MUSIC ISSUE The Temple News brings the local music scene to your eyes and ears in its annual issue.

temple-news.com vol. 91 Iss. 27

Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

W. Chester student dies after roof fall Scott Small said. A Brownstown, Pa., native, Fausnaught had recently transferred from the University of South Carolina, Pam Sheridan of West Chester University said. Fausnaught’s Facebook SEAN CARLIN page indicates that she attended JOHN MORITZ Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pa. ALI WATKINS For Dean of Students The Temple News Stephanie Ives, the incident was It could have been anybody. devastating. “Our hearts absolutely go That’s how senior adult and out to Ali’s family and friends organizational development maand her West Chester commujor Kellee Pace described her renity,” Ives said. action in the days “Her death was after 19-year-old an absolutely Ali Fausnaught’s horrible tragfatal fall from a edy. It’s somethird-floor roof thing you never last Wednesday. want to see hap“It really pen to anyone, hits home, beso we are truly cause it’s here at devastated by Temple, and it’s it.” so relevant to In the imeverything that mediate afterKellee Pace / senior, adult and we’re doing,” organizational development major math of FausPace said. “That naught’s death, could’ve been the administration is discussing anybody.” the future of Spring Fling, which “Words can’t describe it resome students have labeled as a ally. Just a tragedy,” junior biolday to drink. ogy major Mike Jordan said. “It’s just a day that people A little more than an hour go crazy,” junior advertising after Spring Fling festivities major Kelly Silver said. “I feel wrapped up on Main Campus, like people act like they never Fausnaught, a freshman pysdrank before, and they drink all chology major at West Chester day long. And it’s wild.” University, was killed after she “No decisions have been fell into an alleyway between made yet about Spring Fling an adjacent building on the next year,” Ives said. “The over1900 block of North 18th Street. all concerns about high-risk Police arrived on the scene at drinking at this year’s event 5:14 p.m. and the victim was have provoked a number of distransported to Temple Hospital cussions about the future of it.” where she was pronounced dead at 5:51 p.m., Chief Inspector SAFETY PAGE 2

A tragic end to Spring Fling has led to discussion about safety measures.

“It really hits

Alex Cardinal, an ROTC member and senior history major, will serve in the U.S. Army after graduation. Seniors in the program who are contracted are preparing to take on their assigned duties. | ALI WATKINS TTN

marching orders For seniors in Temple’s ROTC program, graduation brings unique set of plans, challenges. ALI WATKINS The Temple News

A

lex Cardinal has a dignified silence about him. Dressed head to toe in camouflage, he refuses to come outside the building without his Army-regulation hat, which is required on dress days like today by ROTC rules. Cardinal is one of 17 seniors currently enrolled in the

ROTC program, headed toward service in the U.S. Army after graduation in May. It’s a college experience that not many non-ROTC students can imagine, with days full of workouts, classes and structured schedules. But Cardinal, who said he knew he wanted to go in to the military since age 13, wouldn’t have it any other way. A four-year veteran of Temple’s program and a senior history major, Cardinal’s life has

differed from the normal college experience since he first set foot on Main Campus. But as his fellow Temple seniors prepare to enter an economically-scarred civilian job market, he has seen his life diverge sharply from the traditional stresses and anxiety of senior year. “It all starts with junior year summer, that’s the biggest difference,” Cardinal said. That’s when he and his fellow ROTC cadets head to Fort

Lewis, Wash., for their leadership development assessment course, or LDAC, where they are evaluated and ranked on a nationwide cadet listing. Completion of the course is mandatory for graduation from ROTC, Cardinal said, and the rankings list can have major implications for post-graduation prospects. “Once you go to this course, you get ranked throughout the country, and then you’re on this

ROTC PAGE 3

home, because it’s here at Temple. That could’ve been anybody.

”

President talks with students at Student Center President Neil Theobald met with students last week in the Student Center. SEAN CARLIN News Editor President Neil Theobald met with a few dozen students last week, during an informal meet-and-greet in the Student Center Atrium on April 16. Theobald, who’s met with students before in similar events at Johnson & Hardwick cafeteria, said the events allow him to find out what people are talking about on campus better than if he were in his office. “These are important to find out what’s on people’s minds,” said Theobald, who’s in the midst of his fourth month as Temple’s president. He described his short time at the university as “fast-paced” and said one of the more prevalent issues on students’ minds was safety around campus in the wake of a threat referring to the Columbine High School shooting that was written in a bathroom in Gladfelter Hall in

President Neil Theobald met with students and fielded questions at a meet-and-greet last week. Students said they appreciated being able to offer Theobald feedback.| KATE McCann TTN March. Students also inquired about the cost of education and summer class offerings, as well as transfer credits, Theobald

book bound, p. 5

Sunil Chopade argues that, despite new library plans, Paley will never be outdated. NEWS DESK 215-204-7419

said. For students like Shaquille Outar, who met him in the atrium, being able to meet the pres-

ident “adds to the experience” of college. “He seemed very caring and down to earth. I really

documenting change, p. 7

Graduate student AJ Young’s transformation into a male is being documented online. news@temple-news.com

didn’t feel intimidated talking to him,” Outar said. “It definitely adds to the experience that the president can come out here.” “The best way to get feedback is to find out from the people who are going through it,” Outar said. Outar said the experience helped disprove a fallacy that high-ranking administrators don’t have to meet with students. “The misconception is that the president and everybody else is so high up that they don’t have time for students and the people who are paying,” Outar said. “It’s very important for him to come down here and [connect] with us.” Some students like senior public health major Michael Lombard, who spoke to the president about his thoughts on the cost of tuition, said the simple fact that Theobald was out on campus is good for students. “As the president, we should see you,” Lombard said, “know what you look like.” Sean Carlin can be reached at sean.carlin@temple.edu or on Twitter @SeanCarlin84.

Loaded magazine found in Weiss Hall A student accidentally left a loaded magazine in his backpack. SEAN CARLIN News Editor A student is facing a Student Code of Conduct referral after a a loaded magazine was found in his unattended backpack last week. Around 1:30 p.m., April 17, a professor picked up a backpack in a classroom in Weiss Hall which had been left after class and found a loaded magazine inside, but no gun, Assistant Vice President for University Communications Ray Betzner said. The professor immediately contacted Temple Police who were able to identify the student,

BACKPACK PAGE 3

CHANGING SEASONS, p. 20 Multiple players adjusted to their new positions in the Owls’ annual Cherry & White scrimmage.

NEWS temple-news.com

PAGE 2

news in brief

Gubernatorial candidate speaks to college Democrats In the wake of her announcement earlier this month that she’ll be challenging Gov. Tom Corbett in this year’s gubernatorial election, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz spoke to college Democrats from across the state in a conference call last week. Schwartz, who is the Temple College Democrats’ honorary chair, spoke with Pennsylvania College Democrats, or PACD, during its State Council Call on April 18. Schwartz was introduced by TCD President and PACD Eastern Regional Vice President Dylan Morpurgo before she spoke to and took questions from the students. She implored students to help “take back Pennsylvania,” and touched on the affordability of college and Planned Parenthood during her time speaking. - Sean Carlin

Temple stops licensing Adidas Temple announced on April 19 that it would become one of 15 schools to stop licensing its products from the apparel manufacturer Adidas, following concerns over workers’ rights abuses. Temple Coalition of Students Against Sweatshops said in a press release that the university chose to end its relationship with the firm after Adidas failed to pay workers of the PT Kizone factory in Indonesia severance pay after their factory was shut down without notice by its owners. In March, the coalition successfully lobbied the university to join the Workers’ Rights Consortium, a nonprofit group that gets member colleges and universities to look into the labor practices of the firm that manufacture school-licensed apparel.

-John Moritz

$5,000 donation to aid women of color in STHM The Philadelphia Multicultural Affairs Congress has donated $5,000 to the Tamara J. Gilmore Scholarship Fund, a scholarship that will be awarded to deserving women of color in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management. The scholarship is set to be distributed once the fund reaches an endowment level of $25,000. Kathe Archibald, associate director of development and alumni relations at STHM, said the fund is now less than $5,000 away from achieving endowment status. The scholarship was developed after Tamara J. Gilmore, a Temple alumna and event management professional in the hospitality industry, died in 1999. In 2007, the scholarship fund was turned over to Temple by her family and the Multicultural Affairs Congress Board of Directors; Gilmore was a board member. “I think we would be able to distribute the scholarship in the beginning of the 2014-15 school year,” Archibald said. “First we have to make sure we will be able to support its recipients in the years to come.” -Laura Ordonez

Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

After Spring Fling, an off-campus tragedy SAFETY PAGE 1 While the administration weighs suchs decisions, some students, like junior theater major Jacqueline Loro, said Fausnaught’s death might not have an impact on next year’s Spring Fling. “I feel like it’s probably going to keep [being a big drinking day]. Especially since it’s a year. If we’re just talking Spring Fling, it’s a year down the road, unfortunately. Most people won’t even really be thinking about it.” From a student safety perspective, officials are looking to landlords to help block roof access from students to prevent this kind of incident from happening in the future. Deputy Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone said Temple Police are reaching out to try to get landlords to seal roof hatches and prevent access from student tenants. “We’re trying to get the landlords to check their properties, [and] if they happen to have a rooftop hatch, to make sure it’s secured properly,” Leone said. “We recommend no one go on the roof,” Leone added. “As far as drinking and rooftops, it’s a horrible mix, it really is. We’re trying to deter it as much as pos-

A West Chester student fell to her death at a rooftop party during Spring Fling last week, on the 1900 block of North 18th Street. Such parties have become common in the area, residents report.| ABI REIMOLD TTN sible.” When asked whether sentiments will change toward roof parties and Spring Fling, students questioned whether the incident would affect future decisions. “I don’t know if it’s a thing that can be contained,” Silver said. “The roof thing itself, you can’t control it. Kids do it

in their own houses, obviously. I think it’ll kind of change the mood of it a little bit probably.” “I just think Spring Fling is an on-campus affair that a bunch of clubs get together and try to raise money, promote their club,” Pace said. “It’s been turned into a drinking thing. So I don’t think it’s going to change. Maybe landlords are going to

get more strict about accessibility to the roof, but that’s the only thing I could see changing.” At the time of the incident, roughly 30 to 40 people were on the roof, Small said, and police found a large number of beer cans on the premises. Eight witnesses were taken in for questioning at the time of the incident, though no arrests or

alcohol citations had been made at the time of press. Investigators said they believe the cause to be accidental. Small described the concrete-bottomed alleyway in which the young woman fell as a gruesome scene. In front of the house, the scene was more somber. People were crying in streets and on nearby stoops. Police said that access to the roof was allowed by a construction ladder that was placed on the second floor and led up to the third floor roof through an access hatch. Small said the roof was not furnished, and was not intended for use. After the incident, police were warning students on nearby rooftops to descend, and that they were not allowed to be drinking on the roof. Still, as the sun set on 18th Street last Wednesday, students celebrating Temple’s annual Spring Fling could be seen on roofs, bottles and cans in hand. Sean Carlin, John Moritz and Ali Watkins can be reached at news@temple-news.com.

Ally program expands to faculty and staff Program serves to train members to be confidants to LGBT students. CINDY STANSBURY The Temple News Nationwide, 6.7 percent of college students identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual according to National College Health Assessment data. A new campus program, aimed at making students who identify with that segment feel more comfortable, has recently expanded. For the past three years, Residential Life has been running a program called Safe Zone Ally, which trains its resident assistants and other residential staff to be confidants for LGBT students and their allies. At the end of Fall 2012, this program, in correlation with the Wellness Resource Center, opened this opportunity to faculty and staff. Director of the Wellness Resource Center Kimberly Chestnut, Residential Life Coordinator Steve Dexter, Resident Director Temple Jordan, Resident Director Nu’ Rodney Prad and Graduate Sexuality and Education Intern Joshua

Klein are the founders and administrators of Safe Zone training. “I’m really excited about the program. We are really pleased to be able to offer it and look forward to just doing it as often as it’s needed to the best of our abilities,” Chestnut said. Once a student or faculty member is certified as safe zone trained, a marker is placed outside of his or her door, making those marked as open vessels for confidential conversation with students in need. Temple College Democrats President and Queer Student Union Events Coordinator Dylan Morpurgo was a participant in the program when he was involved in Residential Life through the Residence Hall Association. “It was a really great learning experience for the participants because it was a mix of members of the LGBT community and allies,” Morpurgo, a junior political science major, said. “Everybody was able to feed off of each other and learn from each other.” Dexter said the program is orchestrated through a fourhour-long training course where students are exposed to the terminology and scenarios that

LGBT students could experience. A quiz is administered at the end of the session, which must be passed in order to be certified. Dexter said that high attendance at the training sessions is a contributing factor toward the decision to expand the program. Morpurgo said the high attendance isn’t surprising and neither is the opening of classes to faculty and staff. “It is a great resource for the Residential Life community, but we all know that the students who live in university housing are actually a small percentage of the student population,” he said. “Members of the LGBT community are not just living in dorms. Obviously, we are taking classes and we are dealing with faculty on a daily basis, so it makes sense that the program expanded.” In accordance with Morpurgo’s opinions, the first couple of classes were full, Chestnut said. Her only concern is that the program eventually will not have enough staff to cover the growing demand. “It is something that we will be tracking,” she said. “As of right now, we aren’t looking for new staff.” Regardless of the worries

Joshua Klein and Kimberly Chestnut helped establish Safe Zone for LGBT students. | CINDY STANSBURY TTN about demand, Chestnut and Dexter said they are pleased with the popularity of the program. “There is a lot of interest, so we are excited about that and we certainly hope students feel like it’s making a positive impact during their time here on campus,” Chestnut said. Faculty can register for the program through Human Re-

sources and students involved in Residential Life can do so through their employer. Classes are created based upon instructor availability and current demand, Chestnut said. Cindy Stansbury can be reached at cindy.stansbury@temple.edu.

Students to gain access to some professor feedback Students who fill out SFF forms will be able to see responses for future professors. Laura Detter The Temple News Beginning in Fall 2013, students will have access to data from four prompts asked on the electronic student feedback forms, Senior Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies Peter Jones announced at the General Assembly meeting yesterday, April 22. “We are hoping this is really going to help students in terms of searching for courses because we have made it searchable by faculty or course,” Jones said. The university recently

made a two-year commitment to provide the data to students who complete all of their assigned evaluations the previous semester. The system will display two years’ worth of responses to four SFF prompts: the instructor provided useful feedback about exams, projects, and assignments; so far, the instructor has applied grading policies fairly; the instructor taught this course well; and I learned a great deal is this course. However, the university will not provide any data on graduate teaching assistants or courses that yield less than 20 percent SFF participation. “By losing access for small numbers, we hope that will encourage students to participate in the future,” Jones said. Students will be able to ac-

cess the information from a link but certainly not now and ceron TUportal that will connect tainly not in this time frame,” the students to an external web- Jones said. “I think TSG played site, which is still under con- a very important role in getting faculty commitstruction. tees to agree to Jones said do this because the university there hasn’t plans to release been widethe data a few weeks prior to spread support Spring 2014 from the faculty.” class registraTSG made tion, but an exact two influential date is still undepresentations termined. Jones admitto the faculty ted that without Peter Jones / senior vice provost senate steering of undergraduate studies committee and the support of the faculty SFF Student Body President David Lopez and his committee, Jones said. “I truthfully think that prior administration acting as the voice of the student body, this to our involvement, things were initiative would not have been stalled and after the student voice was heard, there was more achieved as quickly. “It may have been achieved, movement behind the entire act.

“We are hoping

this is really going to help students in terms of searching for classes.

”

I was very grateful for that and it just shows how powerful the student voice can be,” Lopez said. On Feb. 25, the GA passed Resolution GA/1/1.1 that stated that TSG believes that students should have access to the results of the course and professor evaluation forms. Lopez and his administration will leave the executive office having accomplished one more goal. “It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but it is one of the things that we are very proud of and one of the things we are happy we could accomplish,” Lopez said. Laura Detter can be reached at laura.detter@temple.edu.

NEWS

Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

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Asante again appointed African-American Studies chair Year-long battle over chairmanship yield’s return of Asante. JOHN MORITZ Assistant News Editor Molefi Asante, the once chair of the African-American Studies Department, will return to his former role on July 1, following a contentious battle between faculty and students of the department and the university. Dean Theresa Soufas of the College of Liberal Arts said she received the faculty’s nomination on April 17, and after an interview with Asante the next day, confirmed the appointment of his three-year position as head of the department. April 17 was the deadline Soufas had set for the faculty to submit nominations after more than a year of controversy and

lack of a permanent dean following the announcement of Nathaniel Norment’s retirement in April 2012. Despite student protests in recent weeks that called for Asante to be put in the position of department chair, Asante said he was reluctant to accept the nomination. “In order to unite the department, and also to restore as much as possible its’ academic program...I said to the faculty that I would be willing to run,” Asante said, adding that he had twice urged Soufas to look into hiring someone from outside the university. The controversy began last year when, following Norment’s departure, the African American studies faculty nominated Asante’s former wife and member of the Dance Department Kariamu Welsh to become chair of the African-American Studies Department. Soufas

said she rejected that appointment on the grounds that Welsh was not a member of the department. Instead, Soufas appointed then Vice Dean Jayne Drake to a one-year interim position to head the department. Asante was a former head of the department from 1984 to 1997, has written 74 books, according to his website, and is widely known as a leader in his field. Still, Asante has been embroiled in controversy in the past. His first chairmanship over the department came to an end when Asante stepped down after a colleague brought charges of plagiarism against him. Asante denied the accusations brought against him, and the university ultimately dropped the charges. Asante also had troubles with Norment while he was head of the department. Asante said Soufas twice tried to fire him when Norment accused

Asante of failing to teach his classes while being engaged in activities outside his university position. Soufas denied ever trying to fire Asante, saying that such an action against a tenured faculty member would require “serious allegations.” Asante described his current relationship with Soufas as “cordial,” adding that he believed she was misled by Norment. Asante said he did not participate in the nomination of Welsh last spring, choosing to recuse himself, because he was formerly married to the candidate. In the meeting between Soufas and Asante following his nomination by the department faculty, the two discussed Asante’s visions for the future of the department. Specific ideas for the department laid out by Asante included additional majors and

new classes, such as Black Philadelphia, Black Political Economy and popular culture. Asante’s research and writings have focused on the topic of Afro-centricity, which Asante described as the study of social phenomenon from the African perspective. “You must allow the Africans to speak for themselves. You can not impose a European or a Japanese or a Chinese vision on that, you must hear the voice of Africans,” Asante said. One of the predominate concerns of student protesters at rallies this spring was that the the appointment of Drake, a white woman, to the chair of the African-American Studies Department was that it would lead to African Americans being studied as “pathology.” While Asante said he had no problems with Drake, he said the protests gained popularity and served a purpose as part of

a perceived lack of respect for the African-American Studies Department. Asante said that at one time, former President Peter Liacouras told him that Temple should have the best African-American Studies Department of its kind in the country. “We haven’t had a president since that time to say that,” Asante said. With a relatively new president in Neil Theobald and Provost Hai Lung Dai, Asante said he has hopes the department that founded the first Ph. D. program in African American studies can be at the top of its field. John Moritz can be reached at john.moritz@temple.edu or on Twitter @JCMoritzTU.

Search remains ROTC seniors appointed to positions for three more school deans list,” Cardinal said. “[It’s] an order of merit list, from No. 1 cadet to the last cadet.” For cadets interested in the coveted active duty slots, like Cardinal, these rankings are seFriday. The dean of Jacqueline Stefkovich of rious. With only a limited numUniversity Libraries Penn State University visited ber of active duty slots to go the university last week in ref- around, he said, the full-time, was named earlier erence to COE’s deanship and active duty assignments go to this month. Wanda Blanchett of the Uni- those who are first on the list. Cardinal, a recipient of the versity of Missouri-Kansas City SEAN CARLIN will be wrapping up her visit ROTC national scholarship, retoday, April 23. COE’s third ceived his desired active-duty News Editor candidate won’t be visiting un- assignment. But the process is far from After Provost Hai-Lung til early May and has yet to be Dai set a goal of appointing publicly announced, said Vice over. After cadets are assigned to permanent deans to four of five Provost for University College active duty, National Guard or slots that were vacant at the start Vicki Lewis McGarvey. In the coming weeks, each Army Reserves, there are sevof the semester, one has been filled and the university is wrap- search’s advisory committee eral more suspense dates, Carping up candidate visits with the will be meeting with the provost dinal said. Next up is branching, and, if scheduling allows, the where cadets are told their speother three. President Neil Theobald president, to discuss each can- cific assignments. Each cadet appointed Joseph Lucia, the di- didate. The committees don’t submits a list of his or her top rector of the Falvey Memorial rank the candidates, rather the branch choices and, based on members dis- their LDAC listing, the Army Library at Vilcuss the “pros tries to assign them to his or her lanova Univerand cons of each top choice. But, Cardinal said, sity, as the dean candidate,” Mc- sometimes it doesn’t pan out. of University “If it comes down to it Garvey said. Libraries earlier After that, the and you didn’t do as well [at this month. He’ll president and assume his posiprovost review tion on July 1. recommendaLucia takes tions from the the reins of the committee and deanship from backpack PAGE 1 the feedback Carol Lang, who from those who who had left his identification in served in an inmet with the the backpack. terim role since candidate, and August 2011. The male student had apdecide who to parently left the backpack after Dennis Silage, Dennis Silage / chair, university who chaired the libraries dean search advisory make the offer class and claimed that the backUniversity Lipack and the magazine were committee to, she said. McGarvey his, and he produced a permit braries’ dean said she expects to carry a weapon matching the search advithe university ammunition, Betzner said. The sory committee, called Lucia a “forward-think- should be able to announce the student has been referred for choices for the three deanships violating the Student Code of ing individual.” “You have to do good things by the end of next month. Conduct, which prohibits am“In all likelihood, negotia- munition from being brought on with what you have available and that’s what he’s been able tion can take a little time,” Mc- campus. to do at Villanova,” Silage, a Garvey said. “My guess is that The incident – which Depprofessor of electrical and com- we should publicly be able to uty Director of Campus Safety puter engineering, said. “It im- announce who the candidates Services Charlie Leone called pressed us in the committee that are by the end of May.” accidental – didn’t bring any She said depending on he was able to do some innovative things within the constraints the candidates’ schedule, they of that particular institution and, would start anywhere from July hopefully here at Temple, he’ll to September. Though there was a bit of a be able to do that and lot more.” Lucia is the first in what is delay in naming Lucia the dean $10 million expected to be a series of four of University Libraries, McGardean appointments in the com- vey said it wasn’t so much an is- committed to sue of negotiations, but a delay fund scholarships ing months. Candidate visits for the related to the university having in Fox, STHM. dean of the School of Media and a new provost and president. “We’ve worked out the Communication wrapped yeskinks and the next one should LAURA ORDONEZ terday, April 22. The two other schools at the go much more smoothly,” McThe Temple News forefront of dean searches – the Garvey said. The College of Science and College of Education and the Fox School of Business College of Health Professions Technology is the remaining and the School of Tourism and and Social Work – have each college that houses an interim Hospitality Management will had two of three candidates visit dean but the provost said in Feb- use carry-over funds to estabruary that the university is not lish endowed scholarships for the university. James Graves of the Uni- actively seeking a permanent students in both schools. versity of Utah and Laura Simi- dean for CST yet. In a move approved at last noff of Virginia Commonwealth week’s Board of Trustees ExSean Carlin can be reached at ecutive Committee meeting, University visited the universean.carlin@temple.edu sity within the past two weeks more than $10 million will be or on Twitter @SeanCarlin84. for CHPSW’s deanship. Steven used to create an annual fundStanhope of the University of ing stream of $180,000 for Fox Delaware is expected to visit students and $67,500 for STHM the university on Thursday and students. The endowed schol-

“You have to

do good things with what you have available and that’s what [Lucia has] been doing at Villanova.

”

ROTC PAGE 1

LDAC]...it’s called knees to the Army,” he said, with the hint of a smile. “They put you wherever they want.” Cardinal, however, knows where he’s going. He’ll graduate from Temple and immediately head out to Washington state, where he’ll be an evaluator at the LDAC course. After that, he’ll be heading to Fort Benning, Ga., where he’ll take his basic officer leadership course in infantry. It’s this structure, he said, that’s unique to the ROTC postgraduate experience. “I feel like a lot of people coming out of school, graduating, they don’t have a plan and a course of action, [or] know what they’re planning on doing,” he said. “I know exactly where I’m going to be working. I know where I’m going and what I’m going to be doing and what the standards are for that. I know exactly what’s going to be expected of me.” But it comes with a price. “It’s a lot more responsibility,” said Cardinal, who will

graduate as a commissioned second lieutenant. “The most prevalent job [second lieutenants] get is platoon leader. So you’re essentially in charge of 40 to 50 people. Those lives are in your hands.” It’s a tall order, but one that Lt. Col. James Castelli, a military science professor and adviser in the ROTC program, said his ROTC cadets are ready for. Castelli said the program plans to commission 12 or 13 new officers in May, of the 17 seniors. Those who remain are simply behind in credits, like any other college student. Once they complete the requirements, they too will take their first postcollege steps into the Army. “I think that there’s no better preparation for graduating, and everything that comes after, than the military training, the lifestyle that they’ve learned to live,” Castelli said. “We can’t train Army officers for everything that they’re going to need to know when they get out in the regular Army. But what we can

do is train them to be leaders and decision makers.” Cardinal said he feels more than prepared moving forward. It may have been a non-traditional college experience, but life in ROTC was invaluable. He doesn’t know if he’ll make a career out of the military. After fulfilling his required service, he could see himself teaching. But whether he winds up in the military or working a civilian job, Cardinal knows that his ROTC experience has prepared him. “I wouldn’t trade my college experience for anything else,” he said. “I feel like, if I came and didn’t do ROTC, I would’ve had tendencies not to do my work on time. It just made me a better person, and more ready to grow up.” Ali Watkins can be reached at ali.watloms@temple.edu or on Twitter @AliMarieWatkins.

Student leaves ammunition in class criminal charges but will provoke an SCC hearing. “We have zero tolerance when it comes to any firearm on campus, or ammunition, things of that nature,” Leone said. “Anything that can pose a public safety hazard.” The code is extremely strict when it comes to firearms. Any student found in possession of a firearm on campus will be suspended from the university pending an SCC investigation, according to the code. Though this immediate suspension does not carry over to a possession of only ammunition, Dean of Students Stepha-

nie Ives said the code extends to all students, even if they have a permit to carry a weapon – which this student did. “Having a firearm on campus would be very dangerous. We do not allow anyone who is not a law enforcement officer [to carry firearms],” Ives said. “People who have permits to carry are not allowed to carry on campus.” No TU Alert or Advisory was issued when the magazine was found, because officials concluded that at no time was there a “threat to students or campus,” Betzner said. These findings disprove

early socil media rumors that a gun had been found in or near Gladfelter Hall – the same place where a threat referring to the 1999 Columbine High School shooting was found scrawled in a bathroom in March. Another Columbine-related message was found in Gladfelter on April 16, but officials said they are not viewing it as a threat. Sean Carlin can be reached at sean.carlin@temple.edu or on Twitter @SeanCarlin84.

Trustees approve post, scholarship funds arships will focus on honor students and graduate masters programs. In an email to school officials, Moshe Porat, dean of Fox, said he would like to enhance the provost’s plan to provide scholarships based on SAT averages in order to “increase the academic quality of students selecting the Fox and STHM schools.” The committee also approved a transfer of $3 million to establish a building fund for the schools. The committee also approved the appointment of Karen B. Clarke, of the University of Houston, as vice president for strategic marketing and communications. President Neil Theobald announced earlier this month

that Clarke would be assuming the position on May 1. Clarke, who was previously at the University of South Florida and University of Miami, is the chief strategist for Houston’s branding and marketing campaign, according to the university’s website. She’s been associate vice president for marketing and communications at Houston since 2007. The position Clarke will be assuming is a new administrative role, which was created when Theobald took over in January. Clarke will serve in Theobald’s cabinet and “will be responsible for setting the overall strategic and creative direction of the university’s branding, marketing, and communications efforts,” according to a job

description posted by Chronicle of Higher Education during the search for this administrator. Clarke’s position would bring two roles of communications together. Currently, communications duties are housed in University Communications and Institutional Advancement. University Communications handles internal media and public relations, while Institutional Advancement handles marketing communications, Ken Lawrence, senior vice president for government, community and public affairs, said. Laura Ordonez can be reached at laura.ordonez@temple.edu. Sean Carlin contributed to this report.

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 23, 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

opens up a network of resources in the city for musicians. Junior Evan Lescallette’s documentary “My Basement is a S---hole” explores the DIY scene that has formed a deep network and community of people supporting off-campus house shows. Music columnist Kevin Stairiker talks about why every student should experience a house show before graduating in his last “Fear of Music” column of the semester. Additional articles include a look at Record Store Day, the 15-member rap group Ghost Ghang, a professor producing for Lauryn Hill and the Philadelphia reggae rock band, Post Sun Times, among others. The Temple News realizes it can’t capture every component of the thriving music scene this city supports in five pages, but the Music Issue is meant to highlight a few movers and shakers. If you know of a music project or group that deserves to have their voices – or music – heard, The Temple News is always open to taking notes.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I’ll get used to loving my own

body and letting go of negative thoughts. I hope you all will too.

”

Cary Carr / “Body of Truth,” P. 17

JULIANA COPPA TTN

PHOTO COMMENT

Student-based group Ghost Ghang performs at last week’s Spring Fling on Main Campus. | KATE McCANN TTN

GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?

POLLING PEOPLE

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

What do you think employers should consider most important during hiring decisions?

07% 60%

College major.

Relevant skills.

26% 07%

Proper experience.

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.

Other.

*Out of 115 votes.

CITY VIEW

Labor of Love 100

A survey of 318 private and nonprofit employers who have a minimum of 25 employees, at least 25 percent of whom have either an associate or bachelor’s degree, found that employers favor job candidates with a wide variety of skills as well as specific field or position knowledge.

75

50

55% 25

29%

Which is more important for recent college graduates who want to pursue advancement and longterm career success at your company? Having knowledge and skills that apply to a specific field or position

T

his week, The Temple News presents its annual Music Issue within the Arts & Entertainment section. Music is an integral part of both the Philadelphia and Temple experience – and no, we’re not just talking about that token acoustic guitar player on Liacouras Walk. It’s your study music, your weekend plans, your friends’ band, all existing within your earbuds, basements and venues scattered on and off Main Campus. Music is a personal experience for everyone, and our Music Issue presents a variety of content in the paper and online that expands genres, as well as a multimedia component with an in-newsroom acoustic recording session with Girl Scouts, a band comprised of students. In the future, The Temple News is going to work toward bringing more artists into the newsroom to bring you videos to accompany articles. Arts & Entertainment Editor Jenelle Janci talks with Ryan Crump, a World Cafe Live employee who started Philly Drum Project, a drum collective that

The Temple News introduces its annual Music Issue.

JULIANA COPPPA

Having a range of skills and knowledge that apply to a range of fields and positions

Music to your ears

Code of Conduct. Temple may not have been under any obligation to release any information, but the university should have done so to stem the flow of misinformation that flooded in. It also should have taken the opportunity to stress to the student body the importance of knowing and complying with the SCC – which, arguably, most students aren’t intimately familiar with. As was previously mentioned, this student was not in any way violating current state or federal law by carrying this loaded magazine. No criminal charges are pending. But the student violated a contractual agreement he has with the university to uphold a certain set of rules, rules that are notably very strict in regards to firearms. An SCC investigation will occur, and the punishment could be severe. Had the student been carrying the gun, he would have faced immediate suspension. It is impossible to say that the entire situation could have been avoided had the student simply known the rules and the stakes. But it certainly could not have hurt.

Having both field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge

A

mid all the tragedy that has surrounded the past week, especially the realization that the university had discovered graffiti threatening to recreate the horrific Columbine shooting on its 14-year anniversary, it was excusable for students to take to social media to comment on a loaded magazine – but no gun – being found in a backpack in Weiss Hall on April 17. As tweets rushed in, the potential connection to that original graffiti threat from March and the additional one found last week seemed ominous. But while university officials were helpful in separating the truth from the rumors propagated by tweeting students and unofficial Temple-related accounts when asked, no massive update on the situation was sent out to the entire student body. In many ways, this is understandable. Deputy Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone referred to the incident as accidental and it seemingly did not pose a threat to anyone. The male student possessed a concealed carry permit, and so he did not violate any laws, but did break the Student

Lessons abound from the handling of the loaded magazine situation.

Percent of college graduates

Conduct business

16%

CARA STEFCHAK TTN *SOURCE: ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

PAGE 5

Fear can’t dictate lives

I JERRY IANNELLI Twentysomething Handbook

Iannelli argues that life is always going to involve danger, but that shouldn’t mean avoiding new experiences.

f you’re like most people, you’re lucky enough to not have any experience with school shootings. I certainly have none. There’s always been a part of me that thinks I’d know how to react or what to do if pressed with a situation that included my own possible murder at the hands of a bullet-toting sociopath, but I’m only fooling myself, and this week has seemingly gone out of its way to prove to me just how wrong I am. In case you haven’t logged in to your TUMail account lately, Temple neglected to inform students of an FBI investigation into graffiti scrawled on a bathroom stall in Gladfelter Hall that threatened to “honor [Columbine shooters] Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold on April 20th” since March. For those of you that really have not logged into your TUMail account lately, it is now April, and Temple students were only informed

JULI-

after the local Fox News station uncovered the story. And while the vitriol that I’ve heard directed at the Main Campus brass for keeping a clear issue of campus safety from the people that need it most is certainly warranted, the situation now feels much graver after having had a week to digest the facts. We think that we want to be told if we are, in fact, in danger. We convince ourselves that it’s possible to be prepared. I certainly would prefer prior warning before risking my life because I really felt like a picking up a slice of honey-garlic-chicken pizza on Saturday. And yet, short of forcing every student indoors on April 20 in a good, old-fashioned lockdown, there seems to be increasingly less and less that anyone can do to prevent an event like this from breaking out anymore. First, we need to address whether or not Temple really had a good reason to keep this

entire story under wraps for the better part of a month. Considering the investigation involves Philadelphia Police, Philadelphia Police’s Homeland Security Unit and the FBI, it’s certainly possible that discretion was an agreed-upon standard. But while I want to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation – a group I assume to be more-thanslightly experienced in handling scoundrels of all makes and models – the benefit of the doubt in its bad guy-catching operating procedure, there seem to be a few disheartening possible reasons that Temple may have held information back from its students. Most notably, I’m not particularly sure how “Temple Made” an armed madman sprinting through Beury Beach would look to outsiders. With Spring Fling and Alumni Weekend falling squarely around the potential attacker’s April 20 assault date, giving our unques-

tionably massive alumni and student bodies a full month to stew over their safety at these events may have resulted in a decidedly smaller turnout. Regardless of the reason, Temple officials – by virtue of their relationship with the student body – gambled by not revealing the onset of the investigation from students, hoping the information wouldn’t find a way to leak. They lost. But what can any of us do if faced with the horrifying reality that is a campus shooting? I don’t want to let a coward making a seemingly empty threat to “show [me] the meaning of suffering” on a bathroom wall dictate my life from far away. In fact, I refuse. There are a thousand different ways each of us can be killed every single day. It’s one of the harsh realities that comes part and parcel with the rest of the Life Package your parents ordered from Amazon

IANNELLI PAGE 6

Paley Library is impossible to copy

I SUNIL CHOPADE

Chopade believes the spirit of library facilities lies more in the books than architects may think.

once had a professor who bemoaned the loss of beards in academia. It was part of the reason he’d gotten into the whole thing in the first place, he’d said, and yet everywhere he turned there were bare-faced professors, adjuncts and graduate students who looked positively cherubic. He was part of the last bastion that relished this minor eccentricity sprouting from their faces, but change had come. When I learned of Temple’s plan to erect a “21st-Century library” in place of the Student Pavilion, I didn’t rejoice. Instead, as often happens with something you love that’s about to become derelict – like Chris’s Taco Stand, which I’m still reeling from – I felt the first swift pangs of a wistful melancholy. The announcement of a $144 million super-library was a death knell for the institution that has served us since 1966, and whose fate is still to be determined as it is gradually phased out. Think of Paley Library: the stuffy, windowless upper floors, fluorescently-lit; the notably aged decor, done up in battered, traffic-cone orange, pale ochre, and a kind of diluted lime like a somber fruit cocktail from 1974; the cataloging system,

which initially seems like a combination of quantum theory and Soviet bureaucracy. And yet there’s a persistent charm to the place. For those lovers of the “old book smell” – of which I am not – the experience of strolling among the stacks can be almost aphrodisiacal. Paley was almost rooted in impracticality from its inception: It was modeled not on other libraries, but on “book warehouses,” almost as if it was a place merely for books and not people. Yet generations of students insisted on making it theirs, and now it’s ours. Against all odds, the mastodon was wrangled. But is it already extinct? Craig Dykers, co-founder of Snøhetta, the architectural firm set to design the new library on North Broad Street, seems to think so. Suffering from a tremendous Internet-induced myopia, anything that isn’t immediately available online is, to him, of no real importance. “A library has never been about books,” Dykers said at an event earlier this month. I tremble before such wisdom. Until last month, when it was reissued to widespread media acclaim, “Speedboat” by Renata Adler was only to be

found in an original 1976 copy among the stacks of Paley Library. Much of Paley’s catalog has yet to be digitized and exists only in its hard copy. The experience of reading and handling a first edition of “Ulysses” by James Joyce – which Paley has, by the way – is radically different from perusing a haphazardly scanned file of the same book in the library’s database. A number of studies in the retaining of memory have corroborated this. Even an intermediate reader must beg to differ with Mr. Dykers’ philosophy. What Paley offers stems from its perceived lack – it enables a kind of negative capability. Where else on campus can you find the same brand of solitude? The TECH Center sometimes feels like a garish computer carnival, with its persistent clack of keyboards and color-coded divisions. While it may have a profusion of outlets – God love them – it just doesn’t compare to the almost ascetic quietude of Paley. Many students’ greatest moments of concentration have been achieved in Paley Library, punching out papers in a marathon of writing or shoveling away weighty tomes, be it for class or for fun. Temple’s grand undertaking of this proposed palatial hu-

man-connection-learning center seems to me to overcomplicate the idea of the library. There is something about Dykers’ attempt to redefine and reinvent the library that I find baffling, along with the proposal of some retail space inside the library. At its base level, a library is a repository of flat bundles of paper culled from a tree and, occasionally, you can find something interesting printed in them. It isn’t expressly about interaction. The beauty of Paley is in its stark simplicity. Besides, talking is usually discouraged in a library. There are some positives, unless the proposal was entirely positive to you from the start. The new library is to be a “signature building,” in that it incorporates the neighborhood around it and will be more readily available for use to local residents as well as students. So hang it all, Snøhetta, you can keep your retail opportunities and your natural light. It’s getting close to crunch time, and I have to finish these last 100 pages in the most WiFiless corner of Paley. We still have this place for a little while. Cherish it. Sunil Chopade can be reached at sunil.chopade@temple.edu.

College curriculum creates employability

E JESSICA SMITH

Smith argues that a recent study overlooked how majors imbue students with important skills.

veryone, quick, stop what you’re doing, drop your heavy textbooks and withdraw from your core classes. Majors don’t matter anymore. Or at least that’s what a study conducted earlier this year suggests. Unfortunately, nobody told that to Temple. You can’t graduate or earn a degree in university studies, and the department itself laments on its website that, “While we love having you as our student, at some point you will need to leap from the University Studies nest and soar to your next destination.” But a recent online survey of employers by the Association of American Colleges and Universities found that majors are pretty inconse-

quential when seeking potential candidates for jobs. The survey, conducted in January by Hart Research Associates, polled 318 employers that have 25 employees or more in their organization with at least a quarter of them holding either an associate degree from a twoyear college or a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college. These employers – including

owners, CEOs and presidents – answered questions about their preferences in potential employees and the priorities that college students should emphasize on résumés and in job interviews. Ninetythree percent of the employers agreed that “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate

“Basically, the

people in charge of hiring recent graduates are saying that they couldn’t care less about majors. All you need is an education and some skills.

”

major.” Also, more than 75 percent of employers said they want colleges to give more guidance on helping students develop “critical thinking, complex problem-solving, written and oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings.” Basically, the people in charge of hiring recent graduates are saying that they couldn’t care less about majors. All you need is an education and some skills. If that’s true, why are universities so adamant about declaring majors? Well, let’s look at Temple’s educational system in particular. With every major, there are core

SMITH PAGE 6

SOMEONE ELSE’S

OPINION

“For today’s 18- to 21-year-olds, the Boston bombings must feel like a bookend to what started on Sept. 11, 2001. They were elementary school kids when terrorists brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center.”

Joan Vennochi,

on bostonglobe.com in “Fears of a new generation”

“Even though other news outlets pulled photos and videos from social media sites, CNN’s strategy was by far the most effective use of what have become known as citizen journalism and crowdsourcing.”

Christopher Harper, on washingtontimes.com in “Boston shows promise and pitfalls of social media”

“Do we want our marquee state universities to behave more like job-training centers, judged by the number of students they speed toward degrees, the percentage of those students who quickly land goodpaying jobs and the thrift with which all of this is accomplished? In the service of that, are we willing to jeopardize some of the trailblazing research these schools have routinely done and the standards they’ve maintained?”

Frank Bruni,

on nytimes.com in “Questioning the Mission of College”

“Some men not only oppose equality laws and initiatives designed to improve the representation of women in parliaments and boardrooms and in other positions of influence that more routinely deliver men than women to the TIME 100; these men also seek to block the entitlement of girls and women to basic human rights such as health care or to deny the parity of educational opportunity that Malala advocates.”

Catherine Mayer,

on time.com in “What Holds Women Back From the Time 100?”

“Gosnell isn’t indicative of what occurs when abortion is legal; he is a walking warning for what might come if Roe v. Wade is overturned or whittled away slowly by the states.”

Michael Smerconish,

on philly.com in “The Pulse: What bias in Gosnell coverage?”

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

more about your degree or your skills?

“A degree is supposed to be proof that you achieved a certain set of skills. But at the same time both are important.”

“I believe that employers should value the skill one has to offer, not the degree.”

“Both are an essential, but after a couple years what [is] going to matter most are your skills.”

ALEXIS PEGUERO TTN

STEVE NEGRON

SHALEA KHAN

MELISSA ABDUL-JABBAR

“Should employers care ”

JUNIOR | MEDIA STUDIES

OPINION DESK 215-204-7416

SENIOR | INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

LETTERS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

SENIOR | PSYCHOLOGY

OPINION

PAGE 6

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

on the

WORD WEB...

temple-news.com

Unedited for content.

A PROF SAYS ON “LOADED MAGAZINE FOUND IN BACKPACK IN WEISS HALL” ON APRIL 20 AT 8:44 P.M.

This particular “good guy” apparently can’t keep track of his ammunition. Thanks, I’ll take my chances without his protection.

JW SAYS ON “LOADED MAGAZINE FOUND IN BACKPACK IN WEISS HALL” ON APRIL 20 AT 8:11 P.M.

I’m glad you can’t have a gun on campus. Really, truly glad. Sure, in the extremely rare circumstance of a mass shooter it sucks. But it’s far more likely that you, or somebody near you, will get upset and a normal argument/fight/petty crime will turn into a shooting. Anyway, thanks for parroting some s--- you heard and didn’t think about. It disgusts me that you weren’t booted from the school for that sort of weapons violation. You shouldn’t be allowed to graduate. You should be gone.

BEN FLOOD SAYS ON “LOADED MAGAZINE FOUND IN BACKPACK IN WEISS HALL” ON APRIL 19 AT 9:05 P.M.

Sent up for a referral for having a magazine in a bag. May I remind everyone that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun? Psychopathic killers will always find a way to get a gun and do their evil. Taking away our natural right to self-defense just because we’ve stepped on a college campus only means we are totally at these monsters’ mercy. It’s time to end campus gun bans.

NICK SAYS ON “COLATRIANO: PHILLY SHOULD WIPE OUT ILLEGAL STREET RIDING” ON APRIL 18 AT 6:46 P.M.

Hey I totally agree with you. Its been a major problem for years. Young teens lose their Life because of inexperience. Every week i see kids as young as 12 riding with No helmet! The dangers of riding should be taught in schools using scare tactics .

MORE DISTURBING SAYS ON “CHAIR POST FUELS RACE TENSION” ON APRIL 18 AT 2:14 A.M.

is that there are actually people getting african-american studies degrees, going into loads of debt to do so, being unable to pay it off, being the people complaining that all student debt needs to be waived, and going on food stamps and “disability” because shockingly, nobody wants to hire someone with that degree. though, you can replace african-american studies degree with basically anything in the liberal arts school.

STUDENTS FOR THE CAUSE SAYS ON “CHAIR POST FUELS RACE TENSION” ON APRIL 16 AT 11:53 P.M.

There were quite a few eligible candidates to lead that department. The fact that none were seriously considered without the input of the students and faculty within African American studies is disturbing.

presents its annual documentary, “Branded.” Visit temple-news.com to see a trailer of “Branded” – a look at the campaign that is Temple Made and how students and faculty view it.

Ensuring safety requires Well-roundedness and critical more societal empathy thinking made through majors IANNELLI PAGE 5

Stork 20-ish years ago. Getting behind the wheel of a car or biking without a helmet are foolishly dangerous acts of bravado when one takes a good hard look at what’s statistically most likely to kill you, and yet I often participate in those activities just for fun. I don’t allow the crushing danger that comes with hurling my body at 67 miles an hour down a highway while inventing ways to dance to Daft Punk using only my shoulders to stop me from living my life. I absolutely refuse to let the empty threats of a sick human being keep me terrified and indoors for the rest of my life. If you’re like me, you like to assume that both your school and the forces that the government employ to protect you have strict plans mapped out in the godforsaken event that an armed coward actually does open fire on you or your campus. In the wake of this year’s exhausting amount of public violence sprees, capped off by the Boston Marathon bombings and the

subsequent manhunt, I’m quite frankly not sure that this is currently – or ever has been – the case. Police forces – and SWAT teams especially – are mostly reactionary by nature, generally called only after any sort of tragedy breaks out. While the presence of a bicycle cop may do wonders in preventing a street burglar from snatching your purse and making a getaway, the current security presence on campus may not do much to deter a man intent on taking out as many students as possible before turning a weapon on himself. While the debate rages on as to how to exactly prevent tragedies like Columbine or Virginia Tech from breaking out,

the only option each and every one of us can take tomorrow is to make sure we take a vested interest in the mental well-being of those around us. Short of instituting security screenings before entering every single elevator on campus, ensuring that the human beings around you have the adequate love and mental care that they need to live hopeful and fulfilling lives just may be the only thing standing between our own community and the horrors that so many across the nation have already been unfairly forced to suffer.

SMITH PAGE 5

requirements. Some have tracts you can sign up for, and others have enough elective freedom to allow customized specialties. The classes that fall under these categories are only applicable to major-related occupations. That’s when you factor in all the general education courses. Every single Temple student needs two Mosaic courses to graduate, which combine analytical reading with in-depth discussion. As annoying and unconventional as it might be, it gives much-needed exposure to a more culturally rich area of education. Also, it’s not just encouraged but academically required to take a variety of classes that aren’t major-specific. Gen-eds make up a considerable amount of the portion needed to graduate with a bachelor’s. No matter what you’re studying, you still Jerry Iannelli can be reached need to explore science, humanat gerald.iannelli@temple.edu ities and arts-oriented courses. or on Twitter @jerryiannelli. In all, Temple is pretty much guaranteeing you’ll expe-

“It’s one of the

harsh realities that comes part and parcel with the rest of the Life Package your parents ordered from Amazon Stork 20-ish years ago.

”

rience a very broad spectrum of classes, regardless of the major printed on your diploma. There goes the mark for “well-rounded” on the employers’ checklist. That’s essentially the wide-range knowledge they’re seeking, as revealed by the survey. It’s not about titles or a certain focus, just as long as job applicants come prepared with a large skill set. So with all the regions of study, why even bother having a major? Why is the system designed in such a way? Well – quite simply – college prepares us for what we actually want to do, with the assumption that we probably don’t know what that is yet. Other courses aren’t just offered to broaden horizons, but to present us with the possibility that we might change our minds. It’s a foolproof way to ensure that we get to focus on what makes us happy, but have a backup plan in case that plan switches or fails. “While [employers] may prioritize key skills over a job

candidate’s field of study,” the survey reads, “the majority of employers agree that having BOTH field-specific knowledge and skills and a broad range of skills and knowledge is most important for recent college graduates to achieve long-term career success.” We can’t say where we’ll end up in five to 10 years, but we have some ideas formulating of where we want to be. The path to earning a degree is crafted by experiences and forays into different schools of thought and majors are the stepping stone. We can’t reach our destination without that first step. As the Hart Research Associates discovered, majors don’t signify much by their title, but the well-rounded education they represent does. So while employers may not give them too much thought, it’s pretty clear that majors aren’t a minor thing in our lives. Jessica Smith can be reached at jessicasmith@temple.edu.

Collegiate sports require reform

C CHELSEA THOMPSON

Thompson thinks NCAA regulations are seriously unfair to student-athletes.

ollege sports make front-page news, but in recent years, scandals seem to overshadow wins and losses more often than fans would like to admit. Debates on the entire system of collegiate amateurism and the balance of power between college coaches – often some of the highest paid university employees – have raged on. Most recently, the resignation of Rutgers basketball coach, Mike Rice, has blurred the line between what is acceptable treatment of student-athletes and what isn’t. There have been plenty of people – even his former players – who have argued that Rice’s actions were normal for a coach. But, sadly, Rice’s actions toward his players are micro-scale problems within the macro system of the NCAA. Rice is not collegiate sports’ biggest flaw. That dubious distinction belongs to what makes the whole situation as newsworthy as it is: A highly paid college coach employed at a school that was about to move into one of the biggest conferences was caught on camera exploiting his players – whose only payment is the opportunity to attend classes at the school they represent – as expendable commodities and the school did virtually nothing about it.

Ultimately, the root of the problem is the vague and nebulous definition of what being a “student-athlete” entails. According to “The Shame of College Sports,” an article in The Atlantic by Taylor Branch, “college players were not students at play (which might understate their athletic obligations), nor were they just athletes in college (which might imply they were professionals).” The equivocal “studentathlete” term was coined by the NCAA with intent to impede student athletes’ rights. The student-athlete is a student and an athlete but the hierarchal power struggle between what is more important is at play. Take, for example, the recent grade-changing scandal at Auburn. Universities are becoming more concerned with how the player will benefit the college or university rather than how the college or university can benefit the player. Academia is not the top priority of the university when the stakes are high and contracts get raised whenever a team succeeds at winning games. However, this is detrimental to the players by infringing on their ability to succeed in school. If the role of student does come first, as it does chronologically in the term, then providing a quality education should never be dis-

placed by a desire to keep athletes on their respective fields of play. The top college teams in the nation demand a great deal of their student-athletes. But if they’re not making the providing of a quality education a top priority, then the athletes aren’t getting much in return other than the slim chance at making it big in the pros. Deon Miller, a wide receiver for the Temple football team hesitated when asked if he thought student-athletes should be paid. “I don’t want to be selfish, but it’s hard to live outside of school when I have no time to get a job,” he said. “I have to stretch my financial aid.” Universities in the power conferences are sponsored and televised, accumulating billions of dollars for the NCAA as well as the universities, yet the young athletes receive comparatively little. Miller, along with most of his teammates, attends Temple on scholarship and/or receives financial aid. Unfortunately, this is not enough and a student-athlete’s time is limited between class and practice. It’s difficult for athletes to obtain a part-time job. So if they can’t get a job, then they should at least be able to benefit in some manner – even if it is indirectly – from the

product they produce: their athletic achievements. Right? Not according to NCAA rules. In 2010, Reggie Bush and USC were penalized by the NCAA for the player’s acceptance of gifts from agents while at the school. Under NCAA Division I Bylaw 12.1, an athlete is ineligible to play the sport if the athlete “uses his or her athletics skill (directly or indirectly) for pay in any form in that sport.” The penalty in the Bush case: a reduction of 30 scholarships throughout the course of three years. And while this may on the surface seem to punish the program by preventing it from bringing in as much topshelf talent, what it really does is shrink the pool of scholarship opportunities for incoming athletes. Throughout those three years, 30 athletes couldn’t accept offers from USC, which meant they likely took them from other programs, displacing 30 other athletes, and so on until 30 high school football players were told there were no openings remaining. Meanwhile, then-head coach Pete Carroll’s salary was in the millions. But had Bush just been paid for his services in the first place, the whole situation, as well as the many like it that have happened since, could all have been avoided.

Even after this harsh punishment, in 2010 A.J. Green, a wide receiver at Georgia, sold his own jersey to pay for springbreak. A few months later, Ohio State football players were investigated regarding a violation of the NCAA’s rules against discounts linked to athletic performance. Evidently, the penalties are not fixing the problem. Colleges and universities need to stop pretending that our current system is the status quo. As Branch states in his article, “The United States is the only country in the world that hosts big-time sports at institutions of higher learning.” Universities are moving away from their academic mission, instead accumulating wealth on behalf of studentathletes. Greed is of main concern, and it’s disturbing to think that when, or rather if, players graduate, the NCAA can still continue to collect on behalf of a player that is dehumanized in a video game. Maybe it’s time for the United States to use other countries as an example and quit the NCAA and intercollegiate sports to return to the initial focus of education as the leading priority of our society. Chelsea Thompson can be reached at chelsea.thompson@temple.edu.

LIVING temple-news.com

Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

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A Transformation Captured

AJ Young is having his life documented in the Web series “A Man Who Takes Place Of ” as he completes his transition from female to male.

Daniel Pellegrine TTN

A

Patricia Madej The Temple News

s AJ Young wakes up in the morning, he looks in his journal to find his life’s mantra written on a sticky note: “Hard work, dedication.” This applies to all aspects of his life, from pursuing his Ph.D. in sociology at Temple, to the half-marathons he competes in, the flag-football team he’s a part of or his advocacy in the LGBT community. He said this very motto has remained important to him since last August, when he began his transition from female to male. “This year, those have been words that have really kept me going and kept my head in the right place,” he said. Young comes from a liberal family that was active in his

community and high school, he said. He was raised right outside of Chicago, and is the oldest of five kids. Young describes it as a “fairly normal Midwestern upbringing.” He said his parents were adamant about him and his siblings meeting many people, and talking to them regardless of any judgment. When he was an adolescent, Young considered himself a tomboy, but never felt uncomfortable in his own body, as he said tends to be the case with transsexual stories. “I really liked sports. I really liked Ninja Turtles and I played with Barbies and things like that. There was never a moment where I was like, ‘I’m not a girl. I’m not going to play with Barbies.’ But I didn’t like wearing dresses. I remember throwing big fits having to wear Easter dresses from my grand-

mother,” he said. “I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to run around and play football and soccer and all of those sorts of things.” It wasn’t until he was an undergraduate at American University that he had a moment of realization. There, Young said the university offered an LGBT Resource Center, safe space training and a Trans 101 training that he took. The course was video-based and documented the stories of many trans individuals. “There was a moment where I was watching these videos and listening to these people talk about themselves, and I felt like I had been punched in the stomach because that was my story. That was what I was feeling at that point,” he said. Young said he felt panicked, and confided in very few. Though he said he had a very

tight-knit group of friends that was accepting, there were some, especially from high school, who told him they were not ready to maintain friendships, which he said hurt him. Young said he and his parents discussed the topic in the past, but they were still surprised at his decision, though they eventually came to terms. “My dad was amazing. He basically said, ‘I don’t totally understand this, but I understand feeling like you’re not happy and that you feel like you can do something about it, so you should do that,’” Young said. Young said his body has gone through dramatic emotional and physical changes due to hormone therapy. Emotionally, he said his “baseline” happiness has just increased, leaving him the happiest he’s ever been. Physically, he’s noticed

that his shoulders have become much bigger; his fat distribution has shifted from his hips to mid-section; his thighs and legs have slimmed down; and he feels stronger without even trying. Even while running, he notices he can do so faster than ever before. Young said he still has a long way to go, and has a lot of anxiety toward how much is left. In addition, male grooming has become part of his morning routine. “It’s almost more maintenance now than when I was identified as a woman because I didn’t really care too much about shaving my legs and I never wore makeup,” Young said. “Having to keep tabs on a beard is more work than I thought it was going to be. It’s just sort of funny the things that have been easier and harder, and they’re not always what I

expected them to be.” When he began to transition, Young said one of the most overwhelming parts was just figuring out what public bathroom to use. Though he said now the decision is easier since he’s further in the transitioning process, he didn’t know what to do initially, considering Temple has a lack of gender-neutral bathrooms. On campus, Young said he feels there’s a lack of a central trans center, where students with stories similar to his can go and confide. Currently, he is working with allies, staff, students and administration to change that. He said the process can be very “isolating,” considering that many aren’t “out” yet, and those people could benefit from having a place to go on campus. This summer, Young is tak-

young PAGE 15

Play makes world premiere on Temple main stage “Liverpudlian Sleeve” by alumnus Davey Strattan White opened this past Friday. LUIS FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ Living Editor

Liverpudlian Sleeve stars graduate student Charlie DelMarcelle (left) as Owen, and undergraduate Anna Flynn-Meketon as Kristina. | Luis Fernando Rodriguez TTN

TONY’S TO TEMPLE, p. 8

Forrest McClendon, a 2011 Tony Award nominee, teaches voice lessons at Temple. Living DESK 215-204-7416

When Davey Strattan White first got the idea for “Liverpudlian Sleeve” he took a break from his commute home from teaching at Montgomery County Community College, and started writing the script outside of a Wawa. “I was watching the 2010 World Cup, and there were a lot of [referee] controversies,” White said. “I was also teaching an acting class at [Montgomery Community College]. One of my students had also been watching the games, and we were talking about it before class and he said, ‘Man, they’re

internet star, p. 16

Chris Montgomery looks at the ways music consumption has changed in the digital age. Living@temple-news.com

gonna cut that guy’s d--- off.’” That conversation led White to write the story of Owen, a former soccer starturned-referee who gets his penis cut off by a crazed female fan after he makes an incorrect call. “When I was in high school I had my ref license,” White said. “I think I kind of empathized with the idea of doing that to someone.” Throughout the play, Owen’s relationships, manhood and life are put to the test. The play also explores Kristina’s – Owen’s love interest – anger management issues and her involuntary YouTube fame. “He’s kind of confronted with the need to define his manhood in a new way and then she’s a yoga teacher with an anger management problem,” White said. “It’s a comedy but for me it’s about gender and about a post-gender age. How do we figure out who the hell

we are?” “Liverpudlian Sleeve” wound up being White’s thesis for his master’s of fine arts degree in playwriting, which he completed in 2012. White had previously received a MFA in acting from Temple in 2003. “I was in a writers and directors’ class where they paired [directing students and playwriting students] and we had to bring something we were working on, which is nice because in most playwriting classes you have to start a new project with guidelines and you have to work on what Bob [Hedley] wants you to work on. So I was like, ‘I’m working on my detached penis play,’” White said. “It was really fun. Everyone in class was a bit shocked I brought in these scenes.” Charlie DelMarcelle, the actor who plays Owen, had a chance to read for the part two years ago when White hosted a

sleeve PAGE 16

jumping ship, p. 17

Marcie Anker examines why some some students choose to leave the theater department.

living

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Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

Forrest McClendon earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance as Mr.Tambo in “The Scottsboro Boys” in 2011. He can be seen in Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater’s production of “Othello.” | COURTESY Forrest McClendon

Forrest McClendon 2011 Tony Award nominee teaches voice lessons at Boyer College of Music and Dance while pursuing a theater career. Diana David The Temple News A Tony Award nominee in 2011 for his Broadway musical debut as Mr. Tambo in “The Scottsboro Boys,” Forrest McClendon spends his time as an educator at the Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance at Temple and the Ira Brind School of Theater at the University of the Arts. With a bachelor’s degree in music and vocal performance from the University of Connecticut, McClendon made his way to Philadelphia to pursue his dream of acting. Along with his Tony nomination for playing Mr. Tambo, McClendon also received the 2012 Barrymore Award and in 2009 was awarded with a Barrymore for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a musical portraying Roscoe in the empowering a cappella, “Avenue X.” The Temple News had the opportunity to discuss with McClendon what made him return to Temple and continue teaching voice lessons, as well as what he has planned for his future. The Temple News: What made you want to pursue professional theater? Forrest McClendon: I was actually an engineering major at first before I became a voice major at the University of Connecticut and, in a nutshell, I had done the plays and musicals in high school, but I wanted to have a stable and lucrative career. I was going to major in engineering, but after my second year it was probably a really bad idea for me to do that because I wasn’t that good at math. So, after my second year, before they could kick me out, the school of fine arts threw me a lifeline and I basically changed my major from computer science and electrical engineering to vocal performance. I had always studied singing even when I first got to college, but I didn’t think I was going to be able to make a living and a career out of it, but after two years I decided to give it a go.

TTN: Who are your role models? FM: Right now, I would say that my mother is. I know it sounds cliché, but she’s really one of my biggest role models just because she’s the greatest lifetime learner that I know. She just keeps growing and growing and learning and learning no matter how old she gets. I like to imagine that I model myself [after her]. But my good friend Colman Domingo, who I was just working with on Broadway, is probably one of the other people that inspires me a great deal. He was also a Temple graduate. TTN: As a voice teacher, what is your day-to-day routine with your students? FM: In a nutshell, we do two things: technique for building and maintaining the voice and coaching songs as scenes. TTN: How do you juggle being an educator at two universities and still finding the time to pursue your theater career? FM: Actually, it doesn’t really feel like juggling them. For me, it feels more like balancing them and they’re my two great loves so what I have actually is a career, an extraordinary career that literally allows me to do both of these things at the same time. With “Othello,” it is a collaboration between the Shakespeare Theater, the Young Playwright’s Festival and the University of the Arts so that not only do I go teach at UArts as part of a course called Shakespeare in the Schools, which is young people that might want to be teaching arts, but then there are teaching artists from Young Playwrights and Philly Shakes that are going to the schools doing residencies on “Othello.” So, I go into high schools as well and do workshops. “Othello” and all of my work gives me the opportunity to literally do both of those things, and Temple has always encouraged that. When I get a job, the only thing that I’ve ever heard from my superiors is, “We encourage you to work and we think that’s very important.” TTN: What made you want to come to Philadelphia to pursue your acting career? FM: I actually got my job at the University of the Arts through “Backstage”, which is the performing arts weekly. I was living in New York at the time, and so I would commute to Philly once a week on Wednesdays and teach a full day so I could make enough money to support my life as an actor back in New York. Being here for that year made me fall in love with the city, and the following year I was looking for a place to live and was inspired to look here and it was probably the smartest thing I ever did. TTN: What type of theater art do you enjoy doing? FM: I’m really versatile: I like plays, musicals, classical and

contemporary. For me, it’s really about the story. I have a strong interest in stories about race, class, gender and spirituality. TTN: Out of all the characters you’ve played from different historical time periods, which one do you find the most compelling? FM: Right now, Othello, just because I’m all up in the middle of it. But I feel like all of them have been that incredible in the moment. Right now, it’s absolutely Othello. To be playing this person of color who is trying desperately to fit into this majority society is something I really relate to. TTN: Are there any characters that you’re just dying to perform, but haven’t done so yet? FM: Yeah, this one that [I did last Friday], “The Dangerous House of Pretty M’Bane.” His name is Marcel and I’m really looking forward to playing him. TTN: What was your initial reaction when you heard that you were nominated for a Tony Award? FM: I was driving down the highway. It was 8 o’clock in the morning and I was on my way to a technical rehearsal in New Jersey and my phone started ringing. I had forgotten that they were even announcing nominations that day and I certainly wasn’t thinking, “Oh, what about me?” My phone started ringing and I literally thought something was wrong because it was people who don’t ordinarily call me, especially at 8 o’clock in the morning. Colman Domingo and I were both nominated in the same category for “The Scottsboro Boys.” He rang me, and he never ever calls at 8 o’clock in the morning, so I knew it had to be something. I picked up his call, and he told me the news. I said, “You can’t...you really cannot do this to me right now because I’m on the highway.” He said, “Forrest, I need you to get off at the next exit. Pull your ass over and call me back. We need to talk about this.” I was just completely awestruck. Just undone. Overwhelmed. Thrilled. TTN: What future performances can we look forward to seeing you in? FM: Like I said, I have “Othello” through May 18, then I’m actually going to be doing something that I can’t really say. There’s a confidentiality agreement clause in my contract, but after “Othello” you won’t be able to see me in the U.S. for a while. I think it’s all right to say that. After “Othello,” I’m looking forward to traveling. Diana David can be reached at diana.david@temple.edu.

A cappella group focuses on Jewish-inspired music Jewkebox is a new a cappella group entering an established scene. NICOLE SOLL The Temple News It’s never easy to be the new kid on campus, but the new a cappella group, Jewkebox, which began August 2012, isn’t doing so bad. After struggling with scheduling issues and attendance during the fall semester, Jewkebox has come back stronger this spring, becoming an official student organization and holding auditions with the rest of the a cappella groups. “Our first-ever performance was at the big a cappella concert in February,” said Hilary Klapholz, one of the founding members of Jewkebox and the group’s music director. “It was really exciting to see a lot of things that have been in talks

finally come to life.” Jewkebox, or at least the idea of a Jewish a cappella group, has been in the works for some time. Klapholz, a junior music education major, knew of several attempts that never got started, but the stars aligned at the beginning of this year when Carly Adelmann became the Jewish Life Director at Temple Hillel. “[Adelmann] was like, ‘Let’s get this thing started, get the ball rolling,’ and I guess I just needed that extra push from her,” Klapholz said. While she was a student at the University of Pittsburgh, Adelmann had started a Jewish a cappella group, so she was all for the idea when Klapholz mentioned it to her. She began to meet with students interested, including Aimee Goldstein, a junior theater major and Jewkebox’s business manager. Adelmann may have gotten the ball rolling, but she’s quick to make it clear the students

have done most of the work in getting Jewkebox together. “They really started it, it’s really their project and their baby and I’m just their biggest fan,” Adelmann said. “I’ve just been giving them support when they need it.” Although Jewkebox is a small group with 10 singers – the average a cappella group has around 15 singers – members said they have a tight sound and a passion for performing. And thanks to that, they’ve been able to advance as a group very quickly. With only a handful of performances under its belt, most having been at Temple, Jewkebox was invited to sing at the pre-game show for the Philadelphia 76ers on Jewish Heritage Night. “[Klapholz] and I did a happy dance the first time we were even able to hold auditions and say we’re an official group, so the fact that we’re even able to perform at the Sixers [game] is really awesome,” Goldstein said.

They’ve also performed at several “Serenades at the Circle,” at which the five Temple a cappella groups come together at the Founder’s Circle to perform once a month. In the past week, Jewkebox had the opportunity to sing at Hillel during Friday Night Lights, a dinner for donors and at the Bell Tower for Alumni Weekend. Although it’s a Jewish a cappella group, the ‘Jew’ in Jewkebox comes not from its membership, which is open to all students, but rather their repertoire, which consists of Hebrew songs such as “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” and “Kol Ha’olam Kulo” and contemporary songs written by artists of Jewish heritage such as Amy Winehouse and P!nk. But Jewkebox is by no means trying to limit itself with song choices, having also performed Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine.” “We want to do songs that are fun and we try not to think of that whole Jewish back-

ground for everything,” said Dante Lammendola, a junior music education major who arranges Jewkebox’s music along with Klapholtz. In the future, Jewkebox hopes to include songs from Simon and Garfunkel and Billy Joel, along with an original song by Lammendola, Klapholz said. “He’s played it on multiple instruments but he composed and arranged it specifically for our group, so that’s really exciting,” Klapholz said. “It’s a really awesome song, kind of a whole Mumford and Sons feel.” The song should be ready by the next Serenade at the circle, but Lammendola said he was more excited about another arrangement he’s putting together. “I’m working on [arranging] ‘Stacy’s Mom,’” Lammendola said. “Editing the lyrics to fit in with the Jewkebox theme. I don’t want to give too much away but it’s something to look out for and I think if you listen to it, you’ll be in for a good

laugh.” Jewkebox’s tenure has only just begun and its members have a lot of plans for the future, including more performances in the community, increasing its membership and putting together their own EP someday. But for right now, the members of Jewkebox said they are just glad they’re a part of the scene. “There was this drunk guy at a party and he was like, ‘Are you part of that Jewish box?’ And I’m like ‘Yes, yes I am,’” Goldstein said. Lammendola added: “I figured it would be a good way to work on arranging music for an ensemble setting, but I really started to like being in this group. I love a cappella singing now, it’s [a] great experience, I would recommend it to everyone now.” Nicole Soll can be reached at nicole.soll@temple.edu.

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT temple-news.com

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

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presents

The Music Issue

Keeping the beat alive Ryan Crump founded Philly Drum Project, a collective for drummers in the city.

Record stores throughout the city offered special deals.

JENELLE JANCI A&E Editor

A

missing drum part, a basement full of mismatched gear and the ensuing frustration were the inspiration for Ryan Crump to start Philly Drum Project. “The experience that started this all was that I bought a 1976 Ludwig drumset. I needed a [wing nut],” Crump said. “It’s pretty universal, but it’s nice to have the real deal that says ‘Ludwig.’ I went on eBay, but it was $8-$10 for the piece plus shipping. I thought, ‘This is ridiculous. In my basement, I have a ton of spare parts for drums.’” Crump was frustrated knowing that there was probably someone with the part he needed willing to trade for a part that he had, he said. He wondered why there wasn’t a drum collective for local drummers to communicate these sorts of things. Crump attended the University of the Arts for a semester to study jazz before transferring to and graduating from the University of Delaware with a degree in music management. With marching band drumming, classical drumming and stints in a few rock bands under his belt, Crump is no stranger to the drumming scene.

Record Store Day rotates shop doors

CHEYENNE SHAFFER The Temple News

Ryan Crump, an employee at World Cafe Live, wanted to stay involved with the local music scene while providing drummers an outlet to meet one another. | KATE McCANN TTN “I started when I was like, 4 years old playing on Tinker-Toy cans,” Crump said. Busy working as a server and bartender at World Cafe Live and not in a band, Crump was looking for a way to scratch that drumming itch – and starting Philly Drum Project served as just that. “It was an outlet for creativity to still be involved in the music scene,” Crump said. Crump reached out to his friend Chris Previc, who runs a bucket-drumming group in Har-

risburg, Pa., to help him with organizing the startup for the Philly Drum Project, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a show today, April 23. “He’s very business-minded, so he’s the person I went to,” Crump said of Previc. “He’s sort of my mentor.” Philly Drum Project has four facets to its mission – to provide drummers with gear, lessons, gigs and beats. All four of these aspects are fulfilled through the group’s monthly

meetings called “Beats, Brews and Banter,” which are in the back room of the “R” Bar at 23rd and Walnut streets. While Philly Drum Project has approximately 150 members, Crump said the monthly meetings are intimate, averaging around 25 attendees. At these meetings, drummers can discuss who needs or is looking to give away certain parts. The project also helps drummers get and give gear by placing drop boxes in music stores around the city. Those

looking for gear can pay 50 cents to $1 for the parts. Philly Drum Project also plays matchmaker for aspiring drummers and those looking to give lessons and allows drummers to meet one another to collaborate – or rather, share beats. Attendees are not limited to just drummers, either – Crump said that often guitarists or other musicians will come to the meetings looking for a drummer for a particular gig. A different notable drum-

DRUM PAGE 12

There once was a time when showing friends your music collection involved sifting through boxes of vinyl rather than scrolling through an iPod. On Record Store Day, vinyl lovers could continue this nostalgic way of enjoying music. Since its inception in 2007, the day has become an international holiday recognized by thousands of record shops globally for its assortment of exclusive releases and free in-store performances. This year, Record Store Day was April 20. Record Store Day’s list of releases on its website was lengthy and included some acclaimed names. One of the exclusives, featuring Record Store Day ambassador Jack White, was a 10th anniversary reissue of The White Stripes’ fourth album “Elephant” on red vinyl. Sigur Rós took part in the holiday as well with a first time U.S. release of “Agaetis Byrjun.” Other musicians with exclusive releases were David Bowie, Elliott Smith, R.E.M., The Notorious B.I.G. and The xx. In Philly, the record store love was alive and well with more than 15 participating shops, which included Repo Records,

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Junior’s documentary explores house-show scene Junior Evan Lescallette made a film documenting basement shows. PATRICIA MADEJ The Temple News Some Philadelphians use their basements for doing laundry or storing Christmas decorations. But some may go a completely different route by plugging in amps, setting up drum kits and hosting loud, rowdy basement shows. Evan Lescallette, a junior media studies and production major, further explored basement shows in his 20-minute long documentary, “My Basement is a S---hole.” Made for his Genre of Media Production class, Lescallette may have conceived the idea by himself but had a team behind him to complete the project, including producer Luke Proctor, Ayanda Sithole and Tina Lam. Originally, Lescallette said, he wasn’t planning on pitching

an idea about music at all – but bikes instead. “I was in my room writing a stupid treatment about bikes in Philly, and I was like, I should just do it on music, because that’s what I care about,” Lescallette said. “I didn’t want to do it on music at first, because I didn’t think anybody in my class would be interested in doing it, because we voted on the documentary choices – which ones we wanted to get produced – and I was like, I don’t think anyone is going to want to do it on punk and DIY.” Lescallette said he originally felt “nervous” when pitching the idea. He said he knew if the idea was picked up, he would have to take charge and have additional responsibilities. House shows have quickly escalated into a subculture of Philadelphia, where many pay a few bucks to be let into a house and hear some of their favorite bands, which might not necessarily have the resources, time or audience to book bigger venues. Lescallette said the passion

CRUISIN’, p. 10

A member of the band Cruiser is the creator of Fishtown collective “Philly Musician Cult.” A&E DESK 215-204-7416

for the subject comes from being a musician himself. He’s the guitarist for the band Marietta, which is highly involved in the Philly DIY scene and community. “It’s important that there [are] basement shows to be the spot for those touring bands to play, and I just love it because when I was in middle school and high school I would just be looking on the Internet at these cool bands, and every picture... would be [the band] just playing in a basement, and I would be like, ‘That’s cool, I wonder if that actually happens?’ And I get here and I’m like, ‘Wow, it happens all the freaking time,’” Lescallette said. Some of the bands interviewed in the documentary include Smoother, Bleeding Fractals, Grower, Little Pirouettes and Mumblr. Along with interviews from band members, the documentary also included commentary from owners of the venues and audience members. Lescallette attended his first house show as a freshman

BASEMENT PAGE 12

Junior media studies major Evan Lescallette is getting attention online for his DIY Philly music documentary, “My Basement is a S---hole.” | BRENDAN MILLS TTN

ON THE SPOT, p. 11

North Philly drummer G. Calvin Weston finds value in improv techniques when performing. ARTSandENTERTAINMENT@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

SCOUT’S HONOR, p. 12

The three-piece Girl Scouts has developed a following with live shows despite few recordings.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

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TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

Low-price local shows offer big sound and sometimes wildly different things waiting to appease the qualities you find best in music. I came from a town that had its own very insular selection of bands. There were maybe five or six bands, and the lineups usually overlapped with each other. There was only one place to play outside of the yearly “Battle of the Bands,” and the audience was often comprised KEVIN STAIRIKER mostly of the other bands playFear of Music ing that night. when I came to PhiladelIn his final column, phia,SoI was so ready to soak in Stairiker praises the as much of the deep musical vaworth of the local live riety of the city as I could. Unfortunately, as a freshman, I was music scene. too withdrawn to seek out nearly as many shows as I could have. n this meager space that Eventually, I did muster up the I’ve been given by The courage to just go to a nearby Temple News, I’ve writ- house show by myself. I can’t ten at length about differ- remember the bands, but it’s not ent genres of popular music, really important. but I have yet to really delve I remember being tightinto the music that inspires me ly compacted between other more than any Beyoncé song sweaty, shorts-clad people. The I’ve heard yet. On any given singer of the band shouted as night in this city, there’s music loud as he could, but it was imto be heard. Tucked deep in the possible to make out any words back of a bar or right up front he was mustering because the in an openmic for everyone to drummer’s snare hits were see, there are things happening, louder than the singer was. It

I

was mesmerizing. College kids’ heads nodded in unison like they had practiced beforehand, and they got rowdy when it was appropriate. I committed myself right then to trying to go to as many shows as possible and also to try and play one or two if I could. I didn’t know anyone who ran anything, and I was far too nervous to find out, lest these keepers of house shows would smell the outsider on me. Since then, I’ve bore witness to some truly great shows in the square mile radius of this campus, usually for $5 or less. I’ve seen broken strings played off with a laugh and singers losing their voices only a couple songs in and just screaming the rest of the set. The sense of community here has been one of the best things to see. Instead of bands being rivals with each other and trying to outdo one another – which is a real thing I’ve seen elsewhere – bands in North Philadelphia are constantly helping each other, whether via borrowing equipment, setting up shows or simply giving the standard midset shoutout to the bands before

and the bands up next. As bands have come and gone since I’ve been here, the community aspect stays the same. So in this final column, I must plead to you, the reader: go out and see a show. Especially if you happen to be a freshman or someone who’s never been to a house show in the area, because it’s an experience that is generally worth the little effort it takes to find one. I can bet that everyone has a friend who sends incessant invitations via Facebook for a show that another friend’s band is playing at 18th and whatever. The “decline” button is usually a first instinct for one reason or another, but it doesn’t have to be. Odds are that, because there are usually four or five bands thrown on a bill, there’s a good chance at least one will be good. There’s nothing nearly as rewarding as walking into someone else’s home, walking down the stairs to the dingy basement and hearing something great that you hadn’t heard before. This is not to say I haven’t seen my fair share of bad shows. Sometimes amps break down, a band has an off night or, in

worst-case scenarios, the old maxim of “one bad apple” is proven by a particularly rambunctious showgoer. But even on those nights, the sense of community between band and audience is proven by the “We’re all in this together!” nature of malfunctions. Arguably, the best part of the whole thing is that the members of these bands are most likely classmates you didn’t realize you had. I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of people and create friendships that started as conversations about their bands or their music. But even if it doesn’t lead you in that route, you could discover your new favorite band. Seeing someone fall in love with new music before your eyes is pretty incredible. So please, go out and find your new favorite band. It won’t find you while you’re sitting in your living room – unless of course it’s playing a show there.

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

Top 5 Songs For Leaving “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” – Leonard Cohen “I Said Goodbye To Me” – Harry Nilsson “Bye Bye Bye” – ‘N Sync “Farewell Ride” – Beck “So Long, Farewell” – The Sound of Music

Fishtown indie-pop band to Local vinyl shops release new music in summer participate in RSD VINYL PAGE 9 A.K.A. Music and Long in the Tooth. Each one featured long lines of eager participants and countless stacks of music.

REPO RECORDS

Cruiser’s members met in the summer of 2012, morphing Andy States’ solo project into a full band. | RACHEL BARRISH TTN

Cruiser opened for Matt & Kim at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, N.J. RACHEL BARRISH The Temple News From the inner workings of one man’s mind, the concept of Cruiser – an indie-pop project with feel-good vibes – was born. Andy States soon turned his solo project into a four-piece through mutual friendships, jobs and ex-girlfriends. States, 27, began working on songs in the walk-in closet of his Philadelphia loft. Cruiser’s self-titled EP features six songs all originally written and recorded by States. “I wrote and recorded all the songs at my house and submitted a demo to Jeremy Park, who produced a Youth Lagoon album,” States said. “He said he liked the music, and we recorded the EP, just me and a session drummer.” When States became interested in pursuing Cruiser as the real thing, he needed a full band to play live shows. States graduated from Kutztown in 2007 where he originally knew Jon Van Dine, 28. Van Dine had moved to Ohio for work, then came back to Philly to work at G2 Advertis-

ing Agency, which is where he met Kyle Cook. States played a solo show at Penn State in 2009, where he had first released some of his Cruiser material, and where he met Josas Lazas, now 27, who was performing in another band. Lazas currently attends the Community College of Philadelphia, studying music. These four guys came together in Summer 2012 when States realized he needed a live band to piece together the material he had been working on for the past few years. He already knew Van Dine and Lazas. Van Dine brought along Cook. The full band was formed. Cruiser’s first real show as a full band was at The Fire on Fourth Street and Girard Avenue this past fall, which was followed by two performances at the CMJ Music Festival. “It was only our second and third show ever playing together. We had only practiced about five times before that,” States said. From there, the band got its name out into the public eye through various music blogs. Jeremy Maciak, an A&R representative at Vagrant Records, discovered Cruiser through those blogs and contacted States on Facebook. “In addition to help from Jeremy, shows have sort of just begun falling into our laps,” States said.

Recently, Cruiser opened up for Matt & Kim at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, N.J. Van Dine had the contact that got them the gig. “This girl I know submitted us as an opener, and I had no idea. Matt & Kim listened to our demo and liked it,” Van Dine said. Cruiser has also opened for the bands Sun Airway and Work Drugs. Each of the four band members has a creative trade that helps bring the band even closer together. Lazas created the Facebook group called “Philly Musician Cult,” a collaborative group for musicians in the Fishtown area who are looking to buy or sell gear or seeking additional band mates. The group is currently at just more than 400 members. “I tried to make it more for actual people in bands rather than just people who like music or want to see shows or whatever. I’ll let anyone in, but its real purpose is for musicians to collaborate together,” Lazas said. The remaining three band mates are all graphic designers working at Web design agencies. Van Dine also does concert photography throughout the city. Currently he shoots photos for JUMP, as well as blowthescene.com. Currently, Cruiser plays live shows featuring the six songs on the EP.

“We have songs we’re working on together and songs I wrote that are partially done,” States said. He said he is trying to involve all the members in the writing process and include them on the next recording. When it comes to writing songs, there is a process. “I start out writing a guitar part and come up with a skeleton, then figure out the verse and chorus,” States said. Cruiser will be featuring a new addition to its live performances. “The computer is five parts – there is no other way to execute songs...It’s just the reality of the 21st century,” Lazas said. “In this day and age, to make songs that big, you’d have to be Sufjan Stevens or the Polyphonic Spree to get away with that or afford to have that many people on stage to play that many parts.” Cruiser plans to release new material in the summer, but for now, States said he is grateful for meeting his band mates. “I’m a lucky to be playing with these guys,” States said. Rachel Barrish can be reached at rachel.barrish@temple.edu.

Repo Records opened at 10 a.m. to a line of about 50 people spanning past its block on South Street. The customers fronting the line, clutching lists of desired purchases, arrived as early as sunrise. “I’ve been collecting for 30 years,” said Jason Fisher, the first person in line. “I’d estimate my collection to be just over 5,000. I was here last year. I thought they conducted it well and that they might have a good choice of albums.” Sean Mellody, the second earliest arrival, said he spent Record Store Day at Repo last year as well. “This is the third year I’ve come here,” Mellody said. “It’s my local record store and it’s good to support them. It’s close to home and easy to get here early.” As 10 a.m. came, the shop allowed 20 people in at a time to prevent overcrowding. “My parents brought me up listening to vinyl, so we spent our time pushing the furniture back in the living room and dancing,” attendee Kyra Carver said. “I’ve been doing this every year. It’s the way that I support the artists I love.” To cool off after record hunting all day, customers received vouchers for $1.50 off drafts at Fountain Porter in South Philly for April 20-21.

A.K.A. MUSIC

Besides having Record Store Day releases, A.K.A. Music in Old City teamed up with Philebrity to host a free show from 1-5 p.m. with four Philadelphia-based bands. Restorations, a group that’s been affectionately described as “music for grown-up punks,” played, as well as folk band Heyward Howkins. Next, Bridge Underwater, whose EP entitled “Dead Man” was released in January, performed, followed by DJ Mikele Edwards. “I think about 50 to 100 people came out to the show,” said A.K.A. Music employee Isaac Williams. “It’s a pretty small space.” Likening Record Store Day to a “Black Friday for music lovers” would be accurate, as the array of tables filled with new releases became wiped of much of its contents before

noon. “I’ve always been a big collector, so I think Record Store Day is a lot of fun. It gets peoples’ interest and helps promote records and independent record stores. I work around the corner, so I’m here at least once or twice a week,” said Joe Chauncy, who’s attended Record Store Day every year at A.K.A. Music since its creation.

LONG IN THE TOOTH

Long in the Tooth avoided the morning rush by keeping its normal business hours and remaining closed until noon, but that didn’t suppress the crowd of about 50 people who waited to grab some of the more than 100 releases the store stocked for the event. “I’ve always been attracted to music,” said Rob Blackwell, who waited in line for more than an hour. “I haven’t been collecting long, I probably have about 30 records. I started because I just wanted to get different formats for supporting artists. I felt like there wasn’t much going for the CD and buying vinyl is a good way to give back.” Blackwell stood with David Skovron, a first time Record Store Day participant. “I came here for the Hold Steady seveninch – it was the only thing I was really interested in but I don’t know what my chances of getting that are.” The friends said they were spending the day visiting various record shops. Once inside, customers checked out the Record Store Day releases lining the wall above the register, while flipping through the store’s numerous crates full of used punk, metal, hip hop and rock titles. At 9 p.m., Long in the Tooth held a free show featuring Serpent Throne, a doom metal band from Philadelphia formed in 2005.

TOP SELLERS

Mumford and Sons – “Live from Bull Moose EP” The White Stripes – “Elephant” The Black Keys/Stooges – “Side by Side: No Fun” Pink Floyd – “See Emily Play” Paul McCartney & Wings – “Maybe I’m Amazed” Cheyenne Shaffer can be reached at cheyenne.shaffer@temple.edu.

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West Philly births post-apocalyptic reggae rock Post-Sun Times recently got signed to 619 Entertainment Group. ERIN EDINGER-TUROFF

The Temple News While reggae rock might make you think of a tropical island, a band of the very genre is hailing from a different habitat – the concrete jungle. The reggae-infused rock band of West Philadelphians has been together for about a year, said bass player and singer Matt Kay. The quartet includes guitarist and vocalist Robin Carine, drummer Adam Ferguson and keyboardist Matt Smith along with Kay. After a chance encounter in Fall 2011, a leading reggae entertainment company in Philadelphia agreed to manage the band. “I met [him] on the street,” Ferguson said, referring to the managing director of 619 Entertainment Group, Roger Grant. “I was walking down 52nd street, because I wanted to get some copies made for a show flyer, and I saw this recording studio and looked in the window. He came up behind me and was like, ‘Oh, you play?’” After seeing the band Ferguson and Carine were in at the time, Da! Comrade, Grant expressed his desire to work with the musicians to create new songs. Kay, who had been playing music with Carine and Ferguson since they were teenagers, joined the two to form Post Sun Times. Smith is the newest addition to the band. “What [Grant] gave us was a goal to work toward,” Carine

said. “Then it sort of actively became a band, and then he got interested in doing bigger things with that band, and that’s what really led us to signing.” 619 Entertainment Group generally gravitates toward reggae, dance hall-type artists, and represents top chart musicians in Jamaica, such as rapper Hefla Nyah and female roots artist Princess Thundah. Post Sun Times is the first rock band it signed to manage. Post Sun Times members, who Kay said “always had a great dynamic,” offer a new sound to the producers, but their reggae influences along with Grant’s appreciation for American rock music made the band a good fit. The group has collaborated with fellow 619 artist Hefla Nyah in some performances, and on one specific track called “About a Girl.” “They have their own label,” Kay said. “But we’re all shooting for bigger and better things.” Band members said they hope their management relationship with 619 Entertainment Group will eventually result in offers from established producers who would want them to put out an album. Post Sun Times’ name was derived from a late night creation of a fake, parody newspaper that would be “a guide to the apocalypse,” as Ferguson described, making light of the drama surrounding 2012’s predicted apocalypse. Considering the band’s promising development since December 21, 2012, the supposed date of the Mayan apocalypse, perhaps the musicians unknowingly prophesized their future success. “I think it’s really ironic that

we’re named Post Sun Times,” said Ferguson. “And it was 1 [a.m.] on December 22, just after the world was supposed to have ended, and [Grant] calls and says we [have to] have this emergency meeting. That was when he was like, ‘We maybe have potential interest.’” It may have been what many superstitious individuals assumed would be the first day of the post apocalyptic world, but for Post Sun Times, it was the beginning of a road to success. Since that meeting, the band has put in serious work in the recording studio. Kay said the band also rehearses often on its own time in an art and music studio space in South Philly called Cha-Cha-Razzi. “Basically, we’re trying to record everything we have, then see what catches with the label,” Kay said. “It kind of now depends on getting fronted money from the label and what they’re interested in as far as what they want to go with.” Grant, who Carine said has been in the industry for “a while,” often has ideas that inspire new songs, which are among the tracks being recorded. After receiving a song suggestion, usually in the form of a potential melody or basic lyrics, Carine said the band will “figure out how [it] can put [its] fingerprints on it.” This collaboration with 619 Entertainment Group is just one of the many adjustments the band members said they have been getting used to. In addition, the band’s live sound has been different, compared to its mixed studio sound, members said. Though the band may be focused on recording and less

on performing in Philadelphia at the moment, Post Sun Times plans to arrange some outdoor shows for the summer, a performance setting members said they really enjoy. On top of that, they still have time to give tongue-in-cheek apocalypse survival advice. “Progresso soup is the best,” Smith said, as his fellow band members laughed. “If you’ve been a little zombified, it will help you [get rid of] that.” Though the band hopes to put out a recorded album in the near future, no official release date has been set, despite indications of a summer EP release. With the end of the world now behind the group, however, the members of Post Sun Times are not afraid to dream big, aspiring to work with some of its

dream producers, including Lee “Scratch” Perry and Rick Ruben of Def Jam Records. All the musicians agreed that they hope the band will become a lifelong career. Though they’ve set serious goals about being successful in the music industry, the band mebers said they love their native West Philly and are always open to performing at house shows throughout the area. The opportunity to play at any setting for college students, Temple included, is something they said they would never turn down. “My dad told me from step one, ‘Don’t ever sell drugs to college students, but you should play music for them,’” Smith said. With those guidelines in mind, and plenty of confidence

in its catchy, energetic sound, Post Sun Times hopes to spread its music to new audiences faster than a zombie plague. With a second listen from a label affiliated with Universal Records under their belt, the “dirty West Philly boys,” as Ferguson labeled them, don’t seem all that far away from receiving the recognition they’re working toward. They certainly have the positive mindset needed to soldier on to success. “Our worst song is f---in’ amazing,” Kay said. Clearly, there can be no self-doubt when your band formed to guide the world through the apocalypse. Erin Edinger-Turoff can be reached at erin.edinger.turoff@temple.edu.

Post Sun Times, a Philadelphia reggae rock band, took its name from a parody newspaper that claimed to be a guide to the apocalypse. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

North Philly drummer relies on improv G. Calvin Weston has seen music legends perform at the Uptown Theater. MAURA FILOROMO The Temple News Imagine walking into the Uptown Theater. Stevie Wonder is singing his heart out. Go again next week, and the Jackson 5 is on stage. For drummer G. Calvin Weston, seeing these greats was a reality, and it left an impression upon his young self. He began playing drums when he was 6 years old and has had a prolific career as a drummer during the last few decades. “My uncle took me every Sunday [to] the matinee at noon,” Weston said. “Watching all the Motown greats back in the ‘50s and ‘60s – it was always the place to be.” His exposure to musicians at the Uptown Theater helped his early days as a drummer. “I would just always focus on the drummer,” Weston said. “I would watch him and see how to repeat.” One of his earliest bands, Bad Influence, was formed when he was a teenager. “We played all music from the ‘70s and ‘80s like Earth Wind and Fire [and] KC and the Sunshine Band.” He also picked up the cornet and trumpet in high school. Weston, from North Philadelphia, lives near Main Campus. He became the professional musician he is today due to hard work but also because of a natural, innate talent, he said. “It was totally God’s creation. God the creator gave me that talent,” Weston said. “Recognizing when I was 6 years old, I had these skills and, with no teaching background, I started playing. I already knew...He gave me that talent, so I kept pursuing it.” At 18, he started playing

professionally with jazz musician Ornette Coleman. Shortly after, he began playing with James Blood Ulmer. His rise as a musician came when he began drumming with John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards. He played with the band for about 10 years, and on occasion still plays with it today. “That was the impact that boosted my musical career at a young age and over the last 30 or 40 years,” Weston said. For much of the music Weston plays, he said he never plays the wrong note. “Most of the time what I am playing is all improvised,” he said. “It has to do with the soul and the frequencies. You can never play a wrong note when you’re improvising.” This past fall, he released three albums within three months. One of the records, “Play Out Loud,” was completely improvised. The second record, “Cosmic Miles,” was a collaboration with his trio in Italy made up of Roberto Cervi and Mario Mazzenga. “I recorded some drumbeats for [Cervi] and left it to him,” Weston said. “I used [an] electric drum pad, and Mario put the other tracks down on it. I already had the tracks and just added trumpet, keyboards and flute.” He collaborated again with the trio in Italy for the third album, “Of Alien Feelings.” Brian Reed contributed guitar. “I sent off tracks to Chicago. [Reed] put some guitar on it. It all just pieced together,” Weston said. “It was all done in one year. I put them out in three months. I had been holding on to them, so I figured I might as well put them out at the same time.” Weston said he goes into the music-making process with a clear mind. “I don’t approach any music with any expectations,” Weston said. “[With] improvising, you go and just do it. No

expectation at all. You just go are playing. Improv – you don’t with the way you are feeling.” have to learn anything. You Among the many projects have a real expanded imaginaWeston is involved in, Free tion – what that sound means to Form Funky you at the time, Freqs with Veryou hear it.” non Reid is Weston has where he gets kept busy as a to improvise the musician. This most. week he goes on “We don’t a European tour. talk about the “I’m going music...We just do some festigo up and play G. Calvin Weston / drummer vals with bass to each other and guitar playsouls,” he said. er Krzysztof Majchrzak. I met His tribute band orchestra, this guy over Facebook, and he Treasure of the Spirits, has more invited me to Lyon, France, to structured songs. come and record with [him].” “We have to rehearse that Majchrzak’s trio is called stuff, because that’s tunes we Weston Majchrzak Gembal-

“You can never

play a wrong note when you’re improvising.

”

ski Magic Hands. The group is joined by Henryk Gembalski on violin. Weston will return to Philadelphia to gear up for his next show on May 17 at Kennett Flash in Kennett Square, Pa. On June 8, he will play with Free Form Funky Freqs at World Cafe Live. The latter will be filled with improvisational songs sure to surprise everyone, Weston said. “You can never play it the same way twice,” Weston said. “It can’t be duplicated.” Weston noted one of the greatest assets for musicians is being exposed to a variety of music. “Records...are the best

teacher,” Weston said. “I gather inspiration from all styles of music. From jazz to fusion, even opera and symphony music. It’s sound, so it gives me all kind of ideas from just listening...It’s always good for a musician to know how to play different styles of music.” Like improvisation, Weston’s unique and varied journey as a drummer can never be duplicated. Maura Filoromo can be reached at Maura.filoromo@temple.edu.

G. Calvin Weston, a drummer who lives close to Main Campus, said he believes in approaching the recording process with little expectations and relying on feeling and impulse. | ANDREW THAYER TTN

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Basement doc gets attention BASEMENT PAGE 9 at a venue called the Maggot House, which he said is still his favorite. Coming from a smaller town with little-to-no music scene, he said he immediately became interested. Even today, he said he can be found at a house show or two nearly every weekend. After forming Marietta in 2011, the band’s first show and Lescallette’s first time as a performer at a house show was at a venue called the IHOP Estate. The band played with other bands such as Hightide Hotel, Waxahatchee and Glocca Mora. “I don’t even know how we got on that show,” he said. Filming for the group took an entire semester, with pre-production taking about a month, and the editing taking a week, which Lescallette said came easy to him. However, the most difficult part of the entire process, Lescallette said, was the actual legwork of filming the basement shows. He said he would stress about carrying expensive equipment into a crowded, chaotic environment. Beyond that, getting to enough shows proved to be a difficult task as well. “Sometimes I just felt overwhelmed with how many shows there were, and there were so many different bands to shoot,” Lescallette said. “I know that some of the criticism I got on it was I didn’t have a wide-enough scope; I didn’t go far enough.” He said the response he got was overwhelmingly positive. “What it came down to was that I didn’t have as much time...and not enough resources,” Lescallette said. Though the documentary was finished by December 2012, Lescallette was “too lazy” to upload it immediately, and the process of uploading the documentary to the Internet was giving him trouble. When he finally got around to posting it on his Facebook mid-spring semester, Lescallette said he began getting friend requests from strangers with compliments on the film. He then put it on Tumblr and Reddit, where it gained popularity. There were very few factual errors in the documentary, but they are ones Lescallette said he regrets. “I wasn’t even thinking it would get big on the Internet or anything, so I wasn’t too concerned about it,” he said. This summer, Lescallette said he plans on making the documentary much longer by adding additional footage and cleaning up the work he’s already done. Whether or not it’ll be a 90-minute documentary, he said he’ll just have to wait and see. Patricia Madej can be reached at patricia.madej@temple.edu.

Watch P.J. Carroll perform a new Girl Scouts song in The Temple News’ newsroom at templenews.com/ multimedia.

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

Drum collective connects musicians DRUM PAGE 9

mer, who tells his or her story and hosts a workshop, hosts the monthly meetings. Past hosts include Eric Slick of Dr. Dog, George “Spanky” McCurdy who backs Lady Gaga, Freddie Berman of Amos Lee and Tim Arnold of Good Old War. Connecting big-name drummers to attendees has helped aspiring musicians realize their dreams. Ben Gullet, an 18-yearold high school student from Marlton, N.J., scored a lesson with McCurdy after going to one of PDP’s events. He found out about PDP from his private drum teacher. “[McCurdy and I] talked about having confidence, auditioning, different ways to practice, being on tour, getting gigs, how to think outside the box, having a positive mindset and so much more,” Gullet said. “I was actually networking and setting up my lesson with [McCurdy] prior to his Philly Drum Project event, but the Philly Drum Project helped me because I got a chance to talk to [McCurdy] face-to-face and solidify my lesson.” Gullet, who has been accepted to the University of the Arts, is not the only young drummer who PDP aims to help. The group is currently planning an all-day workshop to be held at the University of the Arts during the summer. Twelve

students and 12 instructors, one of which is Temple professor Dan Monaghan, will have the opportunity to work together. To celebrate all it has accomplished in its first year, PDP will be hosting an anniversary show at World Cafe Live tonight at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $15 or $10 with a student ID. The show will feature classically trained percussionists Loop 2.4.3. “They are sort of like, 20th Century in the vain of Philip Glass – minimalism, but there’s a mood,” Crump said. The show will be headlined by Ari Hoenig, who will perform in a jazz trio with Philadelphia drummers Jonathan Levy and Tim Motzer. Hoenig, originally of Philly but now based out of New York, has penned many books about drumming. “He’s big in the jazz scene, but he’s a really monster player,” Crump said, noting that Hoenig will often put his elbow into the drum as he plays it to get a different sound. “He’s really passionate about it.” As for the future of PDP, Crump said he still has one major goal of the program to be realized – to give drummers a permanent space to gather, practice and perform. “The vision is to eventually have a space for drummers to play,” Crump said. “Living in

Sharing gear is one of the four missions behind Philly Drum Project. Crump got the idea after needing a spare part but having many parts he didn’t need. | KATE McCANN TTN the city...it’s a risk [to see] if the neighbors are cool with it, if the roommates are cool with it. You have to play at certain times. It’s just not that ideal.” A lack of resources for drummers in the city and an influx of enthusiasm prove that PDP’s purpose is not for naught, Crump said. “I think it shows that there’s a need for this sort of thing, and a lot of drummers have reciprocated that.”

Gullet is a drummer who said he feels similarly. “As a drummer, I feel like there is a need for groups like Philly Drum Project, because in the world we live in today, a lot of opportunities come from networking with people,” Gullet said. While the anniversary show serves as a celebration for PDP’s accomplishments, Crump said he is hesitant to look in the rear-view mirror too

Live performances create following for three-piece Two students and one anticipated transfer form Girl Scouts. KEVIN STAIRIKER The Temple News As of April 18, the band Girl Scouts has a total of six songs released. The tracks are spread out over two, two-song EPs, one single release and a song called “Grist Mill Daze,” which was recently included on a 75-band-deep compilation appropriately titled “The BIG Comp.” The song is a demo of one of five new songs that will be compiled onto a five-song demo in the summer. “And then we tour,” P.J. Carroll, sophomore anthropology major and vocalist and guitarist of Girl Scouts, said drearily. He doesn’t sound like a man excited at the prospect of touring rooms for weeks on end, even if a fair amount of those rooms might now be filled with the people who have steadily grown to become a modest fan base for the band over time. His tone betrays his thoughts though, and Carroll said he can’t wait to be on the move again. “We’re looking to go out Midwest and back,” Carroll said. “I’m really excited about it. I want to be playing music as much as possible and to be at other places than here for a little bit. We have the dates all set for two weeks in August, and we’ll have the EP done by then too.” Girl Scouts began as a fiveman band called Pursuit, which, over time, evolved to Girl Scouts in January 2011, with Tyler Minford on drums, sophomore mechanical engineering major Logan Zoghby on bass and Carroll on the aforementioned guitar and vocals. The handful of songs that currently comprise its discography are aggressive and fast, but in a way that invites the listener inward instead of scaring them off with a flurry of technicality. A song like “Don’t Curse In Front Of the Boys Goddamnit!” finds the band sending notes in all directions at the beginning then locking into a wood blockassisted groove tightly and not letting go until the song’s end.

P.J. Carroll and Tyler Minford are two members of the band Girl Scouts. The band plans to tour to as far as the Midwest this summer | IAN WATSON TTN It should also be noted that the song’s only lyrics consist of the band members shouting their own names and then, almost mockingly, “We’re all p------!” before diving into a catharticfeeling shuffle-groove. One severe roadblock Girl Scouts has faced thus far in its years together is bouts of trial separation, as Minford attends Shippensburg University, which is roughly 150 miles away from the other two-thirds of the band. “[Minford] could only come up a day or two at a time, which was frustrating and difficult sometimes,” Carroll explained. The wrong has been righted, however, as Minford is planning to transfer to Temple at the start of the fall semester. Carroll said he is sure that once they are united, they’ll be able to get more done.

This is certainly not to suggest that the band has not stayed active despite lapses of time between releases. Girl Scouts has built a reputation for itself in the city as a band who that should be seen live when possible. More times than not, the band finds itself on bills filled with bands comprised of friends. “Oh, there’s so many,” Carroll said. “I love playing with Marietta, Alex G, Bleeding Fractals, Nicknames...there’s just so many, I’m going to leave people out.” Though the band mostly plays DIY shows in basements, living rooms and wherever else with a sturdy power strip, Carroll agrees that there is still a need for traditional venues like The Fire and Kung Fu Necktie. “Venues can offer bigger touring bands money to come

through and have local bands open for them,” Carroll said. “The Fire especially has been putting on a lot more local shows lately…They’ll lower the ticket prices for all-local bills and get 100 people there.” Though the band has only just started to hint at what its summer tour will look like, most, if not all, of the dates will be house shows. Between the band’s time in flux, though, Carroll will remain busy. The residents of his abode, the MySpace House, will be departing in the summer, so he will try to execute “at least one or two” last shows as a swan song, he said. Girl Scouts’ music is available at girlscouts.bandcamp. com. Kevin Stairiker can be reached at kevin.stairiker@temple.edu.

often, keeping the focus on the initial four branches of the mission – gear, lessons, beats and gigs. “I’m happy that we’ve focused on those four things, because that’s the original mission, and I’m excited just to keep on going,” Crump said. Jenelle Janci can be reached at jenelle.janci@temple.edu or on Twitter @jenelley.

Girl Scout members explore trap music in Louis Futon While Tyler Minford is behind the drums for Girl Scouts, he is situated behind the computer for electronic group Louis Futon. Minford co-produces the project with Girl Scouts bassist Logan Zoghby, who thought of the name for the project. “Our first idea was ‘Trill Murray,’ but that was already taken,” Minford said. The two said they were inspired by a new wave of electronic music called trap, a style of music that combines hip-hop with electronica, with an end result Minford calls “stylish.” “Producing has been a love of mine for a while now,” Minford said. “Logan and I have always talked about starting an electronic duo, but once the new wave of trap music came in last summer we decided to get serious. It’s hands down our favorite style to produce.” Despite electronic music seeming vastly different than the twinkly punk of Girl Scouts, Minford said his efforts in working on the two projects aren’t so different. “As far as the writing process goes, they aren’t too far apart,” Minford said. “Usually in Girl Scouts we’ll think of a melody and then add drums and other instruments over top, which is similar to what we do in Louis Futon – except we use virtual instruments. The main difference is what you are able to do live. Obviously a producer/DJ won’t be able to recreate [his] entire productions live, but with Girl Scouts we have to play everything note for note.” Even though they will be restricted, Minford said he and Zohgby are currently planning shows for the summer. Both are veterans to live performances thanks to their work in Girl Scouts. In addition to experience performing live, Minford said his creative endeavors often overlap. “My work in Girl Scouts is a big influence to what I do in Louis Futon,” Minford said. “I always take melodies or drum fills that we write in Girl Scouts and play around with them in my digital audio workstation. Most people who like emo/math rock aren’t very fond of electronic music, so it feels strange to combine both worlds, but as a producer I am influenced by everything around me.” Louis Futon’s music is available at soundcloud.com/ louisfuton. -Jenelle Janci

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Ghost Ghang rap group finds strength in numbers Multiple students perform in Ghost Ghang, a 15-member rap group. SPENCER BENNETT The Temple News Several years ago, a Temple tradition was born. Every Friday around 1 p.m., hip-hop lovers, emcees and spectators gather around the Bell Tower to watch and participate in Freestyle Friday. Freestyle Friday is a weekly cypher where emcees showcase their improvisational rhyming talents over old school beat boxing. The event was started by a former Temple student, Philadelphia native and rising hiphop artist Mic Stew. The foundation for Ghost Ghang was laid in 2009 when three current members, and one former member, met at one of the Freestyle Fridays. Two years later, in Spring 2011, Ghost Ghang was created. All members of the hip-hop collective are currently enrolled at Temple or have since graduated or left the institution. The members have strong roots in the city, some coming from all different parts of Philadelphia, while others represent diverse cultural backgrounds.

Outside of the Tri-State area, members of the Ghost Ghang call Memphis, Tenn., and Russia home. Although their cultures and backgrounds are unique, the members do not soley represent how unique Ghost Ghang is. The Wu-Tang Clan had the RZA, A Tribe Called Quest had Q-Tip and the Ghost Ghang has O.H.M. An acronym standing for “Ohm Has Meaning,” O.H.M. is, in the words of emcee Mad Matt Swayzue, “the fearless pirate leader” of Ghost Ghang. Members of the group cover all aspects of hip-hop music, varying from a magnitude of emcees to information technology and marketing. Members of Ghost Ghang who solely rap are P64, Francois the Demon, Palz aka Uncle Stretch, Nonsense, Quazar, Davie Don’t Exist, Ai-Que and MG the Golem King. Visitor 10, the group’s “time traveling wizard,” and Prophet Lethal Dose act as emcees, marketers and graphic designers. The “hip-hop Goku,” Tray Digga, acts as an emcee while also booking shows with Visitor 10. King Tut and Byron the Juggernaut cover the area of beat boxing, while also participating as emcees. At a Ghost Ghang show, DJ Cody Grizz can be found scratching records or designing the group’s merchan-

dise. A Ghost Ghang affiliate, Jex Xionas, contributes his talents to the collective in the form of rapping, beat boxing, producing and engineering. Last is the IT manager of the group President Trill Clinton – Marian Luther King – Talcum X. With such a great amount of creativity and eccentricity pulsating through the group, it is hard for one to put a label on Ghost Ghang’s music. This enigmatic nature is exactly what O.H.M. envisioned when starting Ghost Ghang, recruiting all different types of hip-hop artists in order to produce, as Tray Digga said, a “massive assembly of unstoppable, dope emcees.” With influences varying from Eminem and Big L to Mike Shinoda and MF DOOM, the Ghost Ghang combines all the members’ distinctive aspects to create a “chaotic collection of crazy rhyme crusaders,” said Mad Matt Swayzie, with the main objective of “bringing back real hip-hop.” Ghost Ghang, a 15-member rap group, performed at last week’s Spring Fling celebration. The Although Ghost Ghang group is comprised of current and former Temple students. | KATE McCANN TTN is heavily enamored with the freestyle aspect of hip-hop, many venues in Philadelphia, hind the Walls” when it rocked able on soundcloud.com/ghostan impressive amount of live including The Trocadero, Kung an after party for seven straight ghang. shows and a large discography Fu Necktie, The M-Room and hours. Spencer McLain Bennett can be Ghost Ghang’s first collecis something it said the group’s 3G Lounge. reached at One of the group’s proudest tive album is scheduled to be proud of. spencer.mclain.bennett@temple.edu. moments came the night of the released at the end of the sumThe Ghost Ghang and its members have performed at State Penitentiary’s “Terror Be- mer. The group’s music is avail-

Alumna creates music blog, indie-pop project Writer and musician Attia Taylor has her hand in multiple projects. RACHEL MCDEVITT The Temple News Attia Taylor has five jobs. She’s the founder of music blog, Lady.Bang.Beat. She interns for Paper magazine, writes for Tom Tom magazine and works at a hotel. She also creates whimsical, pop-infused music to inspire and empower people. She does it subtly, almost like a hypnotist. Her music creeps up on the listener curling around his or her ears in a blend of synthesized, almostnostalgic sounds. It sounds like she could be singing over a timid orchestra, or from inside an arcade or in a sweeping pasture filled with wind chimes and harmonizing blue jays. Her clear voice slides through songs in an array of feelings: light and

airy, sweet and sad, defiant and track is one that just made it accusatory. It’s the kind of mu- onto the album, titled “Alone.” sic that bobs your head without “It’s a really somber, sort you realizing. of spooky song, but it speaks a “Luxurious Corners,” Tay- lot about me,” she said. lor’s latest album, is the first to Taylor said making her be released with a label. The music is the best way for her album title reflects the sounds to deal with her past issues; she of the six, very went to boardpersonal tracks. ing school at a It is easy to wrap young age and yourself in the felt like an outluxury of soft sider, a “weirlayers of sound do.” that seem to in“I just vite you into a want to show fantasy land, but people that, an eerie feeling yeah, it might lurks around the Attia Taylor / writer and musician have sucked edges, hinting at and it might the pain that Taylor has woven have been weird for you, and into her songs. you were one of the outsiders, Taylor, who graduated but that’s OK, and that’s somefrom Temple last year, said the thing you can take advantage album was originally written to of, because you have an interhighlight some of the struggles esting story to tell,” Taylor said. in her life, especially concernTaylor hopes that by sharing people she knew with men- ing her share her story, others tal illness, and how that has af- will want to share theirs as well, fected her. She said her favorite bringing people together into a

“I’m not going

to take a backseat to anybody when I’m playing music.

”

community of shared experience. A Philly native, Taylor launched her career into tranceinducing beats after a high school music teacher told her about Girls Rock Philly, a nonprofit that offers a camp to teach girls about music and about being a woman. “You come out of it feeling empowered,” she said of the experience. After camp ended, Taylor continued to play with the band she had formed while in the program. “We played some festivals – anywhere that would take us, really. We just wanted to play,” she said. Taylor still volunteers with GRP and credits the idea for Lady.Bang.Beat to her experience there. While volunteering with the program in 2010, Taylor met fellow volunteer, Madeline Thomas, who got her thinking about the presence of women on popular blogs. “She said, ‘We read these

blogs, and you go seven pages in before you see your first woman musician,’” Taylor said, “So we thought it would be cool to start a blog that was only women. You could go to every single page and see a woman.” Taylor started a womencentric Tumblr page about a week after her and Thomas’ first discussion. Since then, the page has evolved into a full website complete with album reviews, interviews and 232 Twitter followers. “People started getting really excited about it, and it’s been growing ever since,” Taylor said. Taylor’s passion for strong womanhood is evident, not only on the blog, but in her music and in how she organizes her musical life. When writing a song about a powerful character, she always makes it a woman. She also said she tries to present herself as someone who can take control and who really produces music in a seri-

ous way. She doesn’t just bang a tambourine on stage, she also does much more. “I try to put that up front,” she said. “I’m in control, and I’m not going to take a back seat to anybody when I’m playing my music.” Eventually, Taylor said she hopes to work on a global level to help women and girls tell their stories and improve their self-esteem, but she admits she can’t do it overnight. First, she said she hopes to find balance in her currently hectic life. “I feel like I’m on a good path,” Taylor said. “Just by playing music, it’s showing people you don’t have to be on top of the charts to be good or be unique or be yourself. You can be playing in your garage or play a show in your neighborhood and still rock pretty hard.” Rachel McDevitt can be reached at rachel.mcdevitt@temple.edu.

Professor currently producing for Lauryn Hill Adjunct professor Phil Nicolo works as a big-time producer. JARED WHALEN The Temple News Phil Nicolo’s career has come full circle. After graduating from Temple in 1977, he dove into the field of music production and has since rubbed elbows with some of the most popular names in the industry. But he has not forgotten his roots – Nicolo is now teaching as an adjunct professor of Music and Recording Techniques in the School of Media and Communication. His career started in his parent’s attic and has taken him around the world, working with names such as Bob Dylan and Lauryn Hill. Nicolo’s work schedule currently has him in Wuhan, China, doing sound design for Chinese rock artist Weng Fang. Shooting emails over the Pacific, Nicolo took the time to chat with The Temple News. THE TEMPLE NEWS: What were some early influences that pushed you into the field of music production? PHIL NICOLO: When I

was very young, my dad would listen to opera music, and I fell in love with classical music of all kinds. As I got older, like most music lovers of my generation, The Beatles blew me away. I had the same influence later from Frank Zappa, it seemed like way too much fun not to be involved. My twin brother Joe and I built a small studio in my parent’s attic when we were juniors at Temple University, and never looked back. TTN: Describe the process of what typically is involved when producing an album. PN: I’m an old-school producer. I like getting and being involved with every aspect of production – choosing songs, working on arrangements, preproduction before going into the studio, and then being hands on when we actually record. I’m very performance oriented. If you’ve seen the film “Sound City,” I think Dave [Grohl] hit it on the head when it comes to the way I like to make records. Every situation is different, so it varies quite a bit. TTN: After graduating from Temple, you and your brother, as the Butcher Bros., founded the Studio 4 record-

ing studio and have since then been innovators in the music industry. What were some learning experiences that helped develop your craft? PN: In the late ‘70s I got introduced to Tony Bongiovi – Jon Bon Jovi’s cousin – who owned The Power Station, now Avitar, in NYC. It’s one of the greatest studios on the planet. I got to intern there, and got to sit in on some of the greatest records being made, [including] Bruce Springsteen’s “The River,” David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters” and many others. It was there I learned the true meaning of record production. Knowing the technology is a start, but it’s really about emotion, passion, performance, attitude and feeling that makes a great record. I used to sleep on the floor of [Bongiovi’s] apartment with Jon Bon Jovi, and work on his demos when the sessions were finished. It was an amazing education on how real records are made. TTN: In 2012, the family label Ruffhouse Records was re-launched. What was the history behind the record label and what are some plans for its future? PN: Ruffhouse was formed

in 1988 by Chris Schwartz, my brother Joe and myself. Through Sony, we sold over 110 million records by 2000, and launched the careers of Kirs Kross, Cypress Hill, The Fugees, Lauryn Hill – I’m working with Ms. Hill right now on her follow-up to “Miseducation” – Wyclef [Jean], to name a few. We sold the label to Sony in 2001 but kept the name. Last year [Shwartz] and I had the opportunity to re-launch the label, so we did. Things are just getting started so we’ll see how it goes. Our next release is with Glen Lewis during the summer. TTN: How would you describe the evolution in music production since you first got involved? PN: Things are a lot different. With Pro-Tools, computerbased recording, any performance can be made perfect. As a tool, this can be a great thing, but in the wrong hands...Some producers find the need to correct every imperfection. This removes most of what we used to call “feel” in music. It’s the imperfections that give a great performance its character. This same technology gives anyone the ability to make music, not bad for one’s bedroom, but un-

fortunately, in my opinion, way too much of it gets way beyond that. Much is still the same as when I started. Music still centers around a great song and a great singer, no matter what style of music it is. Not necessarily getting it perfect, just getting it right. I think the line between music and entertainment has gotten blurred. A lot of what I hear that’s passed off as music, is really simple entertainment produced for mass consumption. It’s not intended, or should be considered “music” in the true sense of the word, in my opinion. Again, check out the Sound City film for what I mean. TTN: Who have been some artists that you have especially enjoyed working with? PN: Taj Mahal was amazing. So much passion and talent. Bob Dylan as well. At the end of the day, just regular people with amazing gifts. Yoko Ono and Lauryn Hill are also amazing to work with. Always searching for a new way to express themselves. My old friends The Hooters are still making great music after all these years, it’s something you never get tired

of.

TTN: Years after graduating, you are now teaching as an adjunct professor at Temple University. What is it like being on the other side of the podium? PN: I love it. It’s great to get [reassured] by young people who have goals and dreams. It keeps me honest too. I can’t tell a student to make a small change on a mic placement to get the best sound possible if I don’t do it myself. I really enjoy being back on the Temple campus. It brings me back to when this was all so new to me. I really enjoy it. TTN: What advice would you give to students pursuing a career in music production? PN: Just keep doing it. Be sure to do something to move your career forward every day. Have short and long-term goals, and don’t confuse progress with activity. If you’ve been working hard and don’t see any progress, re-evaluate what you’re doing and maybe try a new approach. The main thing is don’t give up. You’ll be missing out on a great way of life. Jared Whalen can be reached at jared.whalen@temple.edu.

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LIVING

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Series tracks transition Young PAGE 7

Got a tip? Email editor@temple-news.com.

AJ Young will teach a general education Human Sexuality course in the first upcoming summer section. Young is documenting his transition from female to male in the Web series “A Man Who Takes the Place Of.” | Daniel pelligrine TTN ing his knowledge to the classroom. For Temple’s Summer I session, he will teach a general education Human Sexuality course that still has open seats. During the session, he plans to talk about the “hot button” sexual, and perhaps taboo issues and plans to ask some of the “hard questions” about sexuality. Aside from teaching in a classroom, Young is telling his

story through a new documentary Web series called “A Man Who Takes the Place Of,” directed by Temple student Samuel Angus Campbell through Mirrorwall Films, a studentbased production organization. Young said his main goal in agreeing to film his trans process was to inform others and increase visibility on the topic. Many times, he said the re-

search can be complicated and those reading can get “bogged down” by medical jargon. His Web series hopes to break the process down in simpler, but still informative terms. “I think it’s also important to tell my story, and individual stories in general, because the trans community is so diverse, and nobody’s story is the same, and that transition looks different for every single person,” Young said. “There’s no sort of magic, single path to transition and being happy.” Another reason Young said he wants to share his story is because he feels privileged by his acceptance, and he doesn’t feel afraid for his safety on a daily basis, whereas some other transsexual individuals might be subject to much more harassment. “I think telling as many stories of trans people as possible is really important to show that it isn’t just a cookie-cutter process,” Young said. “You can’t just sort of add hormones, add surgery and be happy. You really need to do what’s right for you and your body and your needs.” In his spare time, Young said he enjoys running halfmarathons and plays on a flag football league in the city every Saturday that accepts all genders and all skill levels. He has aspirations of completing a full marathon in the future. Another hobby of his is exploring new food habits, as he has recently decided to become vegan and explore what restaurants in Philadelphia have to of-

fer.

In terms of his love life, he said there’s nothing “exciting” going on, considering his hectic schedule. However, he identifies himself as queer and is most attracted to masculine people, especially other trans men. He considers his home the gay and queer community in the city. He said that many trans individuals want nothing more than to hide who they were in the past, but he said he fully embraces having been Kathryn – his legal female name. “Being that person has shaped my ideas, my beliefs, my values, my experiences. And I think that as a man having experienced life in society as a woman for so long, I think I just have a better, maybe a bit more critical eye on some things. Taking on male privilege was something I was a little scared of,” he said. After he graduates, Young’s larger goals include running an LGBT center on a college campus. Now, he looks to remain active in promoting awareness and visibility and his educational pursuits. Young encourages any students with questions, curiosity or who want to talk to someone about transsexuality to contact him. Patricia Madej can be reached at patricia.madej@temple.edu.

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living

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Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

Music consumption changed by the digital age

I

CHRIS MONTGOMERY superuser do

Montgomery explores the different ways consumers are exposed to new music.

t seems like this semester has gone by quicker than any other semester I can remember. February seems like it happened in March; March seems like it’s happening in April; and April seems like it’s happening in May. Yes, that’s right. We’re already done the semester and my last column has already written itself. If you have a better memory than I do, and you read my first column, you may remember I said: “Without my exposure to cyberspace...I would have no culture.” I still stand by that statement. It’s a bold statement. It may even be an exaggerated statement. But I don’t even know if it’s possible to overstate the influence the Web has had on me – and you. The topic of computer network-assisted cultural development has been on my mind since the inception of this column. I’ve played with the idea of putting my thoughts to the screen; however, I was never sure of the proper scope of this amniotic article. I do think it’s safe to say one of the most important aspects of this cultural explosion is digital music and the tools we use to enjoy that music. It’s fitting that this is the Music Issue. How do you like your music? I’m not concerned with what genres you consider good or bad, or what you consider music or non-music (wait, isn’t

music just organized sound?). You could listen to Nickelback or Merzbow. I don’t care. Not right now in this column, anyway. I’m no Kevin Stairiker. What I want to know is how you listen to music. Do you store music on a portable device, like a smartphone or iPod, listen to it on your way to the Apple Store and then a quick stop at American Apparel, using your buds as protection against the solicitations of the homeless? (“Maybe she’ll just think I don’t hear her over my metal machine music?”) Do you shuffle through hundreds or thousands of songs on your computer’s media library, awaiting the surreal thrill of the chance meeting on a dissecting table of U2 and Nurse With Wound playing one after the other while watching “The Walking Dead,” while complaining to your droogs on Facebook about how you don’t understand the statistics homework you’re trying to do at the same time? Or do you sit in the opium den you call your room, carefully place the 180-gram vinyl re-release of “DSotM” atop your Technics SL–1200MK2 turntable and don your finest pair of Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones and space out – not to the music you know like the back of your hand, but to those cherished analogue clicks and pops? Your methods of music listening don’t need to be complex. You don’t need to think

about them. There are probably better things to do than spend months trying to develop the perfect method for enjoying digital music. But, if you are that sort of audacious traveler, the sheer quantity of artists and albums and the fascinating links across genres, personnel, time period and other metadata make for a journey of endless musical discovery. One method of listening to and discovering new music is Pandora Radio. It’s easy to use – just enter the name of an artist, song, genre or composer and Pandora will provide you with a seemingly infinite stream of similar musical compositions. I can’t say I’m always satisfied with the creatures unleashed by opening Pandora’s music box, since it doesn’t know my taste in music like I do. But the technology and ingenuity put into the Music Genome Project – the self-described “most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected” that powers Pandora’s suggestions – is inspiring, to say the least. For example, if I create a Talking Heads station on Pandora, the first track it plays is “Burning Down The House.” Go figure. If I skip to the next track, I’m given “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears For Fears. If I select the “Why was this track selected?” option, Pandora tells me, “We’re playing this track because it features punk influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, extensive

vamping, major key tonality and melodic songwriting.” Pandora is smart. The Music Genome Project, like I, is not satisfied with using genres alone to guide listeners. Its team of musicologists identifies objective qualities to a vast base of compositions, as if each composition was a living organism and its qualities are determined by a set of genes of static classification, but with variable values. Sadly, the Music Genome Project is closed-source. Its complex taxonomy, while identifiable on a surface level in Pandora, is not available for public consumption. I don’t think I’m interested in its information in itself – after all, if I was interested in that, I would just pay for a Pandora subscription. I am, however, interested in – here we go again with the how’s – how the Project developed its taxonomy and how I can add new genes – aka new taxonomy terms and customized values, building off of its project to better understand my own collection of music. I have enough digital audio files to continuously listen to music (and non-music) for 73 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes, and 54 seconds. Needless to say, it’s easy to get lost in there. I would guess that around 80 percent of that is instrumental music, and maybe around 10 percent of that is dub music. Of course I have the artist, album, genre, year and other such metadata fields to guide my listening.

But none of that metadata can describe the difference between King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry’s styles. iTunes and most other music library software does not offer options for multiple genres. Technically, I don’t think the ID3 tags attached to MP3 files support this, but the free Windows program foobar2000 does apparently understand the use of multiple genres in one field as long as they are separated by a delimiter – “;” or “\”. For example, a string of genres may look like this: “Ambient;Dark Ambient;electroacoustic;tribal drums;spiritual.” But the options seem limited for Mac and Linux. I have put some time into searching for a solution, but the only one I’ve found so far, called Quod Libet, can only be installed on Mac via a time-consuming process of terminal commands. I’d say “No thanks,” but, well, I’m that obsessive. So, it is my time to go. Maybe I will write again next semester. Maybe not. We’ll see. Until then, I’ll be spending way too much time indoors staring at screens during perfect summer weather. I will emerge, at times, as a dragon, spitting flames in the North Philadelphia air. Chris Montgomery can be reached at chris.montgomery@temple.edu.

New play addresses gender roles and technology sleeve PAGE 7

“Liverpudlian Sleeve” runs through April 28 at Randall Theater. The show was written by alumnus Davey Strattan White. | Luis Fernando Rodriguez TTN reading of the play in his living room. It worked out by coincidence that DelMarcelle decided to pursue his MFA in acting the same year “Liverpudlian Sleeve” was selected as one of the main stage shows. “It was funny because I didn’t know that [DelMarcelle] was coming to Temple at the time. I just thought, ‘Of all the people I know, who would be best for this role? Charlie DelMarcelle,” White said. DelMarcelle said he is used to working on new productions and he enjoyed the benefit of having the playwright involved in the process of putting the show together. “It’s a little scary and nerve wracking because things are always changing up to the last minute, [White] was doing a bunch of rewrites, but it’s nice because he’s responding to the work we do in the rehearsal room,” DelMarcelle said. “It’s intense because you want to honor [White’s] work because it’s the first time he gets to see it up.” In “Liverpudlian Sleeve,” the characters make many references to modern technology

such as Siri and Youtube, something that White said hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Somebody asked me, ‘Why all the technology?’ I told them, ‘Well I’ll answer that after I check my email on my phone,’” White said. “In a given public space, half of the people are using their phones.” In addition to addressing the modern day use of technology, modern views on gender are also explored. “I like [White’s] writing,” said David O’Connor, the director of the show. “I have to say overall I’m incredibly tired and bored of writing and directing from straight white men and want more voices but this is a topic I’m interested in hearing a straight white man talk about. Our identity, which has been historically one of power and preeminence, is not as unjust and needs to be evened out and smoothed over. It’s a pretty fun topic to talk about and I’m glad [White ] is writing about it.” O’Connor added: “Some of the themes this play is grappling with are a lot of contemporary questions of gender roles and how they relate to identity.

There’s a kind of refreshing honesty about gender and relationships that’s being talked about in a way that I appreciate.” Before White was approached to make “Liverpudlian Sleeve” a part of the 2012-13 season, he added scenes that would prove to be technical challenges in Randall Theater, such as a bungee jumping scene. “While I would love to put my tawdry little show up at the

Walnut [Street Theater] I think this will be a play young people will like,” White said. O’Connor added the play benefited by premiering at Temple as opposed to one of the professional theater companies. “For the most part at an educational institution, where experimentation is allowed and there’s almost no commercial pressures attached to anything, things can really work on the artistic merits,” O’Connor said. “For the most part, the plays that Temple produces on its main stage are established pieces so at least once a year to work on a play is pretty exciting for everybody to work on something new and to be originating characters.” Although theater programs at universities tend to focus on established plays, White added that more focus should be put on contemporary plays. “I think that it’s a problem we don’t do more plays that aren’t now,” White said. “People are like, ‘Shakespeare is still universal today’ and to them I say, ‘You know what else is universal today? Something that was written about today for today.’” “Liverpudlian Sleeve” runs through April 28.

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LIVING

Tuesday, APRIL 23, 2013

Page 17

Aspirations in theater may not last

MARCIE ANKER Starving Actor

Not all students with a love for theater will continue to pursue the major.

D

on’t you just hate band-wagoners? “Oh, yeah, I’m totally a Philles fan since, like, yesterday!” Just, no. But, possibly worse than bandwagoners, are deserters. Like those stories about captains whose ships are in a nose-dive toward the sea floor and they’re just like, “Oh s---, I can’t swim. Peace out.” Luckily, though, in the real world – the theater world – people come and go all the time without persecution from the rest of the theater community. Maybe they just get “thrown some shade.” I’m sorry, I’m not entirely sure what the phrase “throwin’ shade” means, but I hear it all the time. Realistically, it makes

no sense, you cannot throw shade. But methaphorically, it’s a very real event that happens quite frequently in the theater department, I’m told. So I’m jumpin’ on the shade-throwin’ bandwagon. Anyway, I’m one of those people who jumped on the theater bandwagon. I began my lengthy career at Temple as a journalism major, at the urging of my roommate at the time, a fellow journalism major. Another time, she was a crazy sex fiend conducting an orgy on my bed when her’s was wide open. But that’s another story for another day. I was a journalism student for two semesters, until I took a theater course. Now, I had done theater in high school, and I had also been an editor for my school’s newspaper, the Indian Post. But when trying to decide what to major in, I figured, “Well, I guess I should at least try to make some money – I’ll do journalism.” Then in my second semester, I took a class called The Collaborative Art, sometimes known as Dramatic Imagination, which required us to see about seven shows in the city, and whatever shows were being produced at Temple that semester. My first thoughts upon reading the syllabus were three letters that you’re all familiar with: WTF. But alas, my grade demanded that I go, so I went. And each time I went to see a

show, this itching feeling – no, not the bad itching, there’s medicine for that – came back again and again. I missed being a part of plays terribly, and there was no cure for my itch – so I switched majors. Ironically, I remember telling my parents “journalism is too boring for me.” Oops. And through my lifetime at the theater department, I’ve seen so many students leave their original majors: biology, nursing, Spanish, anything and everything unrelated to theater, to join the program. And sometimes the biology-turned-theater-majors are the best of the bunch. However, I’ve also seen a fair amount of people abandon ship. Of course, there’s always those people that you think, “Well it’s about damn time they switched out,” and then there are those people whose departure takes you completely by surprise. I’ve seen students who have booming success in the department one semester and vanish the next. And again, those three little letters come to mind: WTF? Where do these people go? A lot of times, people will abandon the theater ship for financial reasons. And who’s to blame them? They’re smart and they want to make money. Some people leave because they realize that this really isn’t their calling, that their set of skills are put to better use somewhere else. Valid.

And some people just can’t handle the grueling amount of physical, mental and emotional work that’s needed. In the theater world, you have to have skin thicker than an alligator’s, or else you’ll get eaten alive. Anne Bilker, a junior early childhood education major, made the leap of faith out of the department in the spring of her sophomore year. At first, I’m sure many people were shocked, because Bilker legitimately has the voice of an angel. But Bilker is a prime example of someone who, after spending some time in the department, was able to realize what it is she truly wanted to do – even if it wasn’t theater. “I always knew that I loved children and had a strong feeling that I wanted to teach one day,” Bilker said. “I’ve spent most of my summers working at camps and teaching theater. For some reason, I had a definitive change of heart fall of my sophomore year. I realized that I truly didn’t have the drive to pursue theater or the thick skin. Many of my friends spend their weekends going to New York and auditioning. For me, I was not compelled to go through an intensive auditioning process.” And she makes a good point, especially when it comes to the musical theater folks who literally, I kid you not, spend every single weekend waking up at 5 a.m. to catch a bus to New York City to run from audition

to audition, most of which will yield no results. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to even write it. Maybe I should change my major. Bilker went on to describe what went into making her career-changing shift. “Theater has so many ups and downs,” she added. “You have to be willing to take a lot of rejection before you can have success. You have to be able to learn from each experience without letting it take a toll on your emotionally stability.” Right again, I cry to my pillow on a weekly basis, usually following my graduate-level playwriting course and curse the day I was born. “I did question my choice a lot initially,” Bilker said. “I missed the department. I honestly felt like I left my sorority where all my friends were together all the time. The theater department had such a wonderful sense of community that I love. This semester, I really have come to accept and enjoy my current major. I have practicum in a kindergarten classroom once a week and I know I made the right choice. It just fits. I feel so happy being with children. I’m also getting to know more of my peers in my major.” God, what I wouldn’t give to have Miss Bilker as my kindergarten teacher. Now knowing that’s the path she’s chosen, it makes complete sense. Not that it has to make sense to any-

one besides her, but still, it fits, and you can’t help but be happy for her and all the little kiddies that get to experience her genuine kindness. Just because Bilker switched out of the theater department, though, does not mean she’s forgotten about us here in the department. Bilker still takes a musical theater class, which she said required the students to audition for the show, “The Boys from Syracuse.” Bilker landed a leading role. Some people, when they leave the department, they leave for good. But Bilker still keeps her presence alive and known. As far as a place for theater in Bilker’s future, she said, “I’m just going to see where life takes me with theater for now. I really love teaching it in the summers for now. But, if the opportunity arises, I will definitely continue participating in theater.” See? Theater can have a place outside of the stage, too. One doesn’t need to be an “actor” to be a part of the collaborative art. College is all about making mistakes, making changes, and figuring out who we are and what we want. People come and people go. And after five years, I’ve finally figured out what it is that I want. Qdoba.

common, and as Stop Street Harassment – a nonprofit organization fighting gender-based street harassment worldwide – perfectly puts it: “While public harassment motivated by racism, homophobia, transphobia or classism – types of deplorable harassment which men can be the target of and sometimes women perpetrate – is recognized as socially unacceptable behavior, men’s harassment of women motivated by gender and sexism is not.” Due to this social acceptance of street harassment, it’s become normalized for most women, and despite the astounding amount it occurs in North Philly, as I personally haven’t dealt with it as severely anywhere else, most of us don’t do a damn thing about it. I no longer get angry or upset when someone screams “Hey white b----,” or “Come here baby” at me. When strangers address me as “blondie” or my neighbor comments on my looks rather than saying hello, I just go on with my normal day unnerved. I barely think about it, let alone take any action in stopping it. And most of my friends are just like me, ignoring the honks, kissing noises and sexually explicit comments. But recently, I came to the

conclusion that my ambivalence is no longer acceptable. While reading an article in Marie Claire’s April issue about young social activists who take advantage of social media to promote their causes, I came across Nuala Cabral’s story. A Philadelphian herself, Cabral produced “Walking Home,” a four-minute film about street harassment that went viral and went on to win the Speaking Out Award at the nonprofit Media That Matters Film Festival. Cabral now works as manager of communications and media productions at the University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia, a youth leadership nonprofit here at Temple. Before reading this, I never thought about fighting back against something that is so present in my community. It seemed pointless, trying to prove to people so used to demoralizing women and reducing them to nothing more than a face or body that their behavior wasn’t OK. And we women have become so skilled in brushing off the comments, walking a little faster or shooting disapproving glances that I assumed no one was really offended or really disturbed. But the truth is that street harassment can have lasting ef-

fects. It can make women feel like they lose ownership of their own bodies. It can make us afraid to leave the house. It can make us feel like nothing more than our appearance matters. It takes away our right to feel comfortable in our own environment. And those are all pretty big issues, not something to brush off or just deal with. The problem is not everyone is so sure how to stop street harassment. Before researching and asking questions, I would have just assumed there was nothing I could really do about it. When I was a freshman in college, I went to Woody’s, a gay bar in center city, with a few friends. At the end of the night, I went outside to get some air while waiting for my friends to meet me. It happened to be the same night of a big Phillies game – I don’t follow sports, so I can’t tell you which team they played against or even if they lost or won – and there were cars lined up on the street in a traffic jam, honking their horns and going wild. I

also don’t understand Philly sport fans. Next thing I knew, I was being pulled into the back of a truck where at least six grown men were screaming names at me, ripping at my dress and punching me to keep me down. I curled up as tight as I could, holding my head and hoping someone would help me. L u c k i l y, due to the congestion of cars, a stranger on the street was able to pull me out of the truck before they had the chance to drive away. I immediately went to the cops, reporting what happened and also explaining that they had taken my phone, but the cops said there was simply “nothing” they could do since I didn’t have a license plate number or any way to identify them. I guess this experience kind of shaped my belief that as a woman, I would just have to put up with harassment from men. It made me believe that being catcalled on the street was no

big deal. But as we accept it, we start to let bigger things happen. We start to lose a sense of power, and we give into society’s wrongs rather than joining together and letting people know that no, it’s not OK. So how can we take steps to put an end to street harassment, or at least attempt to? Let them know that it’s wrong. Speak up, and say what you want to say. Stop Street Harassment’s website has a ton of advice on specific things to say to harassers and how to be assertive, plus they provide tips on how to report a harasser. And if you’re seeking some inspiration, they have stories from others who have taken a stand. Just remember: It’s better to be angry than apathetic. As this is my last column ever for The Temple News and I’m soon graduating, I hope that I can improve my body image and self-esteem as I enter adulthood – whatever that means. And although I probably won’t be too confident the first time I address a street harasser, I’ll get used to it over time, just like I’ll get used to loving my own body and letting go of negative thoughts. I hope you all will too.

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

Silence not useful against street harassment

CARY CARR Body of Truth

In her final column, Carr discusses the problem of street harassment.

L

iving in North Philly, I’ve gotten used to a lot of things: the sound of cop sirens as my bedtime lullaby, drunken kids stumbling out of the party across the street, feeling the slightest bit nervous every time I’m forced to walk home alone and, like most girls my age, dealing with street harassment. I want to point out that in this column I focus mainly on men harassing women. I fully understand that women also harass men, but it is far less

“The truth

is that street harassment can have lasting effects. It can make women feel like they lose ownership of their own bodies.

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

SPORTS

PAGE 18

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

Pitcher returns from injury to close Ryan Kuehn comes back from Tommy John, switches from starter to closer. JOHN MURROW The Temple News BASEBALL When redshirt-junior pitcher Ryan Kuehn is not on the baseball diamond, he is just one of the guys - a normal 22-year-old who enjoys spending time with friends and a good laugh. But when the 6-foot-5inch, 190-pound pitcher is on the mound, he is all business. Following Tommy John surgery in his freshman season in 2010, Kuehn worked with Temple trainers to rehab to a full recovery. This season, Kuehn has earned coach Ryan Wheeler’s trust as a late-inning pitcher with the ability to either close out a game or keep a game close for the Owls.

“First and foremost, [Kuehn] has worked hard to get to where he is today,” pitching coach Brian Pugh said. “He has overcome some adversity and I think that as we watched him last year and in the preseason this year, we saw that mentality out of him to be a late inning guy. He has got a little velocity, some giddy up and an attack mentality and that’s what you want out of a late inning guy, somebody that is impervious to the situation.” In 12 relief appearances in 2013, Kuehn has compiled a 1-2 record with a 2.60 ERA in 17.1 innings pitched. The right-handed pitcher has added six walks and nine strikeouts to his season total, while allowing just one hit since his appearance against St. Peter’s on April 10. “All of last year was brand new to [Kuehn], but this year, he has grasped what coach Pugh has been teaching him and just came back with a lot more con-

fidence in his ability,” coach Ryan Wheeler said. “We have seen it on the field, seen it in practice and we needed that role to be filled and we thought he could handle it.” Kuehn is just one of a pitching staff of 15, and his approach is somewhat atypical. “I do not think about striking out all three batters 1-23, but when I enter, I take the approach that I don’t want to walk any batters and I want to do whatever it takes to get out of the inning as quickly as possible,” Kuehn said. Kuehn has enjoyed a successful season in the bullpen as a late-inning pitcher, a role he has grown and adjusted into well, Wheeler said. But the transition was not as easy as it initially appeared on the surface. Before the beginning of the 2013 season, Wheeler sat Kuehn down and spoke to the pitcher about why he was better suited for a position in the bull-

pen, rather than in the starting rotation. “Well, I think it is everybody’s goal when they arrive at the college level to be a starter, but I have found my role in the bullpen,” Kuehn said. “I have a lot of confidence in myself when I enter the game and I know that I am helping the team, even if I am not in the rotation.” As a pitcher who throws a fastball between 88 mph to 91 mph along with a newly developed slider, Kuehn is the best fit on the current roster to close down games, Wheeler said. He leads all Owls with three saves on the season. “I absolutely want him in after I pitch because I know he is going to compete at the same level that I did or even more so,” redshirt-senior pitcher Dan Moller said. “I enjoy flipping the ball to him and because I know he’s going to get the job done. He is definitely fit for the job because he has a hard fast-

ball and sharp slider. Those are two things you really look for in a closer.” Known primarily as one of the hardest throwing pitchers on the staff, Kuehn has relied heavily on the slider that was developed this past offseason. “I think now that he has developed his slider - something else to work off of his fastball - he has been much more successful,” Wheeler said. “Hitters will adjust to a fastball, but he has put something else into hitters mind with his slider.” For the remainder of the season, Wheeler said he plans to keep Kuehn in the bullpen as a late inning and closer-type pitcher. As for his final season next year, there is a chance that he could earn a spot in the rotation if the opportunity is there for the taking. “Could I see it? Potentially,” Pugh said. “I think it depends on how some other things pan out. If somebody

else moves into that third starter spot so be it, but we have been happy with what we have seen from Ryan so far and don’t really see any reason to move him from the back end to a starting role right now. He is a guy that wants the ball at the end of the game and that is why he is successful with us.” As of right now, Kuehn is not worried about his future role with the pitching staff. He is enjoying his current role as a closer this season and said he only hopes to see his success continue. “I want to be known as a team player,” Kuehn said. “I want to do whatever I can to help the team win no matter what role I am in.” John Murrow can be reached at john.murrow@temple.edu or Twitter @JohnMurrow12.

Pasquale breaks school records, shrugs off historic season PASQUALE PAGE 20

son. She has 11 home runs on the year, tied for second in a season all-time at Temple. In 21 games, Pasquale smacked nine doubles, five off of Temple’s previous singleseason record. She’s shattered that record this season, with 18 total. Her 55 runs batted in this season currently has beaten the previous record by 12. This past week, Pasquale jumped up to the fourth highest batting average in the nation.

She leads the conference by more than 50 percentage points with a .469 average, among with at least 80 plate appearances. She also sits atop the Atlantic 10 Conference in total bases (112), doubles and RBIs and is near the top in several other categories. “I don’t even know,” Pasquale said about why she’s having a record-setting season. “I guess it’s just because I’m just playing and I’m not thinking as much. I guess I’m more

relaxed when I’m up to bat...I guess I’m just having one of those years.” The culmination of the streak came against St. Bonaventure on April 7 when Pasquale went 9-for-9 in a double-header with seven runs scored, 11 RBIs and four home runs. “If you could bottle it, you bottle that,” DiPietro said after those games. “It was phenomenal. It was a crazy performance.”

But with the streak over it’s back to normal throughout the rest of the season. With the pressure off, Pasquale can get back to focusing just on softball. “I don’t like to have stuff on me, because sometimes I think it makes you do worse,” Pasquale said. The good news for the Owls, who went 2-2 on the weekend against Saint Louis and Butler, is Pasquale showed no signs of hitting a slump after losing the streak.

Pasquale went 4-for-9 with three runs scored, three RBIs, a home run and struck out for just the second time this season in the final three games of the week after losing the streak. “She had two hits in the second game [against Saint Louis] so I’m not worried about her at all,” DiPietro said. “I don’t think a slump is anywhere in her future the way she swings. She just had one game where she got a little anxious, and it happens. It’s not the end of the world. It’s

nice if she would’ve kept it going.” That’s good for the Owls, who are fighting to climb back to the top of the A-10. Streak or no streak, Pasquale simply wants to focus on winning the rest of the season. “Now we are pressured to win pretty much all of the rest of our games,” Pasquale said. “But I think we’ll be fine.” Jake Adams can be reached at jacob.adams@temple.edu or on Twitter @jakeadams520.

Players happy to adjust to new roles under Rhule POSITIONS PAGE 20

said. “The fact that he’s physical and fast, he’s just trying to find another way to get on the field. I think he has a chance to be a real weapon for us.” Coyer, who was recruited by Rhule as a quarterback, said he has embraced the change. “It’s something I have done a little in the past and it’s fun to get back to,” Coyer said. “I know the offense really well and it’s fun to go out there and make plays.” “It’s not really weird seeing [Coyer] catch passes,” Deloatch said. “He’s a baller and an athlete so he does whatever he has to do to help the team win and get on the field.” Rhule said that with Coyer, as with all players, he did not demand a switch in positions to be made. Instead, he presented the idea and allowed the student-athlete to decide whether or not to accept the change. “It was a mutual understanding between me and coach Rhule,” Coyer said. “I thought this was what was in the best interest for the team and best for me in the long run. [The offense] can use me in a lot of different ways now and it’s a lot of fun.” Adding a quarterback to the tight end position has bolstered a position that was lacking depth after Booth moved from the position to the offensive line. Coyer has added not only an extra body, but also leadership. “It helps out a whole lot having Coyer next to me,” Deloatch said. “He helps me out when there’s something I don’t know and he keeps me going. He gives me tips on what to do and what not to do and what the defense is doing and how to read it.” Deloatch, noted last year for his physical prowess and raw ability, has drawn early praise from Rhule for his athleticism. “[Deloatch] isn’t a typical tight end right now,” Rhule said. “He’s not lining up against the defense and knocking them off

Connor Reilly (right) passed for 366 yards and four touchdowns in the Cherry & White scrimmage Saturday. | HUA ZONG TTN the ball, but he is a threat. I’m not worried about what guys can’t do, we’ll develop that. I’m worried about what they can do.” Coyer made his presence known in the spring game in other ways too. He adjusted a protection at the line before redshirt junior starting quarterback Connor Reilly had a chance. “Today [Coyer] changed a few protections before I saw them,” Reilly said. “Having him out there is a lot of fun and is going to make the defense work.” While Coyer and Deloatch have made transitions to the tight end position, the player leaving the spot open has had the biggest challenge. Booth, in his move to offensive line, was required to put on additional weight, something he said he has done by eating five or more meals a day. “I’m going to keep eating and this summer it’s all going to be about technique and fundamentals,” Booth said. “I want to be good at what I do.”

“The hardest transition is guys like Booth who have to change their body,” Rhule said. “I’m excited about it and if it doesn’t work he is just going to take three steps to the left and go play tight end.” Many of the position changes have been a result of the new offense implemented by Rhule. While the entire team is being forced to learn the new formations and schemes, players who are learning them from a new position could see a steeper learning curve. The season doesn’t kickoff until August 31 against Notre Dame and despite spring practice concluding, Rhule said he isn’t worried about players not knowing his system. “Everyone is learning new spots now,” Rhule said. “What you find out is that a football player is a football player. A football player will find a way to go play.” Ibrahim Jacobs can be reached at ibrahim.jacobs@temple.edu or on Twitter @ibrahimjacobs.

RHULE PAGE 20

coaching style, where practices are fast-paced and the offense runs no huddle, has been well received among players who slugged along in former coach Steve Addazio’s incorrigibly run-heavy offense for the past two seasons. Last year, the Owls were an uptight, closed-mouth group. The loudest sound that could be heard at practice was Addazio’s voice berating yet another offensive lineman. This spring at practice, the Owls are blaring rap music and rehearsing intricate touchdown celebrations. Videos of Rhule doing the “Cupid Shuffle” on Liacouras Walk at Spring Fling and the team participating in “Staff Olympics” were released on YouTube. “Coach Addazio is a fiery guy. He seems like his general disposition is loud and aggressive,” redshirt-senior quarterback Chris Coyer said. “Coach Rhule can be more relaxed. He likes to joke around a little bit

when it’s time to joke around.” Coyer’s endorsement of Rhule’s style might come as the biggest surprise, as he’s one of the guys who’s had the most to lose in the spring. Coyer moved from quarterback to a tight end/ H-back position after Reilly took his job. Coyer doesn’t fit as well into Rhule’s new prospread style of offense, which demands the quarterback to be more of a pocket passer. But maybe a testament to his will to play for his new coach, Coyer has taken to the tight end position. He caught three passes for 80 yards and two touchdowns – including a 65-yard touchdown from Reilly – in the Cherry & White game. “I’m having fun. I’m just trying to get out there and make plays,” Coyer said. “I’m being an athlete. I’m having a good time out there.” Rhule’s pass-heavy offense, which puts an emphasis on playmaking, has been met with universal acclaim from the wide receiving corps, an

inexperienced group that didn’t catch many balls in Addazio’s run-at-all-cost offense last year. Khalif Herbin, a sophomore used at wide receiver and on kick returns, caught four balls for 71 yards and a touchdown in the Cherry & White game. Herbin caught only one pass during all of last season. When asked if he preferred Rhule’s offense to Addazio’s, Herbin said “it’s not even close.” “I’m [5 foot, 7 inches]170 pounds and [Addazio] put me into the game to block,” Herbin said. “Like I’m going to do that well.” He added about the spring game: “It was very exciting. I really enjoyed my teammates pushing me and edging me on to do better. I felt like myself for the first time in a long time.” Herbin’s breakout performance came in front of a crowd of more than 3,500 that included more former players than any other scrimmage game in recent memory. Former Owls turned NFL players Bernard Pierce, Evan Rodriguez, Raheem Brock and Steve Maneri were all in attendance, among many others. Rhule, who recruited players old and new during his six-year tenure at Temple from 2006-11, detracted any notion that his popularity has led to an influx of enthusiasm to the team. “I don’t think it’s about me,” Rhule said. “I think it’s about Temple and Temple football. I think there’s real pride in the program from guys in all eras.” After Herbin’s 13-yard touchdown in the second quarter, former running back Matt Brown took over the announcer’s microphone and yelled, “OK, Leaf Buck! OK!” At Chodoff Field, with the team under Rhule, it didn’t seem that out of the ordinary. Joey Cranney can be reached at joseph.cranney@temple.edu or on Twitter @joey_cranney.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

Q

&

Lackluster season ends, team points to injuries

A

Picked to finish fourth preseason, Owls knocked out in A-10 second round. EVAN CROSS The Temple News

Gavin White concludes his 33rd season as the crew team’s head coach. He doesn’t have any plans of retiring anytime soon. | ABI REIMOLD TTN FILE PHOTO

After 33 years, crew legend shows no signs of stopping Crew coach Gavin White shares a life-long connection to Temple. TYLER SABLICH The Temple News Gavin White has CREW been affiliated with Temple in some way his entire life. He’s currently in the midst of his 33rd year as coach of the crew team. White’s father Gavin White, Jr., was just finishing up a Temple football career at the time he was born. Shortly after, his father became the Temple Athletic Director. White attended Temple from 1969-1973 and was a member of the crew team his final three years. He took over as head coach in 1979 and never looked back. Aside from leading Temple to seven appearances in the Royal Henley Regatta and 20 Dad Vail Regatta Varsity 8 titles, White also taught undergraduate Physical Education until his recent retirement from the classroom. White’s track record has not gone unrecognized. He gained international merit when he was asked to coach the men’s four at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, and again in 2003 when he coached the men’s pair with coxswain to the gold medal at the FISA World Rowing Championships in Milan, Italy. White is a 1985 inductee into the Temple Athletic Hall of Fame. More recently, he was the recipient of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 17th Annual Joy of Sculling Conference. The Temple News: Did you ever imagine you would be at Temple for so long? Gavin White: Hell no. I went away from Temple for two years to get my master’s at the University of Maryland. I came back to teach at Temple and they said, ‘Hey we need

someone to coach [crew].’ I told them that I would give it a try and the rest is history. TTN: Did you have any background in crew before coming to Temple? GW: No, not at all. I played basketball at Temple my freshman year. I played football and basketball in high school. My friend from day camp from when I was 12 years old told me to try out [for crew] in college, so I did. I didn’t have any background at all. My father was a football player, all my uncles were basketball and football players. There was no connection at all whatsoever. But as you can tell, it stuck. TTN: Was there ever a point in your career where you thought you might leave Temple? GW: There have been a couple of people who approached me over the years. Purdue approached me before when their [crew] coach was leaving. They said they would offer me a lot of money to come out there, and a lot of perks. But word on the street is I was born into the Temple family. My mom was pregnant with me while she was going to Temple football games every weekend watching my dad play. I was born in January that year, he graduated in May. Temple is in my blood I guess you could say. There’s no way I was ever going to go anywhere else. TTN: [Senior] Chris Roberts said he’s in the best shape of his life thanks to you. Is your workout regiment something you pride yourself on? GW: That’s the main component of my system, is the workouts. I mean, I don’t

Tyler Sablich can be reached at tyler.sablich@temple.edu or on Twitter @TySablich.

LACROSSE PAGE 20 son victories against two of the three tournament participants, but an A-10 Championship will likely go through the No. 1 seed and defending champion, No. 12 Massachusetts. The Owls fell 12-10 to the Minutewomen in the closing minutes of their regular season match at UMass on April 12. “Every team that is going to be in the Atlantic 10 playoffs we’ve either beat or had a really good game, and I think that gives us confidence going forward,” senior goalkeeper Meghan Clothier said. Temple and UMass are tied at five conference championships each, which means if the Minutewomen and Owls were to advance to the A-10 finals, the two programs would battle for the bragging rights of most A-10 tournament championships. UMass has won the last four conference titles. The last team to win the A-10 tourna-

WOMEN’S TENNIS Despite the fact that the Owls finished the season with a losing record and were knocked out in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, coach Steve Mauro believes his team was one of the most talented in the league. “I always think that we’ll come in Top 3 [at the beginning of the season],” Mauro said. “I think we were actually the second-best team in that tournament.” After being picked to finish fourth in the 16-team conference at the beginning of the spring season, the Owls finished the regular season at 9-13. They received the ninth seed in the A-10 tournament, defeated eighth-seeded Saint Louis 4-1, and then lost to top-seeded Virginia Commonwealth University – who went on to win the tournament – 4-0. “Overall, I am happy because we all worked hard in both practices and matches,” junior Alicia Doms said. “However, I am not that happy with our results. We lost against a few teams that were definitely winnable matches, especially against A-10 teams. To be honest, there is no reason why we should lose to any team in the A-10, because all our players

are talented and capable to win.” Temple went 3-6 in conference play, discounting the tournament. With the exception of a 5-2 victory against St. Joseph’s University at the Student Pavilion on April 11, all of Temple’s conference matches were away. The team played each of the Top 4 A-10 seeds in the regular season – VCU, Xavier, Massachusetts and Richmond – losing to them all. The Owls defeated the only bottom four seed they faced, St. Bonaventure. “We’ve been battling injuries all year long,” Mauro said. “Three of our starters have had injury problems. I think if we could have gotten them healthy during the year, I think it would have been a different story. I’m not saying we would have beat VCU, but I think VCU and us would have been in the finals.” Juniors Jordan Batey and Yana Mavrina both missed time with chest injuries. The team dealt with concussion issues during the course of the year, the most recent one by freshman Minami Okajima in the days leading up to the A-10 tournament. Maruo said Okajima was hit in the head by a ball, forcing her to sit out the opening round match. “It was just a very strange year with injuries,” Mauro said. Doms, the usual top-flight player, has been dealing with multiple injuries. She has left elbow tendinitis, which forces her to serve underhand. She also said her knees bother her when playing for an extended period of time. “The first month [of summer], I will try to do treatment

so I can recover, and then I will start playing again,” Doms said. “I will definitely be ready for the fall.” “[In the summer], we train on our own,” freshman Jasmine Merali said. “Whatever you do is a lot of match play just to try to get ready for the fall season, and obviously the spring.” Mauro said he has already signed one new recruit from Indonesia for the fall, and is looking to sign one or two more. The team is not losing anyone to graduation. “Barring injuries, the two or three new girls we bring in will push everyone down in the lineup,” Mauro said. “We’ll actually be strong one through six. I think the difference between us and VCU was that they were a little bit stronger at the bottom of the lineup. We need to be strong as well down there.” Doms won’t just give up her top-flight position, though. “If I keep playing in first position, it will be a huge opportunity for me to play with the best players in the nation, so I am very excited,” Doms said. Despite not doing as well as they had hoped this spring, players said they are excited and optimistic for next year. “I think the team is going to improve a lot next semester and next year,” Merali said. “I know we have some new players coming in. With four seniors, it’s definitely going to be a strong team. Lots of experience among the players, so I think it’ll be good.”

do too much with technique. I’m not a technician. The main thing I like doing is the workout scheduling, trying to peak guys at the right time. We have a luxury here with being on the water, where I’ve been working with them the last three weeks. Some of the other schools we compete against are just getting into form. [Roberts] is one of those kids that has come a long way. He had a lot of injuries his first three years. We used to kid him that some part of his body would fall off in the water every time he raced. TTN: Was balancing teaching, coaching and a personal life ever a difficult task for you? GW: Frankly, I don’t know how I did it. I woke up Evan Cross can be reached at every morning, did our mornevan.cross@temple.edu ing workout, [taught] all day at or on Twitter @EvanCross. school, while coming back in the afternoon sometime for a second workout. Now that I’m just coaching and not teaching, I realize that was wearing me out. TTN: If you had to put a timetable on how much longer you’ll be coaching, what would you say? GW: Well if you talk to the opposing coaches they’ll always tell you, ‘This is Gavin’s last year.’ And that’s been going on for the last 20 years. I haven’t set a date to retire. It could be this year, it could be the next. I don’t feel like I need to win any more titles. I’m not anxious to do it for me, I just don’t like walking away from The women’s track & field team, along with the men’s team, will compete at the Penn Relays these kids. Having this group from Thursday, April 25 to Saturday, April 27. | ABI REIMOLD TTN FILE PHOTO of kids is special.

In four-team tournament, Owls say they have a chance because of their regular season victory against Richmond. From a seeding standpoint, Temple will be the underdog when it faces Duquesne, but the Owls boast a 16-9 road victory against the Dukes. “They’re going to come after us because they want redemption, and we’re not just going to roll over them,” senior midfielder Stephany Parcell said. “We’re going to come at them the same way we came at them the first time.” Since their loss to Temple in Pittsburgh, the Dukes have won three straight conference games. “Sometimes it helps to know that you’ve beaten someone,” Rosen said. “I think that’s a nice piece, but we know they’re going to give us their best games. The real key is to stay focused on executing the small things.” Temple holds regular sea-

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ment crown before the Minutewomen’s run was the Owls in 2008. “We have an idea of how they play,” senior defender Nina Falcone said. “Basically, if we bring our game, I think we can beat any team right now”. With the Owls leaving the A-10 Conference to become Big East affiliates in 2014, this year’s postseason tournament will be Temple’s last opportunity to leave a mark on its longtime conference home. The non-conference schedule is over, the conference schedule is over, and for the departing Temple, this year’s conference tournament really will be win or go home. “It’s just about playing well,” Rosen said. “It still doesn’t take more than playing well.” Brien Edwards can be reached at brien.edwards@temple.edu or on Twitter @BErick1123.

Runners pledge to post best times at year’s biggest event RELAYS PAGE 20

in bigger meets. “When it comes to running, if you have competition that’s where you are or even better than you, it’s only going to make you run faster,” Kaycon said. “We’re going to get to Penn Relays and there’s going to be a lot of hype there. We’re going to go in and hopefully have the right mentality and we’re going to do what we have to do to compete at our best.” “It’s absolutely beneficial with better competition,” Kellar said. “When we go to [meets featuring lesser competition], there’s not a whole lot of benefit to it. I’d rather go to a meet, be sixth or seventh in my heat and get a [personal record time] than go and win in a slow race. I’d rather run in big heats all the time. It’s more exciting to get to race in a meet with higher competition.” This year’s version of the Penn Relays will bridge right into the championship season, starting with the Atlantic 10 Championship meet May 4-5. While partaking in a major event one week prior to the A-10 meet can be hard from a fatigue standpoint for some, Kellar has been battling injury instead.

The junior has dealt with a nagging, bruised callus bone since the fall that has kept him off the track for a bulk of the indoor and outdoor seasons. While the stress and energy requirement of a big competition can hurt an everyday runner pushing through a full season, running against schools from all parts of the country in a fast-paced race appears to be the perfect championship season warm-up for Kellar. “It’s tough on your body racing every weekend, but this weekend is a nice tune-up,” Kellar said. “I’m not in the best shape that I could be and [this weekend] is good for me. For other guys, having a race right before the conference meet is sort of an extra burden. It’s two different perspectives. It just depends on how the season’s been going and how long you’ve been racing for.” “It would’ve been nice if it was two weeks before the A-10 meet just so we could get a little bit of a break,” Kaycon, primarily a 3K steeplechase runner, said. “I don’t think it’s going to hurt us too bad. I’m only the mile leg for the DMR, so I’m going to use that to my advantage and do what I have to do and get the rest I have to get in

for the A-10 meet.” With Temple being one of the local colleges running in the globally renowned event, the Penn Relays presents an opportunity for runners to go out and represent not only their school, but also Philadelphia itself. “It’s kind of interesting,” Kellar said. “When you’re rocking the Temple gear or other Philadelphia schools like Penn or [Saint Joseph’s University], you get recognition from people working there. You get a lot of side comments like, ‘We’re excited to have you here.’ I didn’t realize that until last year that people are excited about the local competition running in it. A lot of the people watching the meet are seeing schools running that they went to and they like seeing their former schools compete. It’s really cool to be there and to be a part of that.” “Everyone knows about Penn Relays and everyone asks that first like, ‘Oh, have you ever run at Penn Relays?’ It’s cool to be a part of that saying you’re there and being a part of a Philadelphia tradition.” Andrew Parent can be reached at andrew.parent@temple.edu or on Twitter @daParent93.

SPORTS temple-news.com

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TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013

Pasquale streak ends, torrid pace continues Stephanie Pasquale’s historic season continues despite her hitting streak ending. JAKE ADAMS The Temple News S t e p h a n i e SOFTBALL Pasquale’s hitting streak ended Saturday, April 20, at 21 games,

but she’d probably be the last person who would mention it. “It’s nice to have but I wasn’t really thinking,” the junior catcher said. “If I have a streak, I have a streak. That’s it.” When Pasquale’s streak hit double-digits at the end of March, she didn’t know. The mentality made it easier to focus, although coach Joe DiPietro said getting early hits prob-

ably helped. “Most of the games she had gotten a hit early in the game so that pressure was off real quick,” DiPietro said. “But I think in the Monmouth game because it started to go 0-for-1, 0-for-2, 0-for-3 she started to feel it.” In the 3-2 loss to Saint Louis on Saturday, Pasquale started out 0-2 once again, and DiPietro said he noticed his biggest of-

fensive threat start to press. “The first game I pushed a lot, because I saw that everyone else was struggling just like I was so I wanted to get a hit so I could get a run in,” Pasquale said. “I wasn’t really nervous,” Pasquale added. “I had one of those days where it wasn’t my day the first game, which happens to everyone...but then I got over it and I knew I needed to

play defense.” Pasquale went 0-3 against the Billikens in the first game of the double-header, all of which were groundouts. “Just wasn’t in sync in the first game for whatever reason,” DiPietro said. “And maybe it’ll be a good thing if she can get that pressure off her out there and continue to play.” But while the streak may have ended suddenly, it certain-

ly left a huge impact on the stat sheet. In addition to Pasquale’s 21-game hitting streak, she had a streak of 23 games in which she reached base safely. During that span, she hit .558 with a .605 on-base percentage. Her seven home runs during the streak alone rank tied for seventh in Owls’ history for a sea-

PASQUALE PAGE 18

Rhule now proven as a player’s coach sponses that made it clear this wasn’t a team putting up a front. When asked specific questions, players gave specific answers: They’re happy, they had more fun this spring than they did all of last season and they JOEY CRANNEY love their new coach. Sports Editor Redshirt junior quarterback Connor Reilly certainly had a It was either a reason to be in high spirits SatFOOTBALL genuine feeling among players urday. After being buried on the or some of the finest public rela- depth chart for two years, he tions work by Temple in recent earned the role of starter three memory. weeks into spring practice. In After the football team’s the Cherry & White scrimmage, annual Cherry & White scrim- Reilly passed for 366 yards mage on Saturand four touchday, April 20, in downs. which the White W h e n squad pulled out asked if the an anti-climactic scrimmage was 34-28 win, Tema difficult atmople players filed sphere for him into the media to play in – with room at Edbergit being the closOlson Hall and est he’s come to were barraged a collegiate start with a standard to date – Reilly series of postsaid the biggest spring practice challenge was questions. adjusting to the One by one, lack of music Connor Reilly / redshirt-junior they were asked over quarterback playing about the team’s Chodoff Field. make-up, the recent coaching “I think the one big thing change and what we can expect that threw us off was there was in the 2013 season. One by one, no music today,” Reilly said. players stood at the podium, “We’ve been practicing with smiled politely and couldn’t music all spring.” stop talking about how happy That’s the kind of spring it’s they are with everything. been for a team that has taken We’ve seen players give an- on a new attitude under coach swers about a “team-first men- Matt Rhule, who at 38 years old tality” before, and we’re far too is the eighth-youngest coach in familiar with coach speak. But the country. Rhule’s up-tempo on Saturday, there was someRHULE PAGE 18 thing unifying about the re-

If spring practice proved anything, it’s that players love their new head coach.

“I think the

Matt Rhule (right) switched the positions of multiple players during spring practice, which ended Saturday. | HUA ZONG TTN

Out of position

Multiple position switches prove fruitful in Temple’s annual Cherry & White scrimmage. IBRAHIM JACOBS Assistant Sports Editor

W

hen asked for a list of players that had switched positions since the start of spring practice, coach Matt Rhule just looked around, as if someone behind him had the answer. “Gosh, I don’t even know,” he said. “I have moved so many guys.” After the Cherry & White scrimmage concluded spring

practice on Saturday, April 20, the changes Rhule has made since he took helm of the team in December 2012 were evident. The day concluded with Chris Coyer, the Owls’ leading passer from last season, catching three passes – two for touchdowns – from the tight end position. Sophomore Romond Deloatch caught 13 balls, including a touchdown, lining up at tight end, not receiver. And Cody Booth, looking like a man who ate last year’s Cody Booth, sprung wide receiver Jalen Fitzpatrick for a 39-yard run mid-

way through the first quarter with a crushing block. Booth did so while wearing a black jersey, having made the move from tight end to offensive line this spring. “What we are trying to do is get the best players on the field,” Rhule said. “There’s no use in having guys that are both talented playing behind each other when only one can play. We just look at it like roster management finding a way to get guys on the field.” While he didn’t specify, Rhule could very well have

been alluding to Coyer. The senior was the MVP of the Gildan New Mexico Bowl in 2011 before leading the team in passing and starts at the quarterback position in 2012. Under Rhule’s leadership, the team has taken on a pro-style offense, meaning more drop-backs and less quarterback runs, and Coyer fell to fourth on the depth chart. “Chris has always been a really tough hard-nosed physical player and he has always run the ball really well,” Rhule

POSITIONS PAGE 18

one big thing that threw us off was there was no music today. We’ve been practicing with music all spring.

”

Season culminates Owls earn No. 3 seed in tourney with Penn Relays Distance runners hope to post best times of season at track’s biggest event. ANDREW PARENT The Temple News While witTRACK & FIELD nessing the Penn Relays is one thing, participating in the longtime Philadelphia tradition is a different story. Matt Kaycon will get his first chance to compete in the University of Pennsylvania hosted event – which will take place from Thursday, April 25, to Saturday, April 27 – when he checks in as the mile leg in Temple’s distance medley relay. “I’m definitely excited,” Kaycon said. “I’ve been to the

Penn Relays before, but this is just my first opportunity to compete in it. I’m not going to let a big crowd intimidate me. It’s only going to push me and motivate me to run even faster. I’m excited and I can’t wait to get out there.” The sophomore will be a part of a Temple DMR lineup that will likely include sophomore Cullen Davis (1200-meter), junior Will Kellar (800m) and possibly graduate senior Allan Harding (400m), Kaycon said. Like any other event in the Penn Relays, competition will be top-notch in the men’s DMR, and the medals hard to come by. While tougher competition poses a challenge in the medal department, it can help with a runner’s time and ability to run

RELAYS PAGE 19

CLOSING TIME, p. 18

Redshirt-junior pitcher Ryan Kuehn comes back from injury and settles into role as closer. SPORTS DESK 215-204-9537

After missing A-10 tournament last season, Owls will face Duquesne. BRIEN EDWARDS The Temple News

After missing out LACROSSE on last year’s Atlantic 10 Conference tournament, the Owls had another close call this year. Despite losing four conference games, including a loss to Richmond on April 10, the lacrosse team has clinched the No. 3 seed in the A-10 tournament and will face No. 2 Duquesne on Friday, April 26, in Amherst, Mass. “Playing Duquesne is an exciting opportunity,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “It’s nice for our players to know that they’re a beatable team, as I think all teams are. We don’t really care who we play to get through.”

The Owls lost to Richmond Sunday, their fourth conference loss. | DANIEL PELLIGRINE TTN Last season, a 3-4 conference record devalued a 9-8 overall record as Temple was eliminated from postseason contention, but a 4-3 conference record in 2013 proved to be enough to earn the Owls a berth in the four-team tournament.

TENNIS TROUBLES, p. 19

The women’s tennis season ended last weekend with a 4-0 loss to eventual A-10 champion VCU. SPORTS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

Temple’s 16-15 loss to the Spiders and George Washington’s victory against St. Joseph’s University created a three-way tie between the Owls, Colonials and Spiders. With each team winning four A-10 games, a tiebreaker would de-

cide the team to advance. Since Temple defeated Duquesne and George Washington during the regular season, the Owls earned the No. 3 spot, while the Colonials earned the No. 4 spot

LACROSSE PAGE 19

CREW CONVERSATION, p. 19

Gavin White has been coaching for 33 years and has no plans to stop any time soon.