Point Breeze neighborhood lacked.

“What I felt this neighborhood really lacked was a civic component,” Longacre said.

By creating sustainable businesses to attract outsiders to the area, Longacre filled this gap. His biggest success is undoubtedly the South Philly Tap Room. An American gastro pub, the restaurant attracts patrons not only from all over the city, but also from New Jersey and beyond.

TV personality Guy Fieri stopped by the South Philly Taproom in February for an episode of “Diners, Drive-ins and

longacre PAGE 9

der which Main Campus falls, is an 18-family LEED certified doesn’t seem to be stopping Dives.” The episode has yet to age turnover is like, six years.”

A successful, hip gastro because he felt improvements apartment complex at 16th and anytime soon – he mentioned be aired but is expected to bring Moore streets called reNew- music venues as a market he’d an incredible amount of traf- pub and upscale coffee and had to be made. “[It was] what I perceived bold. The site for the project was like to explore. fic to the neighborhood. Fieri beer shop is a far cry from what to be a lack of initiative,” Lon- previously inhabited by a school His work ethic may seem told Longacre that within four Newbold used to be.

Longacre said the process gacre said. “When you call your that sat vacant for 50 years. The crazy, but the elbow grease is months of him being there, the Taproom will have had at least of cleaning the area up to pre- councilperson’s office and can’t sleek, modern plan for the com- worth, he said.

“Every day I wake up to one group from every state in pare for these new businesses get a call back, there’s some- plex, reminiscent of the Edge, is was a challenge. thing wrong there.” a sharp contrast to the brick row controlled chaos,” Longacre the country, Longacre said.

“We had a car on the sideLongacre lost to Coun- homes that define the surround- said. “But when I have time The South Philly Tap Room is located at 1509 Mifflin St. It walk whose tires had exploded,” cil President Darrell Clarke. ing streets. However, Longacre to sit back and reflect on it, I offers a wide selection of draft Longacre said. “It was there for Despite his defeat, he said he said that’s exactly what he was don’t think I’d want it any other way. I truly do enjoy it. I really beer and modernized pub food. four months before we could get would definitely run again if he going for.

“We’re going to do some- do get personal satisfaction to saw the need.

Near The South Philly Tap rid of it. We’d call every day.”

The neglect toward the “I’m not the kind of guy thing so that when people see these neighborhoods build Room, Brew/Ultimo Coffee is another addition to Newbold. neighborhood was a sign that who’s going to run just to run,” drive through this neighbor- themselves back to what they The coffee shop boasts coffee it needed to change. For Lon- Longacre said. “I’m not going hood, they’re going say, ‘Holy once were.” from multiple countries, and gacre, the need for change to run just to put it on my résu- s---, something’s going on down Jenelle Janci can be reached at each cup is brewed individually. seems to be a common driver in mé. I want to run for an area that here,’” he said. jenelle.janci@temple.edu.

With real estate and restauThe Daily Meal named Ultimo his life. He ran for City Council needs better representation.”

Longacre’s latest venture rants under his belt, Longacre the No. 1 Coffee Shop in the in 2007 for the 5th District, unU.S. on April 4. Its Newbold location also offers access to Longacre’s Brew, a take-out bottle beer boutique.

In both the South Philly Tap Room and Brew/Ultimo, Longacre greets employees by name and jumps into conversation almost immediately after crossing the threshold. His office is located around the corner from both locations, allowing him to keep close contact with his businesses. The extra care seems to be working – the South Philly Taproom was named one of the “Best of Philly” beer bars

by Philadelphia magazine.

“You can’t get that recognition for a neighborhood without a business that’s doing something right,” Longacre said.

Multiple employees of the taproom have been there for more than five years.

“The average [employee] turnover in this business is one John Longacre transferred to Temple from the University of Maryland in the mid ’90s. Two of his businesses, South Philly Tap year,” Longacre said. “Our aver- Room and beer boutique Brew, have been praised by critics and best-of lists. | jenelle janci TTN

arts & entertainment

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

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EA games Bands follow predictable patterns CEO resigns gchord PAGE 9

SAMANTHA TIGHE Save & Quit

Tighe discusses EA’s flubs in light of the recent resignation of its CEO.

E

very once in a while, a company comes along whose actions and morals are so strongly disputed, it is almost entertaining just to watch how the populace reacts. In this day and age, with the entire “economic downfall” and conservative versus liberal mumbo jumbo going on, you’d expect one of the most hotly contested companies of the year to be some warmonger or a faceless, heartless bank.

Nope, it’s a video game company.

Electronic Arts – commonly known as EA – is one of those super-massive companies that seems to have a hand and influence in everything. Not only is it a developer, but it’s also a publisher and marketer. It’s been around since the early ’80s and is one of the big three in gaming names – coming in third after Activision Blizzard and Nintendo.

EA has been involved in some of the biggest series and franchises to date: “Battlefield,” “The Sims,” “Mass Effect” and all those EA Sports games like “Madden” and “FIFA.” Oh, and “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,” which is one of my alltime favorite games.

For a developer who works on such awesome titles, you’d think they’d be well loved – a business that is nestled in the soft spot of all gamers.

Turns out that’s not the case – they’re pretty well hated.

Why is this corporation hated so much? Well, EA has made a series of increasingly bad decisions over the years.

Instead of being forgotten, these little gaffes have just been compounded. A lot of it, of course, has to do with money.

Companies exist to make a profit. In some strange paralleluniverse, there may be a world of happiness and fluff, where everyone works together for the greater good; unfortunately, we live in the real world. Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘money talks’? Well, EA has.

One thing it’s known for – and strongly disliked for – is buying out small, independent gaming studios and destroying them. The great thing about small studios is that they don’t have big brother watching their back. The unfortunate thing about these small studios is their cash flow. When they’re not struggling for money, they’re just getting by. So it’s not all that surprising that, whenever a sustainable buyout is offered, many jump at the chance.

Pandemic Studios was one such small studio. Started in 1998, it was responsible for such hits as “Destroy All Humans!” and “Star Wars: Battlefront,” in addition to a handful of others.

It was a little guy and it was put-

ting out quirky games that players enjoyed.

In 2007 EA purchased the studio. In 2009 Pandemic Studios was closed.

Now, there have been many extenuating circumstances surrounding the closure of Pandemic Studios that most may not be aware of. It could have been bleeding out funds, but to the average person looking at the news, Pandemic Studios was just another little guy purchased, gutted and destroyed by EA. OK, so EA shut down a small-but-popular studio a handful of years ago, but what does that have to do with what’s going on today?

Well, it sets up this moneygrubbing association. You know how I said earlier that companies need money to survive? Everyone knows that. Sometimes, however, these companies get a little too greedy. Sometimes it may seem like they’re actively trying to weasel cash out of people.

These sound like mad ramblings of a conspiracy theorist.

Surely I’m looking too much into EA’s actions?

Enter the newest “SimCity” installment.

Back in middle school, “SimCity” was the go-to game for our technology class. You’d spend most of the class working, and then, when there was about 10 minutes left, you’d stop and save the game.

Then you would show the citizens of your city how angry of a god you were. Fires, tornados, monster attacks and tsunamis – you would eradicate your city just for the hell of it.

In “SimCity,” you can’t do that. It auto saves.

You need to be connected to servers in order to play, and you can’t play your own game if you don’t have Internet connection.

For about a week, almost two weeks after its launch, “SimCity” was almost unplayable. Players couldn’t connect to the servers, because they were overloaded.

Unable to play their games, they angrily asked for refunds. Most requests through EA’s Origin service were denied.

Amazon issued a warning on the SimCity page, noting that due to server issues, you might not be able to play the game you just purchased. To pour salt in the wound, a hacker revealed that only one line of code needed to be changed to play the game offline, so being connected to the servers wasn’t a necessity after all.

These bad decisions did have consequences. EA’s stock, which has been incrementally dropping for years, was once again slated to decrease. John Riccitiello, who had been EA’s CEO since 2007, turned in his resignation.

Riccitiello’s departure does open up the door for a new head of EA, someone who values the consumer.

But do I honestly think EA is going to change? No, I don’t think it will, at least not anytime soon. It’s nice to know, however, that a majority of consumers out there are beginning to scrutinize EA’s decisions.

“ EA has

made a series of increasingly bad decisions over the years. Instead of being forgotten, those little gaffes have just been compounded.

”

Samantha can be reached at samantha.tighe@temple.edu.

a show of appreciation for its efforts, Dr. Dog can soon be found opening up for the Lumineers at this year’s XPoNential Festival.

Of course, listeners of all music genres can be found guilty for occasionally picking the store-brand, easily digestible version of something great, but in most cases, time has proven what happens with the store brands.

On paper, the success of these bands is a good thing. Instruments – much less acoustic ones – and harmonious vocals stand out pretty extravagantly in this age of bleep-bloops and bass drops. However, there is only so much mileage any sort of band can get strumming chords. Add on the fact that most of the songs that both of these bands produce end up

being in the same key, rhythm and even chord progressions at some points – I’m looking right at you, “Ho Hey” and “I Will Wait” – and it becomes very challenging to withstand the feeling of massive ambivalence.

There are those that will argue that, much like in the early ’90s with bands like Blues Traveler and Hootie and The Blowfish, these bands represent a popular alternative to the regular four-on-the-floor blandness of whatever constitutes as the radio these days.

What these people don’t realize is that this bizarre aping of Americana, even with the banjos, is just a different variation on that same fouron-the-floor blandness. Except instead of augmenting simple melodies with a synth, the

Mumfords and Lumineers dress theirs in suit jackets and obvious minor-chord changes.

Just remember the next time you see someone bashing out some acoustic drudgery on Liacouras Walk that the only

Comedy-Gasm!

A Night of Multiple Climaxes Saturday, April 13 8:30 p.m. $4 The Irish Pol 45 S. Third St.

Fogletto said about what makes the comedy at “Comedy-Gasm!” so raw.

The event takes place at The Irish Pol, a bar at Third and Chestnut streets. The venue will be upstairs from the bar and is known as a great space to hold events.

If you’ve never heard of a “comedy-gasm” before, don’t fret – the term was coined specifically for this show.

“The comedy-gasm was my idea,” Fogletto said. “I think that a lot of comedy should take you by surprise and should be authentic and unapologetic. I wanted to find people who were saying things that were funny but from a different perspective. I personally tell a lot of sex jokes, and a lot of people are pleasantly surprised by it. When we make you laugh, it should count.”

Fogletto also does poetry and spoken word at the Erotic Literary Salon.

“It’s kind of story telling but personal and vulnerable, so we get a real interesting and positive reaction from audiences,” Fogletto said. “The comedy is harder and rougher, and people are more critical.

It’s like good sex you didn’t expect to have.”

A critical audience is no stranger to Fogletto.

“The Philadelphia comedy scene is very supportive,” Fogletto said. “I practice a lot of my jokes on the Internet like on Facebook or Twitter.

People are always grateful that somebody else is doing it.

I think there’s a lot of people that flock toward it because everybody is thinking it.”

At the event there will be comedy performed by Brandon Gorin, Elise ThomsonHohl, L.U.M.P., and Alejandro Morales. Fogletto chose them to perform at the ComedyGasm! for a specific purpose.

“They were people I’ve

Jokes about race, occupations and sex are the types of punch-lines that are typically told at comedy clubs.

Sex jokes seem to be the most popular and could be about the four bases, men getting women or a whole other variety of things.

At “Comedy-Gasm! A Night of Multiple Climaxes,” you’ll find these jokes and more. Rachel Fogletto, the hostess of this event, is a stand-up comedian.

“I feel like I would add something that is embarrassing or vulnerable to myself,”

2013 Cherry Blossom Festival – Sakura Sunday Sunday, April 14 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. $5 Horticulture Center, Fairmount Park Montgomery Drive & Belmont Avenue (I-76 Exit 341) This event celebrates Japanese traditions beneath the cherry blossom trees in Fairmount Park. Come and enjoy numerous music and dance performances, cultural presentations and arts and crafts. The event is open to all people.

difference between that person and a Mumford next-of-kin is that sweet, sweet bass drum gently tapping out a four count.

Kevin Stairiker can be reached at kevin.stairiker@temple.edu.

Five Inexplicable NO. 1 Songs “When Doves Cry” – Prince “Centerfold” – The J. Geils Band “Convoy” – C.W. McCall “Opposites Attract” – Paula Abdul and The Wild Pair “Baby, I Love your Way/Freebird Medley” – Will to Power

The Magic of Stu Rudnick Sunday, April 14 3 p.m. $20 Grasso’s Magic Theatre 103 Callowhill St. This is a magic show unlike you have ever seen before. Not only has Stuart been performing magic for 18 years, but also his show is extremely creative as he comes up with his own original illusions. His shows not only include magic, but also comedy, audience participation and live animals.

seen before,” Fogletto said.

“We all kind of got to know each other in the Philadelphia comedy scene. These are people I feel have an edgy way with their comedy and I’ve always admired their sets, and they all wanted to do it. I think they definitely speak for themselves.”

Comedy-Gasm! will be an entertaining night with lots of laughs, Fogletto said.

“The crowd will make this event successful, because we feed off of the crowd,” Fogletto said. “That’s the whole point. We’re there to do it for you and without a crowd response, it’s nothing. It turns into something different when it’s us performing and you laughing. We feed into each other.”

Grab your 21-plus friends and look forward to a night full of laughs and good times.

Free Community Night at Penn Museum Wednesday, April 10 5-8 p.m.

Free University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) 3260 South St. For one evening, the Penn Museum opens its doors to the community to explore the museum and take a trip around the world. The entire museum will be open so that people can take a look at what it has to offer.

-Rebecca Zoll

Arts & ENTERTAINMENT

page 12

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

TU Japan alumnus to host photography workshop Tsuyoshi Ito will host a three-day workshop at his Project Basho space in the city.

Rachel Barrish The Temple News Tsuyoshi Ito had difficulties finding a photography workshop in Philly, so he created his own.

After graduating from Temple University Japan, Ito chose to move to the United States in 1996 and do something a bit different with his life. While he was living in Philadelphia, he would commute to New York once a week to take photography classes, simply because he said there were no workshops or spaces for people who weren’t enrolled in college.

He had the idea to begin

Project Basho in 2002 as a local photography resource center that focuses on teaching classes and workshops as well as offering rentable dark room space and digital lab access. The original space for the resource center was in Ito’s small living space in Old City.

“Sometimes I even taught classes in my kitchen,” Ito said.

Currently the studio space is located on Germantown Avenue, where it has been for the past six years.

Since 2008, Project Basho has hosted a yearly event entitled “ONWARD Summit,” a photography conference for photographers to showcase their work as well as network with other photographers. The importance of this conference overall is to invest in the change between the digital and the print world, Ito said.

“I think we live in a

strange world where we can see pictures much easier,” Ito said. “Say that I’m interested in a photographer, I just have to Google them and I can see their pictures instantly. I think that becomes more primary. Digital is the first way people see photos these days rather than print.

I want to create an environment that creates a different way to experience photography.”

From April 12 through April 14, photographers locally, nationally and even internationally will be coming to Philadelphia for the 2013 “ONWARD Summit.” Beginning on Friday morning, there will be special workshops taught by professionals about printing and photographic storytelling. On Saturday, there will be a portfolio review at which people sign up to have their work reviewed by professional photographers.

Photographers may bring in

three pieces of their work and then have one-on-one critiques from their choice of 15 professional photographers. Following the portfolio review will be a reception that is open to the public and there will be photos displayed from a pool of 56 people who had previously submitted their work digitally.

In the evening around 5 p.m., there will be the conference where the judges will have chosen two winners from the pool of applicants who submitted their work. There will also be speeches from three keynote photographers including: Mark Steinmetz, well-known for his powerful black and white photos; Eiji Ina, a prominent Japanese photographer; and Maisie Crow, a multimedia photographer who combines still images and video.

Ito wanted to create a conference that was for photog-

raphers, by photographers, he said.

“It’s all about seeing prints, meeting people and hearing what they think in person,” Ito said.

He said he truly feels that the digital age of photography has lessened the importance of printed images.

“I would like people to think of what medium photography is and how it’s changing.

This year we have two keynote speakers who are traditional in a sense and one keynote speaker who also does video and sound,” Ito said. “That is kind of like the state of what photography is now, people use it for different purposes.”

Ito also mentioned how he finds the arts of photography and painting similar.

“A painting is the masterpiece because it’s the original work, and the digital file of it is

the presentation,” Ito said. “In photography, the digital image is the masterpiece and the print is the presentation. That line is never very clear.”

Onward Summit claims to not be a typical photography conference, for its website boasts that there is nothing else like it that exists in Philadelphia.

“We’re stuck on what photography should be, but should focus on what it can be,” he said.

Project Basho has tickets still available on the website, but the public reception will be held at the space at 1305 Germantown Ave., on April 13 at 2 p.m.

Rachel Barrish can be reached at rachel.barrish@temple.edu.

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arts & entertainment

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Page 13

Eco-friendly house to be built in Philly Earthships, Ali-Campbell said. Village of Arts and Humanities She said she hopes once this on Germantown Avenue with Earthship is built, it will be the Philly Earth. start of a “revolution” to build She recognizes the need more. for an enviShe said she ronmental found it interestmovement ing that there is so and said it’s a much abandoned generational land with material need to be doto build, but no ing something one has taken the newer and initiative yet. Alibetter for the Campbell said she planet. believes the city is “I think in need of a “realthere’s defiestate revolution.” nitely an un“This project precedented is important to me, move toward Mira Kim / horticulture student being because Philadelmore phia has so much environmenpotential with vacant land,” she tally friendly and being more said. aware of the fact that there’s Building an Earthship is limited resources,” she said. expensive, more than $100,000, Kim said she views the but this is because of the cost of Earthship as an “off-the-grid” labor, not materials, Ali-Camp- type of living and is excited to bell said. watch its development.

She added that some va“I think it’s encouraging, cant lots have as many as 75 to and I think it’s great to be in a 100 useable tires. She gets cans, city that has such an initiative bottles and lumber from differ- to have its citizens to be more ent recycling centers in the city. aware of the things they’re doThough other Earthships ing and how those things impact are used as homes, Ali-Camp- their environment,” she said. bell said she plans for this one Kim said she is also interto act more as a school called ested to see how the Earthship the Earthship Philadelphia Em- will last in a city where it’s bassy as well as a welcome cen- more common for resources to ter, so people can learn more be brought in rather than created about the structure and how to in that environment. start their own. Ali-Campbell “I think it’s interesting – said this type of setup is similar the many different ways susto the one in New Mexico called tainability is manifesting itself,” the Phoenix. she said.

“The timing is perfect for In the future, two events regular people to learn how to will be hosted to spread more build this house if [they are] awareness for the Earthship. able to secure land,” she said.

“Beyond Conventional DwellLoveLovingLove was ings: What Sustainable Options founded in 2007 and has done Exist for Challenged Communimore than get logistics straight- ties?” with Jonah Reynolds and ened for building Earthships, Bridgette Meinhold will by held Ali-Campbell. on May 23 from 5:30-8 p.m. at “Our mission is to heal im- the Academy of Natural Scipoverished communities with ences at Drexel, 1900 Benjamin holistic opportunities and love,” Franklin Parkway. she said.

A viewing of “Garbage They’ve also been working Warrior” with another discuson an Earthship-style green- sion with Reynolds will be held house in Kensington, located at on May 24 from 7-10 p.m. at 2312 Emerald St., as well as in the Ethical Humanist Society Kimberton, Pa. of Philadelphia, 1906 S. Rit“All of these are demon- tenhouse Square. Admission is strations to get people to em- $10. brace [the] Earthship model,” For any interest in volshe said. unteering on the Earthship Mira Kim, a horticulture project once it breaks ground, student at Temple, is very much contact Ali-Campbell at aware of the Earthship and has lovelovinglove@gmail.com. also volunteered with building Patricia Madej can be reached Earthship-style structures at the

eco PAGE 9

“It’s great to

be in a city that has such an initiative to have its citizens be more aware of the things they’re doing.

”

(Top) Eva Bryant stands in front of the earthship-style greenhouse, composed of recycled material like shredded paper and used bottles. (Bottom) Lu Thain smooths a clay mixture on a tire on the earthship-style greenhouse.| abi reimold TTN

at patricia.madej@temple.edu.

Dance performance at PIFA to channel Woodstock SHARP Dance company plans to take audiences back to the ’60s.

MAURA FILOROMO The Temple News Ever want to time travel to a different era? Where would you go? The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts wants the answer to that question.

PIFA is a month-long celebration of the arts, held every other year since its inaugural celebration in 2011. This year PIFA asked all participants to finish the sentence, “If you had a time machine...”

The festival

began on March 28 and runs through April, culminating in a street fair on April 27.

One organization wants to take audiences to Woodstock.

SHARP Dance Company is presenting “An Aquarian Exposition: A Trip Back to the Original Woodstock,” a performance that aims to take people back to that infamous concert.

Woodstock was held in August 1969 over a four-day period and featured many notable musicians of the time such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Temple history professor David Farber has taught courses on the 1960s, in addition to authoring a few books on the subject as well. He explained that Woodstock had a serious impact in its time.

“In an era of great social unrest and political polarization, Woodstock was

for many white young people a four-day festival that celebrated the best parts of ‘60s-era idealism, a lived embodiment of the ‘peace and love’ ethos they wanted to bring to an angry American society,” Farber said.

Diane Sharp-Nachsin founded SHARP Dance Company about eight years ago.

The group has toured nationally and internationally. Currently, the company is comprised of six dancers. Sharp-Nachsin is one of the main choreographers for the company and choreographed much of the Woodstock performance.

The group rehearses and performs at its venue The Box, located in Fishtown. Every fall it holds a performance, which Sharp-Nachsin said is more formal. For the PIFA event, she was looking for something a little more “fun and light-hearted,” she said.

“When I thought about what would be inspiring, I thought Woodstock would be a great time,” Sharp-Nachsin said. “I wanted to use our normal choreography to fun music.”

Kate Rast, a dancer for the company, was intrigued by the theme.

“The music options are endless and timeless,” she said.

“Along with that, the ideas of acceptance, love and freedom are wonderful things to embody while dancing and performing.”

SHARP participated in PIFA in 2011 with a French cabaret performance. This year, PIFA scaled down on the number of performances.

“They wanted to have less events competing and give people more flexibility in going to the events,” Sharp-Nachsin said.

SHARP was one of a few dance groups picked for PIFA 2013.

“They only took five [dance] groups this year. It was pretty selective,” she said. The company is pleased to be included again in the festival, she added.

“PIFA gives us opportu-

nity for marketing and publicly we get a larger reach. This year we’re on a billboard. It’s a great avenue to reach different audiences,” Sharp-Nachsin said.

She said she wants the show to be an authentic experience by including only songs that played at the actual Woodstock concert.

“We also have two live singers, Jennifer Hallman and Jason Andrew. They’ll both be singing some of the pieces live like ‘Tommy’ by The Who and ‘Piece of My Heart,’ by Janis Joplin. We have percussionist Wesley Raft who wrote a song for us in a new piece,” SharpNachsin said. She hopes the show makes you feel like you are in the ‘60s.

“Our experience is supposed to be like you came to Woodstock and this is what happened on the lawn around the show,” she said.

Dancers will dress the part as well with vintage threads from the time.

“I scoured the vintage world for costumes. We try to make it as true to form as we could,” Sharp-Nachsin said.

“Vintage posters and Woodstock paraphernalia will be hanging all over the

space, so people will really feel like they’re in a different time when they step into the space.”

Audiences are encouraged to dress like it’s 1969. Each night there will be a costume contest with prizes to be awarded.

“We want people to come in their best hippie gear. We’re giving away tickets to future shows. It will be a fun, lighthearted evening out,” SharpNachsin said.

Rast hopes audiences will enjoy themselves and experience the emotions of Woodstock.

“I hope the audiences feel the love that we all have for each other, similar to what the attendees at Woodstock were able to experience,” Rast said.

“I hope that audiences can also have a night of freedom and peace and hopefully forget their troubles for a while.”

The show runs this weekend, April 12-14, and the following weekend, April 19-21.

Tickets are still available for April 19 and April 21.

Maura Filoromo can be reached at maura.filoromo@temple.edu.

ILLUSTRATION addy peterson

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LIVING

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PAGE 15

MFA dancers draw from technology “So what I’m doing in my piece is setting up my dancers “I’m interested in how and with an impossible task where why we create digital versions they want to make physical of ourselves, how we relate to skin-to-skin connection with those digital versions and then digital images,” Smith said. “In how they, in their existence, trying to go through this imposstart to shape us in the physisible task, they develop or decal,” Smith said. “In my piece fine a specific relationship with I’m using large their digital imscale projections age, they also of my dancers feel the impact and they function of the digital in a ghostly, kind impact on their of ambient way bodies so by that is kind of trying to get trail or trace that there, by trycomes after the ing to make the dancers body.” contact, they’re Throughout forced to do her piece, “Skin specific things your ghost and to their bodies wear it,” Smith in space in the Rori Smith / mfa dance student said she examdance.” ines how social Smith said this represents media and digital devices affect how they might interact with young adults. an image of themselves on the “We are surrounded by Internet. screens, and on these screens Smith and Mizanty’s pasts we capture other versions of have influenced their current ourselves that then define how works. Both studied fields other we see our physical [selves],” than dance during their underSmith said. “So when the imgraduate years – Smith studied age of a person is really locked anthropology at Temple, while in that digital space instead of in Mizanty studied English at Ithathe physical.” ca College.

The work features the live “I think it’s fair to say for and digitized performances of both of us, that we’ve taken Shailer Kern-Carruth, Megan parts of ourselves with our Quinn and Ariel Zablocki.

DANCE PAGE 7

“We are

surrounded by screens, and on these screens we capture other versions of ourselves.

”

Dancers rehearse MFA dance student Megan Mizanty’s thesis piece. Mizanty’s piece is part of a joint thesis concert with fellow dance MFA, Rori Smith. The two will present their pieces on April 12. | ABI REIMOLD TTN other disciplines and steeped it in the works that we’ve created in dance,” Mizanty said.

“I think we’ve never actually thought about it but we have really brought in our past selves into our work quite strongly in a good way.”

After graduation, both Smith and Mizanty plan on continuing their dance careers in Philadelphia.

“Now that we’re graduating, we can really start to get to know the expansive dance community in Philadelphia be-

cause there’s so many different places we can get to go to, and just finding avenues and places to make work and create work and to be part of the works of others,” Mizanty said.

Performances will be on Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m.

with a reception following the show, and two performances at 2:30 p .m. and 7:30 p.m. on Sat., April 13. Prices vary from $5 to $20.

self for using a – sigh – “Twilight” reference, but you get the picture.

So when I watched student actors enter, I instantly recognized the same frightened expressions in their eyes, and imagined how silly I must have looked. As actors, we hear again and again, “Directors want you to do well, they want you to have good auditions, they want to cast the best actor for the part,” and promptly write it off as hot air. But it’s true. I genuinely was pulling for every person that entered, and I wanted to cast the best actor with the best audition.

I saw good auditions, bad auditions, ugly auditions and auditions that made me wish I had my friend Jose Cuervo there to comfort me and tell me everything would be all right.

The theater department’s racial and cultural diversity waxes and wanes with each new wave of incoming students per semester, but by and large it maintains a primarily white majority, with a greater amount of women than men. As you can imagine, this presents certain challenges when trying to create a balanced, well-rounded season.

“Given the demographic composition of the student body, obviously it’s a very diverse group of kids,” Wager said. “So we’re always looking for opportunities to provide for

students to experience working actor] pretend to be [something in ethnocentric material, which you aren’t]. There are some is cultural-specific. But also, plays where race doesn’t matwe look for opportunities where ter. You cast the best actor for casting diversity can be built the role and you cast it regardinto the world of the play that less of any other criteria. The doesn’t necessarily make you point is to not rule anybody out, take non-traditional casting into unless the story unequivocally consideration.” rules them out.

The balancThat means, ing part of the just because job comes into [‘A Streetcar play when a Named Desire’ show calls for a by Tennesdisproportionate see Williams] amount of actors is written for from one spea white cast cific group. Like doesn’t mean last year, one of you can’t do it the shows was with a mixed “Richard III,” race cast. which calls for a But that also nearly all-male doesn’t mean cast. To counter Lia Simon / senior theater major you should do that, “Top Girls” ‘Fences,’ [a was done the play by August next semester, an all-women Wilson written for an Africanshow.

American cast], with an allNon-traditional casting is white cast.” essentially the practice of castThe importance of story ing a particular role without and storytelling were points that consideration of the actor’s eth- Wager stressed emphatically, nicity. saying that the world of the play Adjunct acting professor, that is created by the ensemble Nancy Boykin, cites the source can either make or break a show. of the challenge as the lack of The impact of a show can be ethnically diverse parts being compromised if a director tries written in new work. to force context upon the story “It’s hard to find characters in order to purposefully make a that are ‘heroes’ of other nation- show different. Sometimes nonalities [than white-American],” traditional casting works, and Boykin said. “There is a gigan- sometimes it doesn’t. tic gap in works when it comes “In the industry, the whole to other ethnicities.” subject of non-traditional castBoykin is right. There ing has ceased to be controveraren’t a whole lot of plays that sial, which is good. Because call explicitly for ethnic charac- now it’s just good theater or bad ters. And I don’t think that the theater, and good theater is done problem is in casting, as I once regardless of the parochial view did. There is a huge misconcep- of cultural boundaries,” Wager tion that there is faulty and/or said of the world outside of the biased casting, but, as Boykin Temple theater department. said, “David [Ingram], Doug Senior theater major Lia [Wager] and Dan [Kern] make Simon, an incredibly talented great efforts to balance and actor, weighed in on Temple’s spread around casting. They try casting practices. to use the best actor for the part.

“I know starting out here, Unless, of course, that actor is like freshman year, I was a little over-used.” confused why I would see the Wager shares Boykin’s same people being cast all the firm belief that casting is about time – people older than me, choosing the best actor for the basically. And I thought it was role, nothing else. When I used preferential treatment or prethe phrase “colorblind casting,” casting, but I’ve grown to see though I couldn’t see his face, and understand that you just but I could tell Wager was dis- don’t get cast in everything that pleased. I was so embarrassed. you audition for. Theater is so “I don’t believe in it,” Wa- creative and experimental that ger said. “‘Colorblind casting’ is anything can be done on stage a phrase that comes from a white – any role can be mixed-race or culture of accountability, so it gender-bent. If an actor comes already is saying that ‘color- in and knows the text and can blind casting’ makes you [as an become the character, it doesn’t

matter what a person looks like or what ethnicity they are.”

Simon added that she’s never felt at a disadvantage based on race or ethnicity and doesn’t get down on herself when she isn’t cast in a show.

“When I first came here, it was more about me learning about the craft that I have, and I don’t think I had the proper tools at first. It was all about growth,” Simon said.

Kathy La, a junior theater major, recognized and addressed the gap that Boykin referred to in new works.

“There are a limited number of roles that are written and offered to Asians and Hispanics,” La said. “And the few characters that exist are often stereotypical. But a lot of it is dependent on the actor, because the actor has to be a character chameleon, because the presence of the character has to come first before race, ethnicity or gender.”

What La said echoes something that Wager says about actors: “All actors must believe that they can play everything.

That’s part of the actor’s job.

From the actor’s perspective, it’s a need to believe that anything is possible.”

Belief is the driving force in theater – actors must believe they can play anything, directors must believe they can do any show and writers must believe they can tell any story. Directors take chances on casting, like actors take chances on auditioning. Gender, ethnicity and race are secondary to the story being told.

In the words of the wise Wager: “There’s good theater, and there’s bad theater.” Here at Temple we believe in the former, and nothing else.

Kristen Gillette can be reached at kristen.gillette@temple.edu.

Race, ethnicity not deterrents in casting process

MARCIE ANKER Starving Actor

Anker continues her look into the politics of casting in the theater world.

T

here’s good theater, and there’s bad theater,” Doug Wager repeated several times to me throughout our phone conversation. I know, I spoke to Doug Wager on the phone; it’s all right to be jealous.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Wager, he is the head of the theater department, head of graduate directing and, most recently, the director of Temple’s main stage production of “The Liar,” by David Ives.

Season selection is yet another one of the duties that falls to Wager’s shoulders. A process that he described as “kind of like playing 3-D chess. We al-

ways have to be very aware of the casting pool in relationship to gender, culture and race. At the same time, the season has to have a variety of interdisciplinary students – we have [musical theater students], grad students, lighting and production grads; a series of pedagogical imperatives that have to be taken into account, and ultimately it comes down to what you can afford.”

I had an eye-opening experience at the end of last semester when I was able to sit in on the spring season auditions. I sat two chairs down from Wager, who was charged with the exhausting task of casting all three shows of the spring semester, including his own.

During the course of two nights, we easily saw more than 160 students, keeping us in Barton well past midnight on the second night. I was the dead last person to audition. As you can probably guess, I wasn’t cast.

Watching every student audition before me didn’t exactly do wonders for my self-confidence, but sitting on the other side of the casting table taught me so much about actors and the audition process. Before that moment, I’d walked into tons of audition rooms and seen the line of eyes staring at me from behind the judging table, and I felt like I was standing in front of the Volturi, just waiting to be torn apart. I’m sorry, I hate my-

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“Theater is so

creative and experimental that anything can be done on stage – any role can be mixed-race or gender-bent.

”

Marcie Anker can be reached at martha.anker@temple.edu.

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TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

Virtual identity becomes Use of sexuality does not possible cause for concern equate to objectification

CHRIS MONTGOMERY superuser do

I

Montgomery urges Facebook users to reflect on their online image.

should start this off with a disclaimer: I am a recovering Facebook addict.

First of all, the beloved social media platform has consumed so much of my time. This is likely a sentiment you can identify with if you’ve ever Facebook-ed. I’ll admit that might be more an issue with our time management than it is directly with Facebook. For evidence, take a look at my college transcript.

That said, I also believe Facebook is designed to consume time. Do you think it’s a bad thing when you have Facebook open in several browser tabs because you can’t help but get trapped in a compulsive loop of check and re-check, terrified by the possibility that you might miss out on some important social event?

It doesn’t matter.

Facebook is designed to be addictive. Its designers want your endless attention, if they can get it. And Facebook’s tendency to consume doesn’t stop there.

Not only is Facebook a time-waster, but it has also mediated my social life, consuming the space between friends and replacing it with its own apparatus. How many of my interactions with friends are dependent on Facebook-based communication in some form or another?

I’m concerned by our social lives’ growing dependency on Facebook’s communication tools. It’s even getting to the point where some of my friends with smartphones will prefer a Facebook message instead of a SMS message. This substitution of media isn’t concerning in itself, but the platform’s monopoly over our social lives does concern me.

My media intake receptors are over-sensitized – I overanalyze everything I experience online and offline. Why else do you think I write this column?

My cup is overflowing and I don’t know what to do.

Facebook and its other social media family members – like kissing cousin Twitter, hated uncle Google+ and adopted daughter Instagram – even have the tendency to inspire dissociation from everyday life. Sometimes the first thing that pops into my head when a friend in “meatspace” says something funny or does something cool is that Chris Montgomery should put that funny or cool thing into cyberspace to explode it all over the windshield of his social graph and immortalize it in time as I drive my speeding vehicle into a glacier.

Archaeologists might also wonder about Chris Montgomery’s favorite places to check in, and this too concerns me so much that Chris Montgomery splatters that all over his dashboard too. And maybe he’s found some cat meme or political slogan to slap on his bumper alongside all the thousands of likes, comments and tags Chris Montgomery has accrued throughout the years.

I was never mystified by the concept that a photograph can steal a soul. Do you know who David Bowie is? David Bowie is a pseudonym or stage name of a human called David Jones. You might know who Bowie is, but you definitely don’t know who Jones is. Still, even Bowie himself goes by pseudonyms: Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke and Tao

“My media

intake receptors are oversensitized – I over-analyze everything I experience online and offline.

”

Jones to name a few. Bowie, or more realistically, Jones, is well aware of the power images have to fragment and obscure a person’s identity. Jones uses it to his advantage, cloaking himself in a personality for the times.

The mass-production media produces thousands of variations on the image of Bowie and distributes them to the public and so we have a diluted representation of a human’s representation of himself, fit for our consumption.

Andy Warhol has been quoted endlessly about each of us getting our 15 minutes of fame. Now, our cyberspacedwelling Facebook-selves make us all celebrities. Warhol didn’t see Facebook coming. We are celebrities to each other – you can “stalk” a crush on Facebook just like you can read creepy celebrity fan sites and slash fiction. We only choose our idealized versions of ourselves to represent us as profile pictures.

What really makes this whole online persona thing a deal-breaker for me is the platform’s privacy issues and the company’s misuse of information. Facebook is not free. You and I pay a high price for it.

Money might not necessarily be invoked, but we quite literally pay with our livelihood. Our interests, our faces, our favorite restaurants, our memories, our conversations and, sometimes, entire relationships are Facebook’s form of payment. Pay your tributes to the agents of the FIA – the Facebook Intelligence Agency.

So I killed Chris Montgomery. My Facebook-self has been deleted. Years of Chris Montgomery life have been archived and finally deleted.

I have a new Facebook account now. Its name is “Mont Xdo.” It is female. I am in a Facebook relationship with an imaginary version of the human I am dating. I have very few posts on my wall. It’s much easier to keep track of Mont Xdo, because it’s easy to see her growth from nothingness.

As Mont Xdo said on March 15, the day after her Facebook birth, “You control everything you are, here.”

Chris Montgomery can be reached at chris.montgomery@temple.edu.

CARY CARR Body of Truth

Carr urges women to stop judging one another for using their sexuality.

M

y typical Saturday night is unlike most college students’. Instead of throwing back shots of vodka and snapping pictures with my girlfriends, I’m dressed in itty-bitty, sequin-adorned outfits, performing on a platform or stage. And instead of flirting with cute guys at the bar, I’m trying to ignore the obnoxious pickup lines and uncomfortable stares.

Confused? Well, I’m a gogo dancer, and I work at venues in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, dancing on the weekends to save up for my post-college adventures.

With this career, I’ve made the decision to use my sexuality to make money. And while my job does require talent, I’m fully aware that my body and my looks are what really matter in the industry.

Now, while I understand that not everyone is a proponent of go-go dancing, whether it’s due to religious or personal reasons, I’m sick and tired of being criticized for my life choices.

I realize that many men are in fact viewing me as an object or, rather, a piece of meat they can watch from afar. But I also know that I am in control of my own sexuality, and that as a grown woman, I can make these decisions and should be able to do so without ridicule or judgment.

I was recently performing in Atlantic City when a woman approached me and let me know that “I was too pretty for this,” and that “I could do better.”

Maybe I should be used to these types of offensive comments, but just because I show off my body doesn’t mean that I am not intelligent, hardworking or goal-oriented, as this stranger so kindly implied. To the contrary, I have the smarts to know how to take advantage of my sexuality and the confidence to realize what my limits are.

I wasn’t always so comfortable go-go dancing. I used to feel ashamed of my body, as though I should be hiding my sexuality – something I couldn’t even identify with, let alone utilize. But through performance, I learned to own my femininity, to realize the beauty and sensuality of my own body. And isn’t that what so many women are striving for?

About a year ago, a girl unhappy with me for dating her former beau attacked me via Facebook.

“You’re a slut,” she proclaimed, citing my go-go dancing career. “You should only be showing off your body to the people you love.”

She then went on to criticize my weight, my breasts and my looks, objectifying me more than the men who watch me dance.

Comments like this made me realize that women were always going to be my harshest critics. The problem is that by using words like “slut,” “whore” and “hoe,” women are taking away the choice to take a hold of our sexuality. Instead, we are just perpetuating the same judgments we are trying to fight against, allowing others to decide how much or how little skin we can show, how sexy or innocent we can be.

So here’s my plea: My fellow ladies, can we please stop judging one another on the decisions we make concerning our sexuality? Whether it’s a porn star, a stripper or an exotic dancer, she has the right to de-

cide what career field she wants to enter.

Instead, let’s put our efforts to instilling more self-confidence in each other, in owning our bodies rather than having someone else decide what we should do with them.

I promise as a go-go dancer, I don’t have any bad intentions. I’m not bearing my midriff or cleavage to piss you off.

I’m simply doing what I love to do – dance – and I’m OK with being sexual about it.

It’s not going to affect my future; it doesn’t give me low self-esteem; and I’m not going to have regrets looking back at my decisions when I’m older.

Actually, I’ll probably think I was pretty hot and give myself a pat on the back for having the confidence to get up and dance in front of hundreds of people.

Just this past weekend, a woman came up to me to let me know that I was “beautiful” and asked for my picture. As she was walking toward me, I immediately began preparing myself for some form of an insult or a dirty, disapproving look.

Her compliment took me by surprise and empowered me for the rest of the night.

So one last final reminder for those who have a problem with what I do: I am beautiful, and my body’s pretty awesome, too. I show it off, I get paid for it and I’m OK with it. You should be too.

“I’m simply

doing what I love to do – dance – and I’m OK with being sexual about it.

”

Cary Carr can be reached at cary.carr@temple.edu.

MEET YOUR MEAT Peta2, the youth branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, stopped by the Bell Tower on April 4 and April 5 with its traveling exhibit, “Glass Walls.”

The exhibit, which was set up to look like an inflatable barn one could enter, was split into two parts.

When first entering the barn, viewers were greeted with posters of different livestock, such as pigs, cows and chickens. The posters had information on the condition each animal is typically held in before being sent to slaughter.

“We launched the exhibit mid-September [2012],” said Ken Montville, the college campaigns assistant for PETA. “It was kind of an idea we were throwing around where we wanted to create the world’s first interactive factory farm experience.”

Upon walking to the other side of the exhibit, a video narrated by singer Paul McCartney plays. At the opening of the video McCartney states: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

That tagline is used throughout the film, the text fading in after each segment

detailing how specific animals are slaughtered in their respective industries.

“The whole point is pulling back that curtain that hides the cruelty animals face when they’re raised for meat, dairy or egg industries,” Montville said.

Viewers could sit in front of the projection screen in chairs surrounded by caging, to imitate the conditions many animals experience.

Montville added the exhibit has traveled to three-dozen schools and has received a mostly positive response.

“I think it’s pretty effective,” said Doug Naphas, a junior computer science major. “I was already vegan when I went into it and I care about this stuff a lot, but I think someone who didn’t know about this stuff could be persuaded.”

Caroline Tetu and Christina Giancola were on their way to lunch when they came across the exhibit.

“I didn’t know what it was when I first walked in,” said Tetu, a sophomore psychology major. “I’m surprised it’s on [Main Campus] since it seems like a controversial thing to have in the middle of campus.”

Tetu added she and Gianc-

ola were first interested in entering the exhibit because they saw a poster of a baby pig.

“I think any time you use imagery like this it will make you think about it, even if it doesn’t change your mind,” said Giancola, a sophomore fine arts major. “I guess that’s the point.”

Upon exiting the exhibit, students were greeted by peta2 representatives and given vegan/vegetarian starter kits.

The kits contained literature, celebrity testimonials, stickers, recipes and a vegan cookie.

Montville added that students can now have more choices if they choose to live a vegan lifestyle.

“Many colleges, including Temple, have vegan options such as vegan pot pies and dairy free chocolate mousses,” Montville said. “Thankfully students don’t have to support that kind of cruelty.”

“Glass Walls” is currently at the University of Pittsburgh, making its next stops at Plymouth State University and SUNY Buffalo.

-Luis Fernando Rodriguez PETA visited Main Campus on April 4 and 5 with its “Glass Walls” exhibit, which aimed to show the realities of factory farms. | LUIS FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ TTN

LIVING

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

PAGE 17

Trio discovers untapped market in food truck delivery The delivery system seems to be appreciated by students said Hawkins, a senior commuwho feel the $1.50 charge added nications major. “We hope to to the bill for delivery is worth it combine all the good trucks and if it means get students skipping really excited the lines about this.” and not Sponhaving to sored venchange out dors include of their paboth Busz jamas. trucks, Cook“ I ie Confidenw o u l d tial, Mike’s definitely Steaks, Ray’s not mind Truck, Simpaying a ply Yummy little extra and Wingo Reggie Hawkins / legit delivery cofounder money to Taco.

Unhave the sponsored food brought to me,” Jessica vendors are Sexy Green Truck, Snyder, a freshman education The Creperie and Richie’s. major, said. “If I didn’t have to

DELIVERY PAGE 7

“We’re just a bunch

of friends running a business. We’re not fat cats sitting around a table looking at ways to try to make money.

”

wait that long, and I could stay in my dorm. It’s worth it, 100 percent.”

For the founders of Legit Delivery, the best part of running the business isn’t about the profit. Instead, it is about being involved in the North Philadelphia community and offering a unique service to the university.

“This whole neighborhood is an ecosystem that lives off of Temple,” Hawkins said.

“You have people running these trucks that basically live off the university, and we just want to bring them closer to students.”

While the inclusion of Legit Delivery into the local food truck business is making an impact on the way students get their food, it is also changing the way owners and employees

conduct business.

“The guys from Legit Delivery are young, so they’re just learning the business, but they’re really enthusiastic, which is important,” said Nam Kim, owner of the Wingo Taco truck. “For me, just having a third-party group that is willing to help with delivery allows us to better concentrate on the quality and service of the truck.”

Thus far, Shanley, Hawkins and Tohchoodee have dedicated most of their time to making sure Legit Delivery can successfully carry out their mission.

Making the owners of the culturally diverse food trucks feel more connected to the students, and vice versa, is their No. 1 priority.

“It’s not a 9-to-5 job, it’s

definitely more of a 24-hour operation,” Shanley said. “But you have all of these immigrants from different countries running these trucks and you just can’t get that stuff everywhere. Especially at those prices.”

Aside from its main goal, Legit Delivery is also looking to make an impact outside the delivery business.

“The end goal is to create a Temple University Food Truck Association,” Shanley said.

“This will establish a network where customers can order through a mobile application that supports credit cards and cash on arrival orders. We’re also looking to expand to all of Philadelphia post-graduation.”

They have set their sights high, but as newcomers to the

food delivery business, the Legit Delivery founders are not concerned with making a ton of money at the moment, as they receive about 10 orders a day.

For now, they are just happy serving fellow students, they said..

“We’re just a bunch of friends running a business,” Hawkins said. “We’re not fat cats sitting around a table looking at ways to try to make money. We are really just trying to donate and get involved in the community as much as we can and have fun while doing it.”

Alexa Bricker can be reached at alexa.bricker@temple.edu.

Activist rejects ‘inspirational’ label Harilyn Rousso explains why she doesn’t want to be an “inspiration.”

DAVID ZIEGLER The Temple News This past Thursday, April 4, disability activist and scholar Harilyn Rousso read from her new book, “Don’t Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back” in Ritter Hall.

With more than 100 people in attendance, Rousso, on April 4, read selected chapters from her memoir, focusing on society’s perception of her disability throughout her life and how the disability community in general objects to being referred to as “inspirational.”

In reality, she said, they are just like everybody else and face the same challenges that “normal” people go through: getting an education, dating, raising a family and trying to fit that societal “norm.”

Rousso, 66, has cerebral palsy, a condition that affects the functioning of the brain and its coordination with muscles in the body. It affects her gait and her speech. During her introduction, she admitted that people usually have a hard time understanding her, especially when she speaks in front of a large audience.

Rousso used humor right away to get people’s attention to explain why she is not inspirational.

“I’m damn boring, if you ask me, which you rarely do,” Rousso said. “I worry about paying the rent, eating too much chocolate, and finding telltale wrinkles – sound inspirational yet? I’m addicted to

“Law and Order,” chardonnay with a nice bouquet and McDonald’s french fries. And yes, I talk with a disability accent that makes you wonder whether I’ve had too much of that chardonnay… [and] my walk is less than graceful. I know, I know, if you were me, you’d never leave your house and maybe even kill yourself. So I am inspirational because I haven’t committed suicide.”

Carol Marfisi, a professor of disability studies, who also has cerebral palsy and has been a long-time colleague of Rousso’s, said that the reading was “bold and provocative, bringing to the surface many taboo issues and topics people may wonder about, but are too polite to ask.”

Marfisi acknowledged that society has come a long way in its treatment of people with all different kinds of disabilities, but there is still a lot of progress to be made.

“Calling me inspirational is putting my being ‘normal’ as something you would not expect,” Marfisi said. “And in a way, that’s like confessing that you’re expectations are lower or different than they would be for an able-bodied women of the same demographic.”

Marfisi said she believes people have to look at things from a person with a disability’s perspective, and maybe then they will realize while they may have thought that they were being nice with their statement, it still could be construed as offensive.

“It’s like people are saying that they couldn’t see themselves achieving anything or living the same way, had they been disabled,” Marfisi said.

“I know that people don’t mean any harm when they say things like, ‘Oh, wow, you’re

Students listened as Harilyn Rousso read from her book “Don’t Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back,” in Ritter Hall on April 4. | DALEXIS PEGUERO TTN so brave,’ but at the same time it places us on a pedestal and typecasts us, while also putting a lot of pressure to maintain that ‘inspirational’ role.”

And with her course “Disability Identity,” Marfisi teaches her students the idea that people with disabilities cannot all be lumped into one category.

Marfisi added that “saying someone is ‘inspirational’ also sets a standard for all people with disabilities, when in reality, you have to consider a person’s individual situation, privileges and challenges.”

Rousso’s stories during the reading illustrated everyday struggles that people – disabled

or not – go through, especially the pressure society puts on people to fit an accepted perception of “beauty.”

Reading from her chapter “On Not Looking in the Mirror,” Rousso allegorizes people’s desire to be something different than what they see when they look at themselves in the mirror. She explained how she can’t identify with the woman she sees.

“Walking in such a graceless way, with her knees and toes turned in and body off-balance,” Rousso said. “Why in my mind’s mirror do I see myself walking like every woman, like anyone but this woman?”

Throughout the years, she learned to approach this in a different way, choosing to turn that stranger in the mirror into a friend.

“I can’t say that I am ready to claim that stranger,” she read.

“But somehow she seems ever so slightly more recognizable, more acceptable. The image no longer has an association with only defect.”

Rousso concluded the event with a story about how her big tuxedo cat Sylvester leaped up on the bed to relax with her while she was watching movies with her significant other. Rousso was worried that Sylvester would not find a comfortable

place to lie on top of her, since her body is always in constant motion. Eventually he did, and Rousso joked about how from the cat’s perspective, she probably felt like a waterbed.

“By picking me, Sylvester had reduced my embarrassment about my body,” Rousso said.

“Maybe defects – differences – don’t matter all that much when it comes to being lovable. Maybe we can all be the cat’s meow if we choose the right cat.”

David Ziegler can be reached at david.ziegler@temple.edu.

Adjustment period can be detrimental day for my sake, and I managed to make it through the last weeks of my freshman year without being too rattled.

I went back home to Florida for three weeks as I waited for move-in day for my first house, and I watched my parents tiptoe around each other and witnessed the devolution of their relationship as they began to live as roommates.

In the two years since that Kimmel Center phone call, I’ve received phone calls like it.

Whether it be when my mother called me to tell me she had officially moved out, my dad

calling me to tell me his side of many stories or my mother texting me bad news without warning as I worked on a takehome final, it was never a good time.

S u d denly I was in the middle of my two best friends. They weren’t on good

SPLIT PAGE 8

terms anymore and they would talk about each other to me. My parents were making me the Heidi Montag to their Lauren Conrad and Spencer Pratt, but out of respect I have for them, I will say both of my parents are LC. That’s a good thing for those of you lacking “The Hills” knowledge.

It’s interesting to go through your parents

“I’d be lying if I

said there haven’t been days where I’ve stared in the mirror and thought about giving myself the 2007 Britney Spears makeover.

”

divorce when you’re in your 20s. You want to be an adult about it and accept that relationships come to an end sometimes, but in the back of your mind you hold onto the idea that “mommy and daddy” are meant to be together.

At least if my parents had separated when I was younger, I could have justified going through one of those fun emo phases I was deprived of when I was in middle school or, you know, get a therapist to help me adjust.

I’d be lying if I said their split isn’t still affecting me. I’d

be lying if I said there haven’t been days where I’ve stared in the mirror and thought about giving myself the 2007 Britney Spears makeover, because I still feel a little lost. And I’d be lying if I said events in the last two years haven’t affected me mentally, emotionally and academically.

I was feeling really down recently and when I looked at the calendar I realized why. It shocked me how much time had passed, how much I had changed and how little I had resolved.

Just addressing my prob-

lems hasn’t been enough, so I’ve made a vow to myself to actively seek help to sort through what the last two years have done to me. While I do think I have been made stronger because of my issues, they’ve also managed to make me feel much more exposed.

Luis Fernando Rodriguez can be reached at luis.fernando@temple.edu or on Twitter @theluisfernando.

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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Returning young linebackers to headline defense Football team is anchored by two promising young linebackers.

IBRAHIM JACOBS Assistant Sports Editor For Temple football, the 2013 season was supposed to be the year that everything settled down and consistency began to develop.

The Owls were supposed to be in their second year of the Big East Conference, being led by a head coach in his third year of service at the university.

Instead, the team prepares this offseason heading into what, on paper, appears to be the second-straight rebuilding year.

After the Big East imploded, the Owls now find themselves in the newly-constructed American Athletic Conference and being led by the school’s third football coach in four years.

Where Temple can find solace, and consistency, is the returning linebacker core featuring two young talents in sophomores Tyler Matakevich

FOOTBALL

and Nate D. Smith.

Matakevich and Smith finished their freshman campaigns ranking first and second on the team, respectively, in tackles.

Matakevich won the Big East Rookie of the Year award and set a school record by being the first freshman to record 100 tackles.

“Both of them have a lot of ability and instincts,” defensive coordinator Phil Snow said. “They are going to be good linebackers. And they are both young, which is nice, so I’m looking forward to seeing their growth over the next few years.

When you have two to three years to work with a player you really benefit.”

What was perhaps more remarkable about Matakevich’s rookie season is that he managed just two total tackles in the first three games of the season.

After erupting for 15 stops in the fourth contest against South Florida on Oct. 6, 2012, he started and led the team in tackles in each of the seven remaining games.

“Coming into the season I was a freshman and young and

I didn’t really understand the schemes,” Matakevich said. “I didn’t have as much experience, but when [senior linebacker Olaniyi Adewole] went down I had an opportunity and I didn’t let it pass.”

While Matakevich and Smith have time to grow, the pair of linebackers have already noticed strengths in the other’s game that they can build upon.

“Tyler has great instincts,” Smith said. “He gets to the ball every single play and I just feed off of that. We make each other better.”

“Nate just goes 100 percent,” Matakevich said. “We definitely feed off each other and make plays but he is always going to make plays. I never even know if he’s doing the right or wrong thing because he is always going 100 miles an hour.”

Matakevich’s and Smith’s instincts led to them anchoring a defense that suffered from inconsistent play last year.

While Matakevich and Smith led the team in tackles, they did so on a defense that was often gashed both in the air and on the

ground. In 2012, Temple ranked last in the conference in total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense and pass defense efficiency, and second-to-last in red-zone defense and opponent third-down conversions.

“Last season didn’t go exactly as planned,” Matakevich said. “We were a young team but that’s no excuse.”

The success that the linebacker duo had last season hasn’t translated into a secured starting position for either player. When the initial depth chart was released, Matakevich was slotted as the starter at the “Will” linebacker position while Smith was buried at third at his position of “Mike” linebacker. “[Smith] is not running with the ones right now, he has to make a commitment to being physical day in and day out,” coach Matt Rhule said about Smith. “He hasn’t earned the job and he is battling. Nate is resilient and he wants to play, he just needs to play the way we want him to play.”

The two players listed above Smith on the depth chart

are seniors Wyatt Benson and Adewole. Benson played fullback last season while Adewole registered 29 tackles to Smith’s 75.

“Everybody has to earn their spot, I don’t care what they did last year,” Snow said. “If they are the best guys then they will start.”

A returning group of core players at the linebacker unit should help solidify the defense that is attempting to have a bounce-back season, Snow said.

While the linebacker group was able to remain relatively intact, the safety position is one in which inexperience could be a factor.

After losing both Vaughn Carraway and Justin Gildea in the offseason, the team will be attempting to replace the starting safeties who were the team’s third and fourth leading tacklers.

Junior Chris Hutton and senior Abdul Smith are currently listed as the starting safeties and combined for 20 tackles last season.

Carraway and Gildea teamed up for 122 stops in 2012.

“We have some experience at each position, the one that

we don’t is the safety position,” Snow said. “It is important [to have good linebackers] because the safeties won’t have to have as many tackles because the ball in the run game won’t get to them, so that helps a young safety.”

“The linebackers will be the strength of the defense because of experience and leaders,” Smith said. “We need to be more unified as a defense as a line-backing core. Last year was a little shock because it was so new but we will benefit from experience.”

In a new conference, with a new coach, playing time will be earned, not given, coaches said.

“Everything is earned. If you are looking at what you did last season you aren’t ready for this season,” Rhule said. “I am not going to assume anyone can do something, they have to show it.”

Ibrahim Jacobs can be reached at ibrahim.jacobs@temple.edu or on Twitter @ibrahimjacobs.

Reilly making plays in Rhule’s pro-spread

Senior wide receiver Tyron Harris is part of a corps of wide receivers that coach Matt Rhule said needs to “make plays.”

Connor Reilly recently moved up to the No. 1 quarterback position in Rhule’s pro-spread offense. | AJA ESPINOSA TTN

REILLY PAGE 20

who just wants a quarterback to make plays, be it with his feet or his arm.

At the end of spring practice last week, coach Matt Rhule said Reilly was the No. 1 quarterback on the depth chart, ahead of redshirt-senior Chris Coyer and senior Clinton “Juice” Granger, who both received time as starter last season. “[Reilly is] completing the

ball and moving the offense,” Rhule said. “He makes a big play everyday. That’s what you’re looking for, someone who completes balls and moves the offense, for what we’re trying to do. He has by no means won the job, but after the first scrimmage and the first six days, he’s running with the ones right now.”

Rhule accepted the job of head coach of the football team after spending a year with the then-Super Bowl Champion

New York Giants. Rhule has brought many things back with him from the NFL, including an expectation of accountability from his players and an emphasis on playmaking. But most tangibly, he has installed a throw-heavy offense that he said is modeled after the schemes of most of the professional teams he coached against.

Rhule calls the new offense the “pro-spread,” but was quick to add that it’s not as official as it sounds. He said he thinks the

name is “corny.”

“It’s a pro-style passing game,” Rhule said. “It’s everything we did in New York. It’s what most NFL teams do. It’s a traditional style throwing game with some spread principles. We try to merge the two so things look more spread than others, but you have to throw the football to make it work.”

The pro-spread is a departure from the zone-read offense implemented under Addazio. In that system, the team ran the ball

on average 42 times per game.

Quarterbacks like Coyer and Granger were relied on more as a third running back than a passer. Last season, Coyer ran the ball 111 times in nine games and finished as the team’s second-leading rusher.

Reilly, who has an arm that has given him success as an outfielder on the baseball team but has never developed the speed to be a mobile quarterback, didn’t stand a chance to compete for a job in Addazio’s offense.

“I was kind of an afterthought,” Reilly said. “I was just a scout quarterback. I was in the back of the mind. The type of offense that we ran in the past two years wasn’t my bread and butter, while [the pro-spread] is right up my alley.”

“He just didn’t fit what they were doing,” Rhule said. “He was recruited to come into one offense, but sometimes that happens in coaching turnovers. You come into one offense, and they bring in another offense and it’s not a great fit.”

Reilly said he has to work on his footwork – he’s still slow – but that his arm strength has gone a long way to propel him to the No. 1 spot in Rhule’s new offense. During the two-minute drill on April 5, Reilly made multiple long touchdown passes, not exactly a typical sight for a Temple football practice during the past couple of seasons.

“Arm strength helps with making all the throws,” Rhule said. “He can make all the throws, but it’s about anticipation and accuracy. So many throws are under 15 yards, so

you don’t need a great arm for that. You just have to have the ability to make the throw, throw it on time and be accurate.

That’s something that all of our quarterbacks have to develop.”

When asked to describe a typical day for him during the spring semester, Reilly laid out a schedule that most studentathletes could probably sympathize with, but not necessarily match.

Reilly wakes up on Wednesdays at 7 a.m. and is at Edberg-Olson Hall with the football team until noon. He lifts, receives treatment, watches film and studies the new offense. He has class at 2 p.m. and baseball practice from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. When the baseball team has games, Reilly has to skip his night class.

Reilly doesn’t make it to every baseball game. He has played in 11 of the team’s 27 games and is batting .222. He said he’s “focusing on football right now.”

After practice on April 5, Reilly said he would stay at Edberg-Olson to look at film and work on his drop-backs. Reilly wouldn’t be able to play in the baseball team’s home game against La Salle that night. He had a prior commitment.

“I have a test in my class today, so I can’t go,” Reilly said.

Joey Cranney can be reached at joseph.cranney@temple.edu or on Twitter @joey_cranney.

Softball posts conference-high fielding marks Despite an emphasis on hitting, the Owls lead the A-10 in fielding percentage.

JAKE ADAMS The Temple News Sarah Prezioso enjoys playing at Ambler, but not just because of the homefield advantage.

“The field’s really good with taking the hops,” Prezioso said. “We rarely get bad hops...

Compared to [Wagner’s field] it feels like Yankee Stadium or something.”

The junior shortstop had three errors Thursday on Wagner’s field in a double-header, which she characterized as rocky and hard. Typically a sure-handed fielder and a defen-

SOFTBALL

sive leader, Prezioso had trouble with some of the hops, and the team finished with four errors on the day.

But that was the exception more than the rule. The Owls (16-15, 5-1 Atlantic 10 Conference) sit atop the A-10 in fielding percentage with a mark of 96 percent.

Coach Joe DiPietro has said throughout the season that he recruited this team because of its ability to hit at will. The focus wasn’t on fielding, but that hasn’t stopped the Owls from performing at a high level on the diamond.

“We drill them, we drill them, we drill them and we drill them,” DiPietro said of why the fielding is tops in the conference. “Once you start to feel good about yourself on the field like that, you make those plays and you don’t have any errors.”

The team has done it with a combination of veteran leaders at key positions and with freshmen stepping in immediately and making an impact with the glove. When not on the rubber, freshman Kelsey Dominik typically mans one of the corner infield positions while classmates Leah Lucas and Annie Marcopolus are holding the fort at second base and left field, respectively.

“With the freshmen we brought in we improved our overall team speed,” DiPietro said.

The trio of freshman fielders has 140 putouts, 70 assists and 13 errors – Marcopolus has zero – for a combined .943 fielding percentage. They’ve also been part of 14 double plays this season.

“I think they’ve been doing amazing, because I know when

I came up as a freshman I didn’t know what to expect,” Prezioso said. “I was just thrown out there.”

“They’re also, for freshmen, a lot more mature,” Prezioso added. “So they can handle a lot. I feel like they can handle pressure pretty well.”

But the defensive leaders have been senior centerfielder Ali Robinson and Prezioso.

Prezioso has nine errors, due mainly to her three-error day against Wagner, but has a fielding percentage of .931.

“The plays she makes, she makes some unbelievable plays that get taken for granted, and that’s really unfortunate,” DiPietro said. “She’ll make a great play in the hole and throw a kid out and people are like, ‘Oh.’ And they don’t realize that kid’s phenomenal making that play.”

Robinson has yet to record

an error on 41 total plays, one of five Owls without an error with at least 30 attempts.

“She’s the voice you hear all the time,” DiPietro said.

“She’s definitely the person that keeps the team going and she talks the whole game nonstop...I don’t know how I’m going to replace that next year.”

The combination of Prezioso and Lucas in the middle of the infield has also been a key for a team ranked third in the A-10 in double plays (12). The Owls also have allowed 19 stolen bases, which ranks second in the conference. The team has a stolen base percentage of 85 percent.

Lucas fills in at a spot where DiPietro didn’t have an answer last season. DiPietro said sophomore Julia Kastner had to man second base last year out of need, despite being

an outfielder by trade. Now he has the right pieces in the right places, which has helped the team’s performance.

“Last year we had kids playing out of position a little bit,” DiPietro said. “This year we don’t have that, we have people playing where they belong.”

That can only help Prezioso, despite her rough defensive outing against Wagner. She bounced back in the doubleheader at home on Sunday, April 7, against St. Bonaventure and didn’t commit an error.

Jake Adams can be reached at jacob.adams@temple.edu or on Twitter @jakeadams520.

sports

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Page 19

Player turned coach works with catchers

Taylor Juran stays with the team to coach the catchers.

JOHN MURROW The Temple News With a love for the game and a passion to help others in any way possible, Taylor Juran decided to give coaching a shot.

After a four-year playing career with the Owls, Juran was set to never put on a Temple baseball jersey again as the 22-year-old was set to graduate.

But during the summer, Juran contacted coach Ryan Wheeler about an open coaching position. The unpaid position would keep Juran involved with baseball and Temple.

“It’s been everything I could have wanted,” Juran, now an assistant coach, said. “The experience itself has just been really eye-opening so far. The overall transition from player to coach hasn’t been that difficult.”

“Juran has done a great job with it,” Wheeler said. “One of those difficult things is making the jump to player to coach. He has really done a great job separating himself from the other players as he is now a coach for us.”

In four seasons with the Owls, Juran batted .282 and added a .990 fielding percentage

BASEBALL

as Temple’s catcher. The fouryear veteran was also a leader in the clubhouse, a quality every coach is looking for in an assistant coach, Wheeler said. “[Juran] has a love for the game,” junior catcher Andrew Nist said. “That is clear as he is so happy to be on the field every day. He just loves learning more and more about baseball, being around the guys on the team and just loves teaching us.”

As the youngest member of the Owls’ coaching staff, Juran’s age has a lot to do with the success he has with the players on the team, specifically the catching staff, Wheeler said.

Juran has worked closely with each of the team’s four catchers, but Wheeler said freshman catcher Michael D’Acunti has benefited the most from working with Juran.

“I think it’s really important to have such a young guy around helping us,” D’Acunti said about Juran. “We can always be ourselves. He is more on our level and understands us because he just got out of the game last year.”

D’Acunti credits much of his defensive success this season to working exclusively with Juran and hopes to continue to improve defensively as a freshman catcher. In his first season with Temple as a transfer student, Nist credits Juran with helping him make a smooth transition into a new team and

making him feel comfortable as a player. “[Juran] has helped me a lot with the mental aspects of the game as he knows different situations and is thinking about certain plays and anticipating things before they happen,” Nist said. “He knows how to get us ready and is able to prepare us for anything.”

Although he is now a coach for Temple and no longer a player, Juran has separated himself well and has matured into a successful member of the coaching staff, Wheeler said.

“Obviously he understands the system and how we want things done around here,” Wheeler said. “He is somewhat young and has a pulse of what’s going on with the team and the instinct of players’ minds.”

When Juran came to Temple in 2008, he entered with redshirt-seniors Dan Moller, Matt Elko and Steve Visnic, all of whom are currently on the Owls’ pitching staff. The three players understand Juran’s role with the team and while they joke around with their former teammate, they know when to take him seriously and respect him, Juran said.

While Juran said the transition from player to coach has not been all that difficult for him, he credits coach Wheeler and coach Brian Pugh for his success and ability to learn quickly as a coach.

“I can’t say enough good things about [coach Wheeler and coach Pugh],” Juran said.

“They are always there if I have questions about something I am unsure of. They treat me as a coach and while there are some jokes here and there, it is all in good fun. They help me out any time I need it and they are always pointing me in the right direction.”

As a young coach, Juran has showed the potential to one day be a head coach, Wheeler said.

“I would love to move up the [coaching] ladder,” Juran said. “It’s a long road and it’s tough, but if it continues to treat me well, I would absolutely love to continue to coach.”

Like every job, coaching is no different in that it has its challenges. For Juran, the biggest struggle is how frustrated he gets during the course of the game as well as trying to get the players to buy into the strategies that he is teaching. Baseball is a game of failure and only a coach knows that it is only a matter of time until the strategies at prac- Taylor Juran coaches the catchers on the baseball team after tice begin to pay off in actual playing for four years.| ANDREW THAYER TTN games, Juran said.

As for whether Juran missing more than I did playing,” why I will enjoy coaching more es playing baseball, he admitted Juran said. “It is a really reward- than playing.” that it is tough to watch the team ing feeling. The players listen during batting practice, but the John Murrow can be reached at to you, respect you and pay atrewarding feeling of seeing a john.murrow@temple.edu tention, and seeing the players player succeed outweighs his or on Twitter @JohnMurrow12. make the adjustments on the itch to play. field that I teach, well, that’s “I think I will enjoy coach-

Women’s DMR keeps breaking school record Runners will have chance to break record three times in one season at Relays.

ANDREW PARENT The Temple News Jenna DuTRACK & FIELD brow makes sure she eats her peanut M&M’s before every race.

“I get packs of trail mix before I race and pick all of the M&M’s out and eat them,” Dubrow, a sophomore on the women’s track & field team, said.

“It’s weird, but it’s something I always do before a race.”

Peanut M&M’s is not exactly the prototypical pre-race snack, but it appears to be working for the second-year distance

runner, who already has a place in Temple track & field history.

Using a different 400-meter leg in each distance medley relay – DMR – in the indoor season, Temple’s group began to turn heads at Penn State’s national invite on Jan. 26, on Penn State’s Horace Ashenfelter III’s indoor banked track, which features an incline from the inside of the track to the outside on each of the two curved ends of the track.

Junior Anna Pavone, freshman Demisha Davis, senior Tonney Smith and Dubrow wound up taking second in the race with a time of 11 minutes, 56.75 seconds, which Dubrow and Smith both said would have converted to approximately 11:48 on a standard indoor track, and a Temple school record.

Though snubbed of a school record the first time around, the same group with sophomore Michelle Davis Timothy running the 400-meter leg in place of Davis ran a fourth-place, 11:55.61 DMR time, and broke the school record.

Pavone, Smith and Dubrow then teamed up with DavisTimothy in the DMR once again in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship on March 3 in Boston and shattered the former record with an 11:43.63 finish.

“We ran our best time at the ECAC championships,” Dubrow said. “I think it was more of all of us being more motivated at the same time. It was the last meet and we all wanted to do well, but we all just had a big race on the same day. I know for me, I wasn’t doing too well, but

I happened to run a good race that day, too.”

The performance in Boston was the second record-breaking performance in two weeks, both coming in championship meets.

“I didn’t expect to break the record [the first time], but we had a lot of talent and I knew we’d do really well,” Smith said. “I figured we started out strong breaking the school record so I knew it was inevitable to break it again. Every week we plan to run faster so I wasn’t surprised.”

“This relay was a new relay this year,” coach Eric Mobley said. “From indoor and even the outdoor season, it was an interchangeable group. We figured it would be one of our best relays, and we put our best relays together when we can. [Pavone] and [Dubrow] have been

the most consistent part of it, and the [400M] has been interchangeable with different girls running it at different times.”

Though the group hardly practices the relay itself as a unit in practice, they all seemed to hit their stride in unison at the right time.

“I knew that we had it in ourselves to break the records,” Dubrow said. “Speaking from a personal aspect, you want to keep getting better and I know that if my mile time keeps dropping I’m going to be able to help the DMR more. Anna has been dropping her 1200M time too.”

“I think we expected [the records],” Dubrow added. “We know that if we’re all having an on day, we’ll be able to do something good.”

Although the DMR isn’t an outdoor NCAA track event,

the group will have one more chance at cracking the 11:40 mark and another school record at the annual Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania from April 25-27.

“If we do get the chance to run it again, I’m excited,” Dubrow said. “I think we all are.”

“I think we’re looking to run down in the 11:30 range,” Smith said. “We’ve been working really hard in the past couple weeks and looking forward to nicer weather. We definitely can drop the times and I see it happening. I’m looking forward to it.”

Andrew Parent can be reached at andrew.parent@temple.edu or on Twitter @daParent93.

Gwilliam resigns head coach Season’s worth of work pays off with ECAC honors job to be assistant in Colorado COACH PAGE 20

berths and a visit to the Sweet 16 in 2009.

At Virginia Tech, Gwilliam was primarily in charge of coaching the goalkeepers and defenders on a team that set and tied a school record for shutouts in 2008 and 2009.

With three goalkeepers on his team in 2012, Gwilliam made a large impact on Kerkhoff, who started nine matches for the Owls and played in 11 matches total. Kerkhoff recorded 63 saves to produce an 89 percent save percentage and notched four shutouts in her freshman campaign. “[Gwilliam] was a tough individual and he made me a tougher person as well,” Kerkhoff said.

As a defensive-minded coach, Gwilliam’s Owls allowed 22 goals in 2012, averaging 1.10 goals per game. The offense recorded 10 goals on the season, averaging .50 goals per contest.

Before joining the Hokies, Gwilliam began his coaching career at Citadel, the same school at which he earned a master’s in education in 2004. Gwilliam was in charge of the goalkeepers

and defenders during his time at Citadel and served as the team’s interim head coach in Spring 2005.

In 2012, Gwilliam brought in 15 freshmen, the most in Division I. Notable freshmen included Kerkhoff and Erin Lafferty, who were tabbed to the A-10 All-Rookie Team in their first seasons.

For the upcoming 2013 fall season, Gwilliam recruited 10 freshmen to join a young Temple team. Five midfielders, two forwards, two goalkeepers and one defender made up Gwilliam’s recruiting class.

Gwilliam will be joining a Colorado College team that finished 14-4-5 (8-2-1 in conference) in 2012. Last season, the Tigers fell 3-1 in the 2012 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship to the University of Denver.

According to a story on the Colorado College website, Gwilliam said, “I want to thank Ken Ralph, Geoff Bennett, and the entire search committee for affording me this opportunity. We are very excited to be joining the Colorado College family and looking forward to bringing continued success to

the program.”

Gwilliam did not return multiple phone calls requesting comment for this story.

With a vacancy available at the coaching position, the Owls will now search for their third coach in four seasons.

“I’m not sure how they will decide on who will be our next coach, but I know Temple is doing a nationwide search,” Kerkhoff said. “Right now, we are just waiting it out.”

While coach Gwilliam was known as a tough individual, he will be missed by his players as he brought a new attitude to the women’s soccer team.

“Overall I thought he was not only a great coach, but also a great mentor,” O’Toole said.

“He brought honesty and dedication to this program during his time here and instilled in us a winning attitude. Unfortunately, he won’t be here to help us continue that attitude, but we appreciate the time that he did spend here.”

John Murrow can be reached at john.murrow@temple.edu or on Twitter @JohnMurrow12.

ECAC PAGE 20

with a hoarse voice exhausted from cheering. “We worked really hard this season, and it was just great to feel like all the hard work we put in and all the conflict we had really meant something at the end. There are really no words to describe it. I was going to say excited and ecstatic but that doesn’t fully describe the situation.”

“The [ECAC Championship] was one of the greatest meets that I have been a part of at Temple,” Tighe said. “It literally came down to the last routine, and it was just incredible.

Everybody wanted it so bad.

And even after the last guy, they took down the team scores from the scoreboard so we didn’t really know who won and we were all standing on the floor and then they announced William & Mary in second place.”

“I teared up and a couple of the other guys did. It was just so much happiness,” Tighe added.

“All the hard work and all the passion that came together to get that trophy.”

It was the second ECAC Coach of the Year award for Turoff. Aaron Murphy also won ECAC Coach of the Year for his job with the women’s team.

“It’s a terrific honor, some Award.

“It’s a nice award and defiof the other coaches did an excellent job this year so I didn’t nitely a great honor to be sevote for myself in the voting lected by all the coaches that even though I could’ve, be- thought that I was the gymnast that procause I thought duced the best some of the other results of the guys took their season and had team far and to a good routines very high level,” throughout the Turoff said. “But year, and it’s I’m flattered that definitely a nice my fellow coachthing to get,” es felt that way.”

Tighe said. “[Turoff ’s] “We know our coach,” BraAlex Tighe / senior gymnast he deserves na said. “So we it,” Brana said. are absolutely “He works resupportive of him and what he does, and he does a ally hard in the gym, and he’s a great job with the program, so terrific gymnast. He contributes does he deserve it? Yes. We’re academically, with his gymnasvery excited he got the award tics, with his leadership, and his actions in practice. And he is and he is deserving of it.”

Turoff however, gave a lot one of the best in the ECAC so of credit to his award winning it was a well-deserved award.”

With the ECAC season assistant, McLaughlin.

“I certainly think that he now complete, men’s gymis deserving of [ECAC Assis- nastics will look to the NCAA tant Coach of the Year],” Turoff Championships hosted at Penn said. “He works hard with our State University on April 20. guys and the results are the Samuel Matthews can be championship meet and the fact reached at that we prevailed.” samuel.matthews@temple.edu.

Capping off the plethora of awards for men’s gymnastics over the weekend was Tighe’s Senior Athlete of the Year

“I teared up

and a couple of other guys did. It was just so much happiness.

”

SPORTS temple-news.com

page 20

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Gwilliam fourth head coach to depart Women’s soccer coach leaves to take position at Colorado College.

JOHN MURROW The Temple News

After two seasons as the women’s soccer head coach, Matt Gwilliam will not return for a third season in 2013. Gwilliam left to WOMEN’S SOCCER

join Colorado College as an assistant under head coach Geoff Bennett, making him the fourth head coach at Temple to resign in the past year.

Despite the fact that the Owls are set to join the newly named American Athletic Conference in 2013, multiple coaches have recently bolted in search of better opportunities.

The university hired Adam Bray in September to coach the cross-country teams and the distance runners on the track

& field teams after Matt Jelley left to take a job at Maryland in August 2012. But in December, Bray resigned his dual position after being offered a full-time assistant coaching position at Pittsburgh. Track & field coach Eric Mobley claims that Bray was only at Temple “part time.”

Earlier in December, former football coach Steve Addazio left Temple to become the head coach at Boston College.

Following the news of Gwilliam’s departure, players

on the women’s soccer team said they were stunned. When the Owls found out, they were expecting to go to a leadership activity, but instead heard that Gwilliam had accepted a job elsewhere.

“Obviously I was just sad and shocked at the same time,” senior defender Karly O’Toole said. “It all happened so quickly and I am still in shock. I am happy for him at the same time.”

“I think for me and my teammates originally, we were

just taken back by the news,” freshman goalkeeper Shauni Kerkhoff said. “We never thought we were going to get that kind of news. We all kind of dealt with it in our own ways, but eventually, you have got to accept it.”

In two seasons with the Owls, Gwilliam compiled a 10-24-4 record. The Owls were 7-6-3 at home and 3-17-1 on the road with Gwilliam as head coach. Temple also added a 4-12-2 record in the Atlantic

10 Conference, finishing 12th in the A-10 in 2011 and 14th in 2012.

Gwilliam left for family reasons, O’Toole said. Gwilliam has a wife, Krista, and two sons, Benjamin and Jackson.

Prior to joining Temple, Gwilliam spent three seasons as Virginia Tech’s assistant women’s soccer coach, where he helped lead the Hokies to threestraight NCAA tournament

COACH PAGE 19

Tennis match vs. rival turns ugly La Salle misbehaves, commit two infractions in the men’s tennis team’s win last week.

EVAN CROSS The Temple News

Connor Reilly takes first-team reps in spring ball after two years as a backup under coach Steve Addazio. | AJA ESPINOSA TTN

With an arm, not a leg After not fitting into the system for two years, Connor Reilly moves up to the No. 1 QB spot.

C

JOEY CRANNEY Sports Editor

onnor Reilly just wanted to play a sport.

Lost in the shuffle of a coaching transition before the 2010 football season, Reilly wasn’t getting the opportunity he wanted to play quarterback

at Temple. Reilly was recruited as a pocket passer, but in the run-heavy offense installed by coach Steve Addazio in Reilly’s freshman year, Reilly didn’t fit in.

He took a redshirt his freshman season. After Reilly’s sophomore year, in which he played in only three games as the fourth-string quarterback, he finally started to reconsider his options.

Making a meaningful contribution to a team in any sport, Reilly reasoned, takes precedence over trying to make it as a starter in an offense that usually passes the ball less than 10 times per game.

Reilly, a First Team AllDistrict catcher at W.T. Woodson High School in Fort Polk, La., decided to walk on to the baseball team before the 2012 season. Now the only two-sport

cited, just absolutely ecstatic.”

For the second time in consecutive years, No. 13 Temple (17-6) won the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship. It is the 18th conference title under coach Fred Turoff’s 37-year reign at the helm of men’s gymnastics.

This year’s ECAC Championship was so close that the top three schools were separated by 2.3 points. University of Illinois-Chicago recorded an overall team score of 409.350, and William and Mary scored a 410.450, but it was Temple’s 411.650 on April 5 that came out victorious. In retaining the

ECAC crown, the Owls received an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.

But the celebration did not end there.

After the following night’s individual event finals, in which six Temple gymnasts medaled, it was announced that Turoff was named ECAC Coach of the Year and that assistant coach Patrick McLaughlin was named ECAC Assistant of the Year.

Also, senior Alex Tighe was named the conference’s Senior Athlete of the Year.

“It was great to see the thrill on everyone’s face,” Brana said

male athlete at Temple, Reilly finds himself back in the mix of things at quarterback for the football team that is again under new leadership, while still balancing a spot in the lineup for the baseball team.

However, football could soon become a bigger commitment for Reilly. The quaterback has been given a chance to start by the team’s new coach

REILLY PAGE 18

MEN’S TENNIS After losing his third-flight singles match to freshman Nicolas Paulus 6-1, 6-4, La Salle junior Chas Berenato angrily threw his racquet against the chain-link fence.

Berenato’s coach, Ed Colfer, had to tell Berenato to calm down, or the Explorers would be assessed their third point penalty of the match.

The La Salle players would have done well to stay calm, but a few of them did not, and it hurt the team. Temple won the match 6-1 on Thursday, April 4.

La Salle was assessed two point penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. Temple coach Steve Mauro threatened to not schedule a match with the Explorers next year.

“It’s unfortunate, because I’d like to keep the rivalry going with them, but sportsmanship is a higher knot on our agenda,” Mauro said. “We look for teams who are sportsmen.”

Berenato earned one of the penalties. During the second set of his match against Paulus, the referee told both players to stop talking and focus on playing the match. Berenato, who was serving, yelled out the score, and the official gave him a point penalty.

“This is the first time we’ve faced a team that acted this way,” Mauro said. “We’re used to playing teams that are a little more respectful on the court, so we didn’t appreciate that.”

Sophomore Kristian Marquart’s top-flight match against La Salle junior Joseph LaBate also included a point penalty. At one point, LaBate complained that Marquart was lying about

calls, saying what sounded like “he should be deported,” referring to Marquart, who is Russian. The referee threatened to default the match if LaBate did not calm down. “[LaBate] just went crazy,” Marquart said. “He couldn’t behave at all. Even his coach was screaming at him. He got crazy, so he didn’t win one game.”

Marquart won the match 6-0, 6-0. During the post-match handshake, LaBate said something to Marquart causing the official to give La Salle its second point penalty. Since the match was over, the penalty was enforced on the second flight match between sophomores Hernan Vasconez and De’Sean Fennell.

“I played the same guy last year,” Marquart said. “He was losing 6-0, 4-0 against me, and he did the same thing. I remember that so well. It was exactly the same guy, exactly the same match and exactly the same score.”

La Salle athletic communications declined comment on behalf of Colfer and players on this story. Requests for further comment from Mauro and players were not granted by Temple athletic communications.

After the match on Thursday, April 4, the Owls said they will look past the distractions of the match and try to continue their three-match win streak.

“I think we’ve made some great improvements,” Mauro said. “This last part of the season, guys are starting to mature, getting used to the college game.

We have four matches left, we should win all four of them.”

Evan Cross can be reached at evan.cross@temple.edu or on Twitter @EvanCross.

Gymnastics coach, player, team honored at ECACs Owls wins secondstraight ECAC title, Turoff takes home Coach of the Year.

SAMuel MATTHEWS The Temple News MEN’S GYMNASTICS It

came down to the wire.

“It was really close up until the very end,” Taylor Brana, a graduate student and co-captain of the men’s gymnastics team, said. “We didn’t know that we won until they announced that William & Mary got second, and then we were all really ex-

Juran moves to coach, p. 19

Former standout catcher Taylor Juran accepts an unpaid role as a baseball assistant coach.

Sports Desk 215-204-9537

ECAC PAGE 19

The men’s gymnastics team won its second-straight ECAC title. | ABI rEIMOLD TTN

GOING THE DISTANCE, p. 19

The women’s distance medley relay has broken multiple records this track & field season.

Sports@temple-news.com

five FIELDING, p. 18

The softball team leads the Atlantic 10 Conference in fielding percentage.