3.11 FINAL PRINT

WINNER OF 11 STUDENT KEYSTONE PRESS AWARDS

THE TEMPLE NEWS

YEARS LATER

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Temple and the rest of the world are still feeling the aftermath.

VOL 103 // ISSUE 12

Read more on Page 24.

WHAT’S INSIDE NEWS, Page 6

Student activism has increased as controversial executive orders come out of Washington, D.C.

SPORTS, Page 29

These players must step up for Temple Men’s Basketball to succeed in the AAC Tournament.

THE TEMPLE NEWS

Samuel O’Neal Editor-in-Chief

Sidney Rochnik Managing Editor

Claire Zeffer Managing Editor

Anna Augustine Co-Chief Copy Editor

Valeria Uribe Co-Chief Copy Editor

Evelyn Blower News Editor

Nurbanu Sahin Assistant News Editor

Kylie Sokoloff Assistant News Editor

McCaillaigh Rouse Opinion Editor

Bradley McEntee Assistant Opinion Editor

Bayleh Alexander Features Editor

Mike Nonnemaker Assistant Features Editor

Jadon George Features Staff Writer

Ryan Mack Sports Editor

Colin Schofield Assistant Sports Editor

Sienna Conaghan Assistant Sports Editor

Jaison Nieves Sports Engagement Editor

Leah Duffy Investigative Reporter

Kennedy Brown Investigative Reporter

Julia Anderson Director of Audience Engagement

Oliver Economidis Public Engagement Coordinator

Isabella Farrow Audience Engagement Editor

Rai Ganesan Audience Engagement Editor

Jack Larson Co-Photo Editor

Jared Tatz Co-Photo Editor

Noel Chacko Staff Photographer

Kajsa Morse Multimedia Editor

Ava Campbell Assistant Multimedia Editor

Lyndsey Griswold Print Design Editor

Juan Colon Graphic Design Editor

Ava Fitzgerald Data Editor

Pablo Rouco Podcast Editor

Cara Kishter Newsletter Editor

Nadia Bodnari Web Editor

Lolade Kola-Adewuyi Advertising Manager

Matthew Eaton Advertising Manager

Daivik Bewtra Business Manager

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.

The Editorial Board is made up of The Temple News’ Editor-inChief, Managing Editors, Chief Copy Editor, Deputy Copy Editor, News Editor and Opinion Editors. The views expressed in editorials only reflect those of the Board, and not of the entire Temple News staff.

CORRECTIONS

ON THE COVER

Photos taken by TTN photographers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Accuracy is our business, so when a mistake is made, we’ll correct it as soon as possible. Anyone with inquiries about content in this newspaper can contact Editor-in-Chief Samuel O’Neal at editor@temple-news.com.

LYNDSEY GRISWOLD / THE TEMPLE NEWS

CAMPUS

NEWS Research continues thriving despite funding limbo

The department is still optimistic as controversial rulings threaten reimbursements.

BY EVELYN BLOWER & AKASH HIRPARA For The Temple News

Amid grant and contract funding uncertainty across the university-based research sector, Temple’s Office of the Vice President for Research is cautious, but hopeful, in the face of shifting political tides.

The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education upgraded Temple to an R1 institution in 2015 due to its research spending and doctorate production. In 2020, the university received its highest research and development spending rank at 84 of 914 universities, and only dipped below the top 100 in the 2023 data year, according to the National Science Foundation.

President John Fry shared last month that Temple received the R1 designation once again, marking 10 years of recognition.

“I’m really not concerned, even with the uncertainty that’s going on right now in Washington, that [research is] in jeopardy,” said Josh Gladden, vice president for research. “I think we are far enough into that pack of top tier research universities. I’m not really concerned about us losing, say, R1 designation. With that being said, we’re always looking for how to grow the impact of our research enterprise.”

Carnegie classifies R1 universities as institutions who spend at least $50 million and award at least 70 doctorates in research — more than 180 universities in the country hold the designation.

Temple spends around $300 million on research each year, Gladden said. In comparison, Drexel spent $169 million in 2023, and the University of Pennsylvania had a 2024 research budget of $1.37 billion.

National Institutes of Health threatened to pull indirect cost reimbursements to 15% on Feb. 7, Science.org reported.

While other universities have pre-emptively pulled funding, Temple has been receiving requested reimbursements as normal, Gladden said.

“The latest is a court did enjoin, or they put a stay on the [research grant pull] indefinitely until the full case can be heard,” Gladden said. “That’s where we are legally.”

Schools like the University of Pittsburgh paused Ph.D. admissions for a short stint due to “anticipated fiscal constraints,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Temple and Pitt are both R1 state-related universities in the commonwealth who receive state and federal funding.

Temple’s researchers can receive external funding and scholarships, but also have a comprehensive internal funding system it can rely on. Some of its internal development programs, which have different funding opportunities like the Blue Sky Initiative and the Humanities and Arts Research Program, can award

tens of thousands of dollars for scientific and scholarly research initiatives.

“Our research is diverse, so it would be unfair to name one or two that are currently trending,” said Seema Freer, director of research development. “It’s robust across all 17 colleges. And if we were to highlight the areas, biomedical is a big space, AI is big, we have a lot of defense research that we’re doing.”

The Lewis Katz School of Medicine conducts the most research out of all of Temple’s colleges, with recent innovations from the school like the Thrombolex, which helps to treat limited blood flow to the lungs. State senators visited Temple on Feb. 24 to celebrate the state’s $2 million contribution in funding for the company that commercialized the device.

“There’s a whole portfolio of discovery around Thrombolex that resulted from the research at the medical school,” said Steve Nappi, associate vice president for technology commercialization

and business development.

Undergraduates can apply for different research opportunities, within their own school and university-wide. The Diamond Research Scholars program allows students to study under their chosen mentors to research a project for 10 weeks during the summer and fall and receive a $4,000 stipend.

“In some places, you’re going to have very specific requirements as to what journal you have to publish in, or they might try to really shape the kind of research you’re doing,” said Fabienne Darling-Wolf, associate dean for research and graduate studies at Klein. “I feel that at Temple I’ve had a lot of freedom to explore whatever questions I’m interested in, as long as I keep being productive in my research.”

Haddijatou Jammeh contributed reporting.

evelyn.blower@temple.edu akash.hirpara@temple.edu

JACK LARSON / THE TEMPLE NEWS Temple remains optimistic about their research funding amid unpredictable rulings in Washington, D.C.

COMMUNITY

Temple launches middle school support program

Students in the Future Scholars program will study and have access to pre-college resources.

BY EVELYN BLOWER News Editor

Temple is partnering with Heights Philadelphia and the School District of Philadelphia to launch the Temple Future Scholars initiative, an academic pipeline program offering support to students from middle school until college graduation.

The program launched on Feb. 22 in a ceremony at the Temple Performing Arts Center with an inaugural class of 120 students across seven middle schools in the North Philadelphia area.

The Future Scholars class of 2034 will attend Saturday College programming on Main Campus throughout the year and a summer camp with mentors and different activities. All accepted participants in the program are receiving a full tuition scholarship to Temple, should they choose to enroll.

“Now they’re having opportunities to step on campus and see what makes Temple so special,” said Destinee Harper, associate director of college pathways at Heights Philadelphia. “It’s really just magical actually, to think that these students who are essentially in [Temple’s] backyard are able to get a taste of what it is to be a college student at a great institution like Temple.”

Jose Aviles, vice provost for enrollment management, began to develop the program with the School District of Philadelphia a year ago. Heights was included in the conversation once they decided on a plan to launch the program at various middle schools.

“Securing the students, that was the easy part,” said Chris Avery, vice president of strategy and partnerships at Heights Philadelphia. “The next part is, what happens? [Students] come every month, over the summers, staying with their life, engaging with [us], advising [them]. It really takes a village. It’s a village of the district, the university, our

organization, the foundation work, to make this possible for the kids that we serve.”

Heights Philadelphia currently works with Temple on the Cecil B. Moore Scholars Program and Temple Promise, which offers similar academic and financial support. Cecil B. Moore Scholars supports high school seniors while Future Scholars begins in seventh grade. The inaugural Cecil B. Moore Scholars class is graduating from Temple this year.

Future Scholars students aren’t required to go to Temple, and the university is aware that some may end up going to other Philadelphia and state schools like Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University or the University of Pittsburgh, said President John Fry.

“The idea of pipelining is that not only is it a social good that we should be doing as part of our mission, but we’re also getting them familiar with Temple at an early age, coming back and forth on our campus,” Fry said. “One day they’ll wake up and say ‘That’s where I want to be, I want to be an Owl.’”

The program includes Mary McLeod Bethune School near Temple’s Health Sciences campus, Paul L. Dunbar School and Tanner Duckrey School near Temple’s Main Campus, the Russell Conwell School in Kensington, the John F. Hartranft School in North Philadelphia, Morton McMichael School in Mantua in West Philadelphia and Juniata Park Academy in North Philadelphia.

“As a good neighbor, we do see a special commitment to the local community, so that we impact it positively both from an economic perspective and also from an educational perspective,” said Valerie Harrison, vice president for community impact and civic engagement. “There is a commitment throughout the commonwealth to the students of all over Pennsylvania, but we are seeking to be good neighbors and to really be an economic engine in North Philadelphia.”

Though Temple is the first university in Philadelphia to launch a community mentorship program, the basis of the initiative comes from the Rutgers University Future Scholars program. Since 2008, Rutgers has accepted more than 200 first generation students in

their surrounding communities each year, giving them similar academic programming and zero tuition costs if the students attend Rutgers.

Temple students, faculty and members of the Heights Philadelphia organization will help host the student sessions at Temple on Saturday mornings in February, March and April, with planned activities and classroom lessons. Since the program pulls from different schools, kids will get a chance to meet and interact with peers across various parts of the city.

“They’re stuck with us until they graduate, but they’re going to build that camaraderie that a lot of students don’t really have prior to going to college,” Harper said. “They’re getting that college exposure being on a college campus every Saturday, meeting mentors who are college students from their neighborhoods, it’s like, come on, it’s such a great program for these students.”

evelyn.blower@temple.edu @evelyn_blower

JOSH PERO / THE TEMPLE NEWS Temple Future Scholars program plans to give academic resources to children starting from seventh grade.

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

TSG, Our Wave collaborate for survivors’ forum

The forum for sexual abuse survivors is directly accessible through TSG’s website.

BY NURBANU SAHIN Assistant News Editor

Temple Student Government has partnered with Our Wave, a virtual community for survivors of sexual violence, to launch a collaborative communication forum on TSG’s website to extend Our Wave’s community to Temple.

The page, which launched on Feb. 6, allows Temple students access to Our Wave’s forum to talk to different survivors and post questions or prompts to the page. The website allows other survivors to find each other without identifying factors like names, age, social media handles or location.

“I think that healing looks different for everyone, and for a lot of people, they don’t know who to turn to when something happens,” said TSG President Ray Epstein. “A lot of people feel safer online because there’s this layer of anonymity and of ‘I can truly say and ask anything and be vulnerable, and nobody will attribute it to me in my real life.’”

The collaboration was announced in a social media post that included TSG, Our Wave and Student Advocates Against Sexual Assault, which Epstein is also the president of, to reach survivors on campus and spread awareness of the new resource, Epstein said.

Once a person submits something to the page, a member of the Our Wave team will review it for pure anonymity before posting it to the website.

In addition to finding a community, users of the site can also ask questions to experts. Our Wave works with a number of medical professionals, including Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, who can answer questions from survivors with their clinical background.

“We have prompts to give [survivors] like, ‘Do you want to share a message of what healing means to you,’ or what hope means to you, as well as your free form narrative of your experience,” said Brendan Michaelsen, chief technol-

ogy officer and co-founder of Our Wave.

Our Wave has instated volunteer coalitions at different universities in North Carolina, where the company is headquartered, but Temple is the first school the team has officially brought their services to.

The organization’s database is international and has collected and shared stories from survivors in 65 different countries, including the United States.

“You hear a lot that you’re not alone, that there are other people who experience this, but as much as people say it, something like Our Wave makes it feel very real,” said Emma Wentzel, accessibility and DEI coordinator for SAASA.

Our Wave was established during the height of the #MeToo movement and the United States Senate’s confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018 to help survivors that were contacting the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and other national hotlines.

The goal of Our Wave is to help survivors understand healing and the “language of trauma” that many resources and centers use when a person seeks help, Michaelsen said.

Of all American graduate and undergraduate students, 13% experience rape or sexual abuse, according to RAINN.

TSG was able to bring Our Wave to Temple with the help of Laura Sinko, SAASA’s faculty advisor and the Director of Research and Survivor Support for Our Wave. At Temple, Sinko researches the healing journey after sexual assault and intimate partner violence. She is also a SANE at Drexel University’s Philadelphia Sexual Assault Response Center, which is the only emergency response clinic in Philadelphia.

“My dream is to have more sexual assault and dating violence-specific programs and supports for survivors in a more holistic way,” Sinko said. “I know we have counseling and things like that, but there’s so much more survivors need in their healing, and the more dedicated staff and attention we have to these issues, I think the better.”

SAASA helps connect students with local resources like WOAR Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Assault and PSARC.

“[WOAR] provides so many resources that SAASA will advertise, whether it’s tabling or [general body

meetings] for students like knowing your Title IX rights, having the ability to file an [Office of Civil Rights] complaint if you need to, if you need to pursue legal action through PSARC,” Wentzel said.

TSG and SAASA also attempted to make other resources available through the university for survivors like Callisto, an encrypted platform that allows for survivors to be matched with others harmed by the same perpetrator. But after a year of advocating, Temple has declined to list Callisto as a resource, according to a SAASA Instagram post.

Callisto and It’s On Us, the national chapter that supports SAASA, also partner with Our Wave.

“I just want to emphasize that whether or not someone labels what they experience as assault, Our Wave is a place that’s still for you,” Sinko said. “Even if you’re unsure, if you’re feeling distressed, if you’re feeling harmed in any way, even if you’re not labeling yourself as a survivor, it’s still a place for anything under that spectrum.”

nurbanu@temple.edu @nurbanusahinn

FILE / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Temple Student Government and Our Wave joined together to create a forum for sexual assault survivors.

Activism groups emerge during executive orders

Multiple student groups have formed to advocate against executive orders.

BY DHARAV KAKKAD & NURBANU SAHIN

For The Temple News

As Temple continues navigating executive orders from the White House, students have increasingly gathered in new and existing groups, like Temple Get Free, Temple Immigration Rights Advocates and Queer Student Union, to address social and political concerns.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump and his administration have issued a number of executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion policies, immigration and gender expression. The Trump administration has cut federal aid to higher education institutions on the basis of alleged antisemitism during on-campus pro-Palestine protests, including $400 million in grants from Columbia University on March 7, the Associated Press reported.

Later that day, Temple President John Fry emphasized the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and reinforced the guidelines for on-campus protests in a statement to the community.

Student engagement tends to fluctuate in response to national events, said Jared Clemons, a liberal arts professor who specializes in race, political economy and behavior.

“One thing I think is kind of clear, is that people have a lot of questions about a lot of executive orders, a lot of which are kind of legally nebulous,” Clemons said.

On Feb. 25, Temple Get Free protested on campus to “demand” Temple to defend student freedoms and refuse to comply with the “MAGA agenda.”

Some members of Temple Get Free are also involved in different advocacy organizations on campus, like Temple’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Temple SJP was placed on interim suspension in October 2024, The Tem-

ple News first reported.

In a speech outside Sullivan Hall on Feb. 28, TGF and SJP member Carson Delia spoke about Temple’s temporary suspension of SJP, calling it a limitation on free speech.

“That is why we are here today demanding President John Fry protect our right to protest,” Delia said. “Temple has always been a home for protest.”

Despite Delia’s statements, Fry repeated the university’s commitment to allowing protests of all viewpoints on Temple’s campus, despite unclear ramifications for doing so from leaders in Washington, D.C., in a series of emails to the university community.

TIRA began as a movement on social media this semester to spread awareness about Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The group came together following Trump’s anti-immigration executive orders. Their efforts were fueled by ICE sightings in Philadelphia.

They focused on distributing “Know Your Rights” cards to inform people about their legal rights during interactions with ICE. The group also translates resources for non-English speakers on their Instagram page.

“I think that’s what has kind of shocked our students,” said Ana Gonzalez, a senior gender studies major and TIRA’s president. “To see [ICE raids] going on around us, and you’re seeing like a rise in student organizing and student activism on campus, and that’s where that’s coming from, because these issues are hitting close to home. They’re in our communities now, and they’re affecting us as citizens, as community members.”

TIRA’s mission is to help the immigrant community, both at Temple and in Philadelphia, and give them the resources and knowledge they need to advocate for themselves and others, Gonzalez said.

Beyond their direct help, TIRA provides students with ways to become more engaged in activism. TIRA plans to partner with immigrant-owned businesses and local food pantries in order to

support undocumented individuals and other marginalized communities.

While activism hasn’t directly increased because of the recent election, more students are worried about executive mandates affecting research grants and diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Clemons said.

In past decades, activism often revolved around defined ideological goals, where modern movements usually talk about justice and fairness in a bigger way, addressing a variety of intersecting social issues.

Many existing student groups want to focus on advocating for those that are being targeted by the executive orders.

“I think our primary purpose is being a social, safe place for queer students, where we are trying to plan more events to give back to the community and try to advocate,” said Alex Thomas, president of QSU. “We’re currently in the process of planning a handful of them, like we’re planning a fundraiser for a local queer organization.”

Groups like QSU have encouraged students to attend campus community events discussing executive orders.

Black Student Unions across U.S. campuses are facing significant challenges with new state laws targeting diversity, equity and inclusion, some of which are being forced to disassociate from their universities due to budget cuts and policy changes, The Guardian reported.

Similar groups are also examining the financial and political factors which affect higher education including tuition, student debt and advocating for more transparency in university decision making.

“Politics are messy,” Clemons said. “The clearer we can be, or clearer people can be about the nature of these issues, I think the more efficacious they could be if they want to actually change something about it.”

nurbanu@temple.edu @nurbanusahinn dharav.kakkad@temple.edu

OPINION

EDITORIAL

Raise state funding

On Feb. 20, President John Fry visited Harrisburg to testify for an $85 million increase in Temple’s state funding, The Temple News reported. Following six years of flat funding, Temple has faced yearly tuition increases to make up for lost revenue, directly affecting the university’s student population.

Additionally, Temple’s R1 research program faces restriction due to the recent National Institutes of Health significantly capped existing and future grants at 15% for higher education institutions.

Prior to the Trump administration’s cuts, Temple’s federal Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement allocated 58.5% of its funding to organized research activities. Students involved in research-based programs face constraints on necessary educational opportunities due to limited finances.

Public universities in Pennsylvania need greater state-allocated funding to operate efficiently. Across the country, unrestricted higher education is facing regulations. The Editorial Board advocates for the freedom of higher education through increased government-based funding at Temple.

Other state schools, like the University of Pittsburgh, paused their Ph.D. admissions for a short stint due to “anticipated fiscal constraints,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The University of Pennsylvania, another R1 institution, asked its faculty to renege informal offers to its graduate students with the possibility of losing $250 million in NIH funding, The New York Times reported.

Students face the brunt of

limited financial resources, as monetary restrictions adversely affect both STEM and humanities.

Temple provides more than 46,000 jobs and generates $247.7 million in tax revenue for the state, according to Temple’s 2024-2025 Budget Presentation. Temple and Temple Health combined contributed $8.9 million to the Pennsylvania economy. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania needs Temple to offer a widespread education, provide jobs and allow the state’s economy to prosper.

Nationwide universities are threatened by the Trump administration’s tirade against intellectualism. It’s in the power of the Pennsylvania government to increase grants to public universities and halt the executive attacks on higher education.

POLITICS

Don’t let him take control

A student argues their peers must keep a level head and turn toward each other in recent events.

BY MCCAILLAIGH ROUSE Opinion Editor

Currently, everyone in America is experiencing some form of political whiplash.

Executive orders and federal policy changes have caused everyone some level of concern about which direction the country is heading.

Validly so.

During his first 50 days in office, President Donald Trump and the White House have granted clemency to Jan. 6 rioters, barred transgender women from sports, paused federal grants and loans, given billionaire Elon Musk access to the federal payment system and began a trade war with imposed 25% tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.

Ezra Klein, a columnist for The New York Times, released an audio essay on Feb. 2 titled “Don’t Believe Him,” highlighting the term “muzzle velocity,” or the fast-paced rage bait the Trump administration produces.

This refers to how Trump’s administration produces controversial policies and statements, overwhelming the public with political shocks. The goal isn’t to pass policy but to exhaust opposition, making it harder for critics to focus on one issue long enough to mount effective resistance.

It’s important to recognize that this is more than just politics — it’s a calculated shift toward authoritarianism. Trump and his administration aren’t simply passing policies, they are actively seeking ways to bypass institutional checks, dismantle safeguards and secure an easier, more direct path to power of the American people.

What Trump and his administration are doing could be considered a colonization of hope. However, one point in Klein’s essay struck me. Trump is not gaining loyalty or improving his image. He has the lowest approval rating of any president and is the only one to have disapproval over 50%, according to a January 2025 poll by Gallup.

Similarly, the Department of Government

Efficiency — a move pitched to streamline federal operations — has split Republicans. Some see it as a necessary step toward cutting bureaucracy while others worry it consolidates too much power under Trump.

Due to the drastic changes across the country, Americans’ mental health is impacted by the current state of politics. Seventy-seven percent of Americans believe the nation’s future is a significant stress in their life, with U.S. politics being the primary source, according to an October 2024 poll by the American Psychological Association.

Americans are facing unprecedented times, but they don’t stand alone. Nationwide, people feel the effects of a restrictive government infringing on individual freedoms or the increasing costs of groceries. In times of struggle, frustration and tribulation people must turn towards empathy – a lost art in American culture.

There is a grave reality in the state of America today and the conditions many communities must face, but it’s necessary to keep perspective. Students must stand together and find outlets that fuel creative passions, push forth academic innovation and allow freedom of personal expression.

It’s in the greatest interests of the American population to stay focused on Trump’s reality and limited powers. Citizens have to find power in numbers by remaining active, voicing opinions and seeking out justice groups.

So don’t lose control, don’t give him control, because Trump will only gain complete authority over the American people if Americans give in.

mccaillaigh.rouse@temple.edu

Dancing through the mayhem of my life with Gaga

A student reflects on the impact singer Lady Gaga has on their confidence and music taste.

BY BRADLEY MCENTEE

Assistant Opinion Editor

My first memory of Lady Gaga is when I was about six years old, listening to “Paparazzi” for the first time as my mom’s car flew down I-95. It was quirky, odd and frayed around the edges; something I needed as a break from the candy-coated pop era of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” and overplayed party anthems.

For the bulk of my childhood, I loved Lady Gaga from afar. I couldn’t consume more of her music because I didn’t own any of her CDs. So for the longest time, I could only pray that “Just Dance” would play on the radio.

I was never drawn to her music for a discernible reason, it just called to me like a magnet. Wherever I was, I could hear the infamous “Muh muh muh muh” at the beginning of “Poker Face” and immediately ran to its source. I wouldn’t listen to the lyrics. Instead, all I felt was the drums thumping through my stomach as I danced around.

I had more opportunities to explore her music as I got older through streaming platforms and YouTube. In seventh grade, I finally decided to listen to the entirety of “Born This Way.”

The album came to me in the midst of my middle school awkward phase. I had yet to figure out my identity and had no individual interests outside the ones I took up because of my friends.

I was constantly changing my personality and purging parts of myself I thought were uninteresting. I hung around good people but morphed myself into whatever I thought they wanted me to be to the point my real self became unrecognizable.

Although the album didn’t fix my damaged self-esteem, it made me feel like someone wanted me to be my unapologetic self, even if Gaga had no idea who I was.

When I found “Born This Way,” it wasn’t the titular track or the big hits that made the largest impact. Instead, songs like “Electric Chapel,” “Government Hooker” and “Marry the Night” captured my attention because they had the grit that first drew me to Gaga when I was younger.

Gaga cemented herself as one of my all-time favorites after I first watched her VMA performance of “Paparazzi.” She stood up from a piano in front of thousands of people with fake blood pouring down her chest as a reminder of the impacts of fame and the dangers of prestige.

I returned to “Born This Way” many times throughout my teenage years when I needed to get energized or cheered up. I would get home from school, put on my headphones and jump around my room like I was in the crowd of a claustrophobic club.

In my senior year of high school, tears began to fall as I jumped around my room when I was nearly halfway through the album. It was during the chorus of “Hair,” one of the record’s most upbeat tunes. During the anthemic chorus, Gaga pleads, “I’ve had enough, this is my prayer, that I’ll die living just as free as my hair.”

I’d listened to the song countless times, but that time, the chorus cut through to my heart like never before. It was a textbook example of hearing exactly what I needed during a very pivotal moment in my life.

My senior year was riddled with uncertainty and trepidation, as I had just committed to Temple as an English major. I knew that literature and writing were what I needed to dedicate my life to, but the words of everyone around me made it impossible to feel like I was making the right decision.

I was always told I would grow up to have little money or have to default to teaching high school. But I knew that wasn’t the path I wanted to take. It felt

like I was making a grave mistake and throwing my career into a non-lucrative field like living in a fantasy world.

But when “Hair” played, I realized the self-doubt was never worth it. I, too, wanted to die as free as my hair, unburdened by the feelings and negative opinions of others. I’ve carried that song with me since that fateful dance party and continue to blast it when I need to hear Gaga’s encouragement.

After years of side projects, Gaga is back in the edgy pop game with “Mayhem,” a record that embraces the complexities of life as she dances through the back-breaking pressures of being human.

Now, more than ever, I’m ready to fight through the mayhem of life with a new Gaga album by my side.

bradley.mcentee@temple.edu

JUAN COLON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

THE ESSAYIST

Learning how to embrace the phrase “like a girl”

A student reflects on developing her version of femininity through female friendships.

BY MCCAILLAIGH ROUSE Opinion Editor

I am the youngest and only daughter in my family.

I have two older brothers, both of whom are tall, physically strong and built like linebackers. They both played defensive line on the football team in high school and were rugby players in college.

My dad was the same way, playing football through college and later rugby in medical school. All three of them often sported black eyes and broken noses throughout their athletic careers.

While growing up, I wanted to be tough like my brothers and dad. When my brothers were passing a football or playing wiffle ball I’d often beg to join in. As a little girl, I remember hearing my brothers say that all-encompassing phrase menstrual products companies have marketed and created social movements around: “Like a girl.”

While playing with my brothers, I ran, threw, whined and cried like a girl. That phrase was the bane of my existence, so I did everything I could to beat it.

I wanted to be sporty but in a ball-carrying tackle way. At six years old, I wanted to be considered one of the guys while wearing a neon pink rhinestone Justice skirt and matching top. I began to play sports more aggressively and faced physical consequences.

At eight, I left soccer games bloody and softball games with black eyes, leading the people around me to call me a “tomboy.” They said I was more mature than the other girls on the field because I didn’t cry when a ball hit me or call for my parents when I fell, even though I wanted to.

I stopped wearing skirts and dresses just to achieve a vague level of respect from my brothers. My early childhood was set around the belief that acting “like a girl” made me weak.

Trying to fit in with what was deemed acceptable by my brothers meant erasing all signs of girlhood despite my love of feminine things like the color pink or wearing bows in my hair. It also made me harden my exterior to prove my toughness, so I no longer expressed when I was hurt or upset for fear of looking weak.

It wasn’t until early high school that I recognized the total misconception of my childhood. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school and began to wear skirts again due to the dress code. I discovered being a girl wasn’t a weakness, it was a strength fulfilled in numbers.

At my school, the teachings in and outside the classroom were based on the Bible but were typically used to tear women down. During my education, I remember teachers calling students “sluts” or “whores” when their skirts were 3 ½ inches above the knee instead

of 3.

I remember the principal calling students fat because their skirts got tighter as they got older, even though it was just a normal part of aging. I remember religion teachers telling girls they would go to hell if they had premarital sex, took birth control or practiced their right to choose.

Instead of being hurt by our teacher’s words, we laughed and spoke our minds. During lunch, my friends and I would recite the grievances of what we heard in our day and laugh at our teachers’ ignorance.

The girls around me were constantly condemned for expressing their femininity. And at such an impressionable age, often full of self-doubt, we encouraged each other to find humor in the judgment.

I found empowerment in learning to express my emotions by talking with the women around me. Freely expressing my internal, daily qualms with a group of fellow girls opened my eyes to another layer of toughness -– one much harder to accomplish than what I knew

in my childhood.

I no longer saw being a girl or acting “like a girl” as an insult or a term that could be used against me. Getting older and learning the complexities of womanhood helped me realize the art and nuances of what it means to be a woman.

Looking back now, I realize there is no clear definition of femininity. I’ve never outgrown the resolve I had while playing sports and I love wearing the inherently feminine pieces in my wardrobe.

For me, womanhood is found in scraped knees from a childhood soccer game and getting my nails done on my birthday. I adore getting drinks with my friends to yap about our misgivings and future anticipations.

Being a woman is about whatever you want to be, as long as you’re happy. Womanhood and femininity are not defined by another person, it is an individualized concept.

mccaillaigh.rouse@temple.edu

JUAN COLON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Women in film are getting “Lost in Translation”

A student argues for their peers to pursue and support more women-directed films.

BY BRADLEY MCENTEE Assistant Opinion Editor

The 97th Academy Awards wrapped up the 2025 awards season on March 2, and just as in previous years, women walked away empty-handed in the Best Director category. In the Academy’s 97 years, only 10 women have been nominated and only three have won.

Women made up about 5% of directors before the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s. After the emergence of the studio system, independent filmmakers became obsolete and women in director’s chairs were nearly nonexistent, according to Northwestern University.

Nearly a century later, only 16% of the top 250 movies of 2024 were directed by women, the lowest recorded percentage since 2019, according to a 2025 report by the University of San Diego.

Despite the Academy Awards’ lack of acclaim for women in cinema and limited female representation in the industry, students should make it a priority to continue supporting and watching women’s cinema to take in diverse perspectives and new stories.

Sydney Weiss believes the lack of award recognition for women can set a dangerous precedent for distributors to not pick up female-directed films. However, women’s stories should continue to be supported and told, she said.

“While in terms of art, [awards] can mean nothing, I think that it’s important to have those stories be told,” said Weiss, a senior marketing major. “Especially because the world is not about men anymore.”

Little research has been done to uncover the reasons behind this disparity in film, but hiring discrimination or women’s lack of interest in becoming directors could be affecting women’s involvement in the industry, according to USD’s report.

Students should continue seeking out female-directed movies to keep women’s films thriving. Steady support

of these films through steady viewership is vital for studios and producers to continue hiring and supporting the visions of women filmmakers.

Patricia White, a scholar in feminist film from Swarthmore College, believes the shift to streaming platforms has helped underrepresented directors. Despite this, nothing is as impactful as supporting movies in theaters, she said.

“The way that [women] capture relationships and the stickiness of daily life, and I think you get more of that,” White said. “There’s many male directors who do that as well, but I feel like that kind of letting it be [and] not being narcissistic is a thing.”

Keeping up with the fast pace of theatrical releases can be burdensome, but there are easy ways for students to track when women-directed films become available. While streaming is often more accessible, ticket sales are the most profitable. High ticket sales may also encourage studios to employ more women in the production process if their movies succeed financially.

Many independent filmmakers submit their works to the festival circuit, where distributors choose which films they want to add to their catalog. Two of the largest festivals, Festival de Cannes and Venice International Film Festival, take place later this year and will provide students with several titles to watch.

Philadelphia houses several theaters that screen independent films that may be difficult to find in large chains. Landmark Ritz Five is located on Walnut Street near 3rd and almost exclusively shows independent and foreign films. The Philadelphia Film Society also owns three theaters in the city dedicated to showing diverse indie cinema.

Amaya Lam, an arts and entertainment writer for Temple’s chapter of Her Campus, a feminist college media outlet, finds something especially unique about films directed by women, she said.

“I think women are just, in general, so compelling and complex,” said Lam, a junior media studies and production major. “And obviously there’s kind of no better person to tell a story about

complex and compelling women than a woman.”

In the pursuit of women-made films, it’s important for students to seek out diverse perspectives by watching movies made by queer women and women of color. Supporting movies by underrepresented groups allows marginalized people to tell their stories authentically.

Without women as directors, fan-favorite movies like “The Matrix” and “American Psycho” wouldn’t exist. Women are consistently pushing the boundaries of the medium, and engaging with their art should be a priority.

As the number of women in the director’s chair remains low, students need to continue supporting female directors to ensure the success of their projects. These movies will also expose students to new perspectives and a wide array of filmmaking talent they may never have discovered without women-directed films.

bradley.mcentee@temple.edu

JUAN COLON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

STUDENT KEYSTONE AWARDS

The Temple News won 11 2025 Student Keystone Media Awards in the Division I category, which includes the largest student media organizations in the state.

Best Ongoing News Coverage Second Place

“On-campus Palestine protest coverage” Evelyn Blower, Allison Beck, Aubren Villasenor, Samuel O’Neal, Bayleh Alexander and Nurbanu Sahin

Best Sports Story Honorable Mention

“Thomas partners with Temple to introduce protections for Philly youth athletes” Ryan Mack

Best Editorial Board Honorable Mention

The Editorial Board

Best Column Second Place

“Students, oppose 76 Place and preserve Chinatown” McCaillaigh Rouse and Bradley McEntee

Best Cartoon/Graphic First Place

“The dangers of editorial boards being controlled by the wealthy” Juan Colon

Best News Photo Honorable Mention

“SJP march from Main Campus to City Hall” Fernando Gaxiola

Best Photo Story Second Place

“Temple SJP demonstration met with counter protesters” Robert Joseph Cruz

Best Layout/Design Second Place

“2024 Basketball Preview” Lyndsey Griswold

Best Website First Place

TTN website TTN staff

Best Podcast Second Place

RePrint Pablo Rouco

Best Cartoon/Graphic Honorable Mention

“A new game plan: let women enjoy sports” Allyson Tharp

INVESTIGATIONS

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Green spaces’ history and future in North Central

Here is the current state of vacant lots and green spaces around North Central.

BY VALERIA URIBE & SIDNEY ROCHNIK

For The Temple News

At the corner of Carlisle and Diamond Streets lies a tiny house and rows of planter boxes that make up the Temple Community Garden.

Here, student and community member volunteers garden and distribute free produce, local families have claim over vegetable beds and Philadelphians can sit down and relax, surrounded by greenery and fruit trees.

Well-maintained green spaces like Temple Community Garden near Main Campus are rare, but they can help reduce heat and gun violence and improve air quality and neighborhood mental health. They provide an outlet for people to connect with nature, relax or exercise, according to the National Environmental Education Foundation.

Due to the benefits they provide, residents of North Philadelphia can benefit from having access to clean and safe green spaces within their neighborhood. But many living in the neighborhood who want to experience an open, natural area could have up to a 15-minute bus ride between them and their goal of enjoying nature.

“I think it’s really important to understand the needs of the people living near that prospective green space and understand what their top priorities are,” said Hamil Pearsall, a geography, environment and urban studies professor. “And I think a place like Temple is really interesting because we have students, but we also have a lot of residents of the community.”

The Office of Clean and Green, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and The Philadelphia Land Bank have all launched initiatives aimed at turning vacant lots into green spaces in the city.

Through the years, Temple had also

planned to develop and improve Main Campus through several different landscaping plans. The plan’s initiatives include the renovation of sustainable processes and adding green spaces around campus both students and community members can benefit from.

CITYWIDE EFFORTS

There are around 40,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia, and more than 74% of them are privately owned. These empty spaces can become dilapidated due to owners’ lack of attention, causing problems like illegal trash dumping and higher crime rates.

The city’s Vacant Lot Program is working to clean and maintain the properties. If a cleanup is requested on a lot, the city will ask that the owner correct any violations. If the owner doesn’t comply, the city will clean the lots and bill their owners. Philadelphia spends almost $20 million a year trying to clean and restore these properties to improve the living conditions of the people around them, according to a February 2024 report by Circular Philadelphia, an Environmental Conservation Organization.

A high number of vacant lots are located around the North Central area and many of the abandoned properties are in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence, according to the same report.

Historical redlining ensured areas in North Philly, specifically in areas with large Black populations, were not invested in or maintained for decades. Areas that were marked as “hazardous” and undesirable for development in the 1930s — a hallmark of discriminatory redlining practices — still face some of the highest rates of gun violence in the city today, according to a January 2020 city report.

Many homes and vacant lots became blighted or covered in debris due to a lack of financial or temporal investment. Living in this environment and having limited access to clean green spaces raises people’s stress levels and contributes to these crime and gun violence levels, said Melissa Stutzbach, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s director of land-

care.

Philadelphia has around 6,000 acres of natural land. That green space, however, is not equally distributed around the city: Parks and green spaces in Philadelphia are concentrated on the northwest side of the city, but the North Central area significantly lacks green space compared to other neighborhoods.

In recent years, the city government has been working to reduce the number of vacant lots and increase the amount of green space. The Philly Tree Plan was a 10-year plan aiming to increase tree canopy in the city. On March 5, President Donald Trump froze a $12 million federal grant that was supposed to be used for the initiative, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Parts of North Philadelphia, like the Hunting Park neighborhood of the city, are the most affected by extreme heat, magnified by the urban environment of concrete up to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. Adding trees and grass to the landscape is an effective way to counter the heat.

The city has started initiatives to tackle the issue of vacant lots while simultaneously increasing the number of green spaces.

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society maintains greenery in more than 12,000 vacant lots around the city, given permission from its private owners or the city itself. Some of the treated lots have been turned into community or pollinator gardens by the residents around them.

“Turning vacant lots into green spaces is a really good start,” Stutzbach said. “But we also know that trees make a big difference. We know that community gardens make a big difference.”

There has been a 29% reduction in gun violence in neighborhoods where empty lots have been cleaned and restored in comparison to areas where the lots have remained vacant, according to a 2018 study by the University of Pennsylvania.

Mayor Cherelle Parker established the Office of Clean and Green in May 2024 with the goal of cleaning and re-

modeling empty lots. The office also fixes potholes around the city and removes abandoned cars.

“The big change that this mayor made was making the investment to bring the maintenance of those lots up to a year-round maintenance standard,” said Casey Kuklick, deputy director of the Office of Clean and Green. “So they went from being maintained six to eight months out of the year, those 12,000 lots, to now being maintained year-round.”

The Office of Clean and Green has worked with PHS to establish “pinpoint communities,” or areas with high crime rates, which they focus on in their vacant lot cleaning efforts, Kuklick said.

Community members around the city have taken initiative to establish small businesses and take advantage of the empty spaces for many years, according to Circular Philadelphia.

In the future, the Office of Clean and Green hopes to continue renovating vacant lots around the city and turning them into useful places that benefit the community.

“We want to make sure that the land is used for whatever the community [wants] for needs in the community,” Kuklick said. “So it could be that vacant land gets developed into affordable housing, it could be that vacant land gets preserved as permanent community green space.”

However, simply turning a vacant lot into a green space isn’t always enough — the area needs to be maintained for the community to see benefits, according to a February 2020 study by the University of Virginia. Unmaintained lots can have negative impacts, incidentally increasing crime, blight and the growth of invasive species. People often don’t feel safe using green spaces that aren’t in good conditions, leading to more crime and violence.

CHALLENGES

Philadelphia has limited resources to maintain parks and green spaces, so several neighborhoods have additional funding to support the green areas on their own. For example, Rittenhouse

INVESTIGATIONS

Square receives additional funding from the neighborhood’s business improvement district to upkeep the park, which is something other areas in the city can’t do, Pearsall said.

“Not all neighborhoods are going to be able to create a nonprofit to do fundraising and offer additional amenities in a park,” Pearsall said. “And that creates a situation where there is an equitable resource allocated to green spaces.”

Community members often volunteer to maintain green spaces themselves. Maintaining green spaces is a tedious and laborious responsibility that can become a challenge and occasional liability. It can also be harder to find willing volunteers in less populated neighborhoods like those in North Philly.

Those who want a short-term lease can go to The Philadelphia Land Bank and file for temporary ownership to develop vacant lots and use the spaces to create green areas.

Ownership of a vacant lot also makes it harder for organizations trying to turn lots into green spaces. Green areas are vulnerable due to temporary leases, meaning the owners can sell their properties to others who may use the space to build or develop something else, Pearsall said.

Temple has accomplished most of the steps in its landscaping master plan, “Verdant Temple,” which was first introduced in 2015.

A decade later, trees and grass are planted, stormwater management systems are installed and new street lights illuminate campus streets. Piece by piece, projects like the Founder’s Garden, the Mazur-Gladfelter terrace and the fountains in front of Ritter Hall came together, to redefine the impression Main Campus left on the community and prospective students.

But one of the last projects remaining from Verdant was arguably its poster child: the re-imagining of the Bell Tower area which includes the demolition of Beury Hall and the Biology and Life Sciences building to create a new expansive green quad that would stretch from 13th to 12th Street, and West Norris to Pollet Walk.

President John Fry was presented with a new campus development master plan this year, which includes the logistics of the quad and relocating surrounding buildings that delayed the project for a decade, and other landscaping improvements around campus and Broad Street. The master plan is likely to be released to the public in late spring or summer, said James Templeton, assistant vice president and university architect.

Because Main Campus is open to the public, students, faculty and community members alike could benefit from the greenery changes outlined in Verdant Temple — designs meant to improve mental health and provide a clean space for events and everyday use.

“The thing that has honestly improved the experience of our campus and has been the most transformational are landscape projects because they really unified the campus,” Templeton said. “Really, more so than we ever imagined. It’s really impressive. So we keep going with as many as we can get. That quad will be, hopefully, the final piece.”

As an urban campus with limited space, Temple has to consider buildings they may need to replace in completing landscaping projects. It would take years to plan the relocation of Beury Hall and the Biology and Life Sciences building, alongside the landscaping itself, Templeton said.

City infrastructure in, under and around campus also provides a unique issue.

“Infrastructure in general is the biggest challenge, because not only do we as Temple have our own chiller lines and steam lines and electric and teledata lines everywhere, the city of Philadelphia has utilities everywhere,” Templeton said.

Reimagining city space calls for city

planners and architects to also consider what was once there.

The Temple Community Garden planted roots in a few different locations around campus before the corner of Broad and Diamond Street, where they use half of the grassy field to tend to their planter boxes, trees and compost. The other half of the field is unusable because a paint manufacturer once stood there, effectively contaminating the land under it. The garden itself used to be apartments, said Sophie Mayes, vice president of Temple Community Garden.

As many vacant lots remain around the North Central area, the university and city government officials are working to increase green spaces so the community can take advantage of the benefits they provide. Some believe the city and nature are at odds with each other and don’t exist in the same space, while others don’t subscribe to the “green versus gray” dichotomy.

“I feel a lot of people think, ‘Oh, we’re in the city’ but it’s like, we’re still on Earth,” Mayes said. “The environment doesn’t end at the city limits. The environment is everywhere.”

sidney.rochnik@temple.edu valeria.uribe@temple.edu

GREEN SPACE AT TEMPLE

JARED TATZ / THE TEMPLE NEWS

In front of Beury Hall sits the plot of grass known among students as ‘Beury Beach.’

TTN PLUS

Poll: Students struggle finding friends on campus

The Temple News surveyed more than 150 students on their sense of community on campus.

BY AVA FITZGERALD Data Editor

For Desiree Matthews, joining clubs has been an essential part of the transition to Temple. As a member of five organizations, including Black Girls Vote and the Owls Track Club, she found clubs to be a space for meeting a diverse range of students. But, she admitted it was a little nerve-wracking at first to join clubs alone.

“I was nervous in the sense that my friends and roommates don’t have the same interests as me, so a lot of the clubs I ended up looking for on my own,” said Matthews, a freshman political science major. “A whole bunch of them [are] made up of a lot of juniors, so being one of the only freshmen I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m just new to all of this,’ but I think that’s what makes it fun.”

Just 29% of students say they have met most of their friends through clubs, according to a recent survey conducted by The Temple News from Feb. 5 to Feb. 24 with more than 150 student responses.

Temple students often find clubs to be the best way to meet new people, but many face barriers that prevent them from fully engaging.

While student organizations offer social opportunities, roughly 36% of students cite busy schedules as a barrier, and almost 28% find inconvenient meeting times to be a deterrent, TTN’s poll found. Additionally, some feel excluded due to cliques or worry about membership dues.

Not all students face these challenges — approximately 11% reported no barriers to joining clubs. However, many student leaders are taking action to make organizations more accessible and inclusive for everyone.

Despite being an active member of five different organizations, Matthews also found it difficult to stay engaged.

“A huge barrier is that all the clubs run at the same day and time, it’s from six to seven [p.m.,]” Matthews said. “I don’t understand what it is, it seems to be the sweet spot.”

For commuter students, evening meeting times can be a barrier in a different way.

“Commuters can’t really stay that long, since the area does get sketchy the more dark it is outside,” wrote an anonymous survey respondent. “Also, jobs are also after school, so it sorta clashes. Clubs are a nice way to meet friends, but it’s really only beneficial to students who live nearby or are on campus.”

Some commuters, like Danny Nguyen, stack their classes on certain days of the week to avoid excessive travel. He takes five classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it difficult to attend Fox Student Professional Organizations during their Monday, Wednesday, Friday scheduled meetings, when he doesn’t typically make the trip to campus.

More than 69% of students are commuters who do not walk to campus, according to a 2022 survey by Temple’s Office of Sustainability. Nugyen believes that despite this large percentage, not enough is being done to help commuters feel represented and integrated into campus life.

Nguyen has found it challenging to feel a sense of community on campus. To help foster connections among commuters, he has been active in the Commuters Club GroupMe, created in January. In just two weeks from the launch, more than 80 students joined. Like Nguyen, some commuter students have found it easier to make friends online than in person.

“I think a lot of people feel super disconnected to Temple, like it’s just a place that you go to school,” said Nguyen, a junior supply chain management major and treasurer of Temple Commuters Club. “Even in a lot of my classes, just talking to people who are next to me, literally their mindset is, ‘I just show up.’”

Survey comments from anonymous students further highlighted a lack of community on campus.

“Temple is focused on the individual,” wrote an anonymous survey respondent. “Making friendships and developing relationships is painfully difficult.”

But despite those views, just 22% of surveyed students said they don’t feel a strong support system at Temple. However, 60% believe that they do have a strong support system and 15% were unsure.

Some students, like Maggie Sullivan, are working to foster a stronger sense of community on campus.

As a freshman, Sullivan loved lifting weights but found it daunting to go to the gym alone, where men dominated the weight room and she didn’t know anyone. Her experience sparked an idea to build her own community.

In the following semester, Sullivan founded Temple’s chapter of Girl Gains, a national organization that empowers women within the gym.

“I didn’t really have a lot of girl friends at the gym, and I wanted more girl friends at the gym, so I thought, selfishly, I would make more friends at the gym this way,” said Sullivan, a senior tourism and hospitality management major.

She credited the club’s early success to the initial Girl Gains executive board, who spread the word to their friends.

“It is hard to keep people engaged, especially when just people really want to lift [at STAR Gym], it’s hard to get gym space, it’s hard to coordinate events — and eventually we got the Ladies Lifts,” Sullivan said.

Once a month on a Saturday, before STAR Gym opens, Girl Gains hosts ‘Ladies Lifts,’ a women’s-only gym session. It took two years of negotiations with Campus Recreation to get approval. Sullivan believes the success of the occasional event can spark more engagement with students if Girl Gains has access to providing similar events.

About 20 to 50 girls attend Girl Gains meetings and the club has built a following of nearly 1,000 on Instagram. It has also earned two STARS in Temple Student Government’s STAR program, which allocates funding to university

clubs based on their ranking.

In January 2025, TSG announced that two STAR clubs would receive less funding in the Fall 2025 semester, a drop from $2500 to $1000, The Temple News reported.

“It’s hard to get the funding, and we rely a lot on our membership dues, even though they’re not mandatory,” Sullivan said. “It’s hard to balance that, because we want everybody to feel welcome, but we also want the money to put on cool events, because it is more engaging.”

For now, Girl Gains fundraises for their costs by selling protein-baked goods outside STAR Gym.

Like Sullivan, Salma Abounasra, a junior management information systems major, felt lost when she arrived at Temple as a freshman. She struggled to find friends that shared her Arab identity until she met Zena Ibrahim, a sophomore health professions major. Together they traveled to Arab Societies at Drexel and Jefferson.

“We would go to the fairs [at Temple], and there was literally nothing that represented Arab students,” Abounasra said. “So we were like, we need to create something to have people form friendships like our friendship and just have other Arabs meet each other.”

During the Fall 2024 semester, Abounasra and Ibrahim founded Temple Arab Society, a non-religious club open to students from all backgrounds, including those who are not Arab and wish to learn more about the culture. Since then, they have hosted Arabian tea nights and game nights.

Their goal was to create a safe space for Arab students to connect, and during their first meeting, they felt they achieved just that.

“We didn’t want people coming in and just sticking to their friend group, only sitting with their friends,” Abounasra said. “The games from the first event made everyone comfortable, just like talking, laughing. By the end of it, everybody was just going up to everyone, it was really nice.”

One survey respondent mentioned Temple Arab Society as a place they

made more friends.

As a commuter student, Ibrahim said considering everyone’s schedules, especially other commuters, has been key to their success.

“I had a bunch of questions when I came to Temple that I couldn’t really get answered because no one was there to answer for me,” said Cindy Sako, president of Temple Commuter Club and a senior health professions major. “So it can’t just be other Temple clubs helping us integrate, but just the system in general needs to provide different levels and

different ways for people to get involved, and we’re hoping to be just one of them.”

While Commuter Club has hosted events, Sako argues that Temple Student Government or the administration can take on this issue more effectively. She believes that initiative can be taken during freshman orientation, curating an event specifically for new commuter students to meet each other.

Sako believes that while there should be better integration methods, commuters must push themselves to cultivate new friendships.

Temple students are busy people

“Just start early, because I started way too late in my senior year, trying to make an effort to join things,” Sako said. “It seems scary and it seems hard, but once I did it, I was like, dang, I wish I started earlier because I found my way to work around the commute, and it’s hard, but it’s definitely well worth it, and it helps you feel more connected.”

Approximately 62% of surveyed students believe that it takes effort to meet new people on campus.

As a freshman, Matthews believes that students must step out of their com-

fort zone and join clubs in order to find the meaningful experience Temple has to offer.

“Just get out there, have fun,” Matthews said. “You’re paying for [the college experience], so you might as well use it.”

ava.fitzgerald@temple.edu

Q: Has there been anything discouraging you from joining a new club/organization or attending meetings?

How surveyed Temple students have met their friends

Q: What is the number one way you have met most friends during your time at Temple?

Majority of surveyed students believes it takes an effort to meet new people

Q: Do you feel like Temple is a good place to meet new people for dating or friendships?

While majority of surveyed students feel like they have a strong support system, many believe the opposite

Q: Do you feel like you have a strong support system at Temple?

LIVE in Philly

JARED TATZ / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Spring blooms at the Philadelphia Flower Show

BY JARED TATZ

Co-Photo Editor

The weather at the Philadelphia Flower Show was sunny and warm enough to wear a light jacket as spring arrived in the city at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on March 8. Thousands swarmed the expo hall with sprouts and crowns of flowers fastened to their heads and bouquets in hand.

Mothers with their mothers, infants carried by fathers, and young couples holding hands attended the spring show. “I came to the show to spend time

with my mom and enjoy the beautiful flowers,” said Amy Marks, a UPenn alum and ardent flower show guest. “I would say, making the flower crowns and seeing the individual artworks that were entered for judging, especially the dresses, was my favorite part.”

Amy’s mother, Michelle Zieser, much like many of the other guests, is an avid gardener herself, and tends to her own 18 by 20 foot garden of flowers and vegetables. She is a member of the Pottstown Area Garden Club and enjoyed seeing the lilacs, tulips and hyacinths at the Philly Flower Show.

The Philadelphia Flower Show, run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, is one of the oldest horticulture shows of its kind in the world, said Ray Murphy, a gardener and Flower Show volunteer for 20 years.

Roughly 250,000 people attend the show every year to enjoy exhibits, large and small. A “Horticourt” is held, where individual plants are judged in a variety of categories. Many exhibits showcased this year’s theme, Gardens of Tomorrow, with futuristic-inspired horticulture.

“I come every year with my mom and I’m not really that good at growing anything, but it’s nice to see all the small, intricate stuff that people worked on for months,” said Sam Szura, a guest at the event.

The flower show also offered educational exhibits, including Temple’s own exhibit, which won three awards this year.

There are three sections in Temple’s exhibit: a community garden, a reflection pool and a hillside meadow. The garden is made of repurposed materials,

including pallets and broken concrete, a moonlit pool with a mirror on the side made the reflection pool and the hillside showed “the ephemeral beauty of nature with wild landscape” and a vernal pool, said Cameron Coless, a junior art architecture major giving a tour of the exhibit.

“You get to see a lot of creativity and all of the different exhibits and I also love that the students get to be a part of it,” said Annmarie Ely, a volunteer representative for the Delaware Valley University’s Landscape Architecture Program. “It’s a really unique experience that they’re able to see their vision really come to life and see the public enjoy it.”

jared.tatz@temple.edu

One horticulturalist incorporated a piano into their installation.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society hosted the show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

From top to bottom:

The Philadelphia Flower Show is one of the largest horticultural shows in the world. Dresses were created using beautiful flowers and foliage.

Attendees of the Philadelphia Flower Show making flower crowns at the event’ “bloom bar.”

From top to bottom:

Much of the art was more abstract or focused on turning ordinary things into something extraordinary.

The Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School created an exhibit titled Bloom Where You Are Planted.

Some of the attendees had taken the opportunity to partake in a flower potting class.

JARED TATZ / THE TEMPLE NEWS

INVESTIGATIONS

Four years: How Temple’s public image shifted

TTN PLUS Here’s why students and faculty think Temple is heading back in the right direction.

BY KENNEDY BROWN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

More than a year after Jason Wingard became Temple’s 12th president, he cruised down Broad Street sitting on the backseat of a convertible, wife by his side, in graduation-like attire to kick off his inauguration.

“When he drove onto campus sitting on the top of the back seat of a convertible with a marching band, we knew it was ‘Me, me, me,” said Joe Louis, a parent of a Temple student.

During Wingard’s tenure, Temple experienced a laundry list of crises that caused the public perception of the university to take a serious hit. Complaints, like those that he treated Temple more as a photo opportunity than a genuine chance to help students, permeated his time at the university.

Two years later, Temple is on a path forward. The university’s Board of Trustees tapped former Drexel President John Fry in June 2024 as the man to take command following a time of hardship. A number of students and faculty believe he’s already off to a better start — and he is forced to pick up the pieces left behind from Wingard’s tumultuous tenure.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Wingard’s greatest missteps lie in his mishandling of student safety concerns, lack of communication, and inability to lay out concrete plans.

“He came in, he took some photos, he left, just like the millions of tourists that Philadelphia received,” said Scott Gratson, director of undergraduate studies at Klein College of Media and Communication.

Concerns about safety have loomed large over the Temple community for years, but those concerns were height-

ened after the murder of a 21-year-old student in November 2021. Two years later, on Feb. 18, 2023, former Temple police Sgt. Christopher Fitzgerald became the first university officer to be killed in the line of duty.

Their murders, along with a slew of other safety-related incidents, were a blaring reminder that the university was struggling in more ways than one.

That reality became painfully evident when Wingard said during an interview with NBC10 just days after Fitzgerald’s death that he “did not have an answer” about how to address the escalating safety concerns at Temple.

A lack of answers was accompanied by spotty communication. So much so that some students took alerting the university community about safety incidents into their own hands. A student-led Instagram account, Keep Us Safe TU, emerged in November 2022, aiming to share safety alerts and relevant infor-

mation. It quickly amassed thousands of followers, underscoring many’s desire to receive timely and accurate communication from a third-party service.

The handling of a 42-day strike from the Temple University Graduate Student Association added another layer of controversy to Wingard’s tenure. Temple’s administration notified strikers that they had lost their tuition remission while also stripping other benefits of participating protestors.

Despite what TUGSA President Jesús Fernández Cano feels was the administration’s mismanagement during this critical moment, he still held positive feelings toward the university.

“I still like Temple, even during the process of the strike,” Cano said.

Cano pointed out that the real issue stemmed from leadership rather than the university itself, describing Wingard as “a scapegoat” amid the turmoil, which some in the Temple community echo.

“I really do like the community, and I feel like they’re the ones who are really representing what Temple should be representing,” said Radhey Patel, a senior economics and philosophy double major.

The growing dissatisfaction with Temple’s leadership came to a head in 2023 when a poll conducted by The Temple News revealed that more than 92% of surveyed students disapproved of Wingard’s performance.

Just weeks before a planned no-confidence vote from the Temple’s faculty union, Wingard resigned, making him the shortest-serving president in the university’s history after less than two years in office.

RECENT IMPROVEMENT AND REASON FOR OPTIMISM

Fry’s arrival has been met with largely positive reactions on campus, and he has hit the ground running by visiting

FILE / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Jason Wingard’s presidential tenure was a tumultuous time for Temple’s public image.

various campuses and student organizations. For some, those small gestures signal a positive step toward healing relations on campus.

“President Fry comes to the basement of Annenberg Hall to see our Student Success Center, he’s hanging out in the basement, and [Wingard’s] getting followed by a marching band,” Gratson said.“If that doesn’t show a difference between the two, I have no idea.”

Additionally, Fry’s concrete plans to improve the university and be more accessible to students have led to an optimistic outlook.

“I haven’t heard anything good or bad. I do know that he’s taking some initiatives,” said Jasmine Mehta, a sophomore political science major. “I’m just excited to see what he’s gonna do with them and how he’s gonna implement them.”

Wingard was notoriously difficult to reach for media requests and other meetings with local lawmakers. In his first 100 days, Fry had already sat down for an interview with The Temple News. It took nearly eight months for Wingard to complete a sit-down interview with TTN.

In a July interview with The Temple News, Fry outlined his vision for transforming Temple into a safer, more inclusive campus. His plan called for enhancing security measures, exploring Temple’s online structure and digging deeper into the sustainability of the university’s athletic programs.

“I need to understand what the typical economics for this type of thing are,” Fry said. “What are we going to do to make the experience easy for students?”

In his first months at Temple, Fry has effectively communicated the university’s action plan amid controversial orders out of Washington, defended students’ ability to protest on campus, met with every dean and multiple student organizations and lobbied for increased state funding during a multi-hour questioning session by lawmakers in Harrisburg.

“[Fry’s] instatement into Temple was not very performative,” said Anne Joseph, a senior public relations major. “It seems like he genuinely was hired for

INVESTIGATIONS

his initiatives and the things that he can do.”

The long-term recovery plan for Temple, following its difficult years under Jason Wingard’s leadership, is still in its early stages. That plan became even harder when acting President JoAnne Epps, who was hired to ease tensions following Wingard’s resignation, unexpectedly died after collapsing at a campus event.

While an administrator at the University of Pennsylvania, Fry helped launch partnerships between the university and local businesses aimed at improving campus facilities and strengthening the bond between the university and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Then, while President at Drexel University, he worked on major projects like Schuylkill Yards, a 20-year plan to spend $3.5 billion to transform empty land into modern offices, research labs and stores. He also built partnerships for research, added new school programs and created ways for the community to get involved.

But those previous developments have raised some concerns about Fry’s

past among the student body. They argue that similar projects at Penn and Drexel contributed to rapid gentrification and the displacement of long-time residents.

On Nov. 21, Temple Students for Justice in Palestine, in collaboration with local Palestinian coalition groups, gathered at the Bell Tower to express their concern.

The protesters claimed that Fry’s development plans for North Philadelphia could be a repeat of the patterns seen in other cities and around Drexel in West Philadelphia. Rising property values and shifting demographics have altered the character of established communities and forced some lifelong residents to move away, they said.

Fry and other Temple administrators have been increasingly eager to hear feedback from students. In February, students received an email from Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications Angela Polec stating the university is partnering with Simpson Scarborough, a research and marketing firm for higher education, to conduct a survey about student perceptions. The survey results have not yet been pub-

lished.

“Temple’s community has really set itself apart from the Temple administration, and I think what could just work best for them is just working in our interests,” Patel said. “Like, we’re the people that Temple should be serving, and then it sometimes feels like we’re not the ones who are being seen or heard. So, just kind of hearing what we want to say and really trying to implement that.”

kennedy.brown@temple.edu

OLIVER LOIS ECONOMIDIS / THE TEMPLE NEWS President John Fry has hit the ground running making himself available to students and Temple staff.

St. Patrick’s Day Word Search

ALL IN GOOD FUN Springtime Crossword

DOWN

2. Another word for rabbit

3. You can stomp in this with your rain boots

4. Open grassland sometimes covered in flowers

5. Something you can draw on the sidewalk with

6. Annual holiday celebrating the planet

8. These bugs move pollen and create honey

ACROSS

1. These red and black bugs bring good luck when they land on you

3. Sitting outside on a blanket, enjoying a meal

5. A butterfly before it transforms

Green Leprechaun Celtic Gold Ireland Luck March Parade Rainbow Shamrock Saint Patrick Clover

TO BE

Looking for something to do? Here are some upcoming local North Philly events.

Comedy in Color

7. Appears in the sky after it rains

9. April ____ bring May flowers

10. A toy you can fly in the air

SATURDAY, MAR. 15 | 7:30 - 10:30 P.M. 911 North Broad Street

“Dear Black Men, You Good?” host their first comedy night fundraiser, catered by Dorsey Delish Catering.

The Cereal Cocktail Bar

WED-SUN, MAR. | Times Vary

669 North Broad Street

Enjoy cereal-infused cocktails and a Y2K brunch at Bucket Listers’ exclusive event series, The Cereal Cocktail Bar.

Unlocked Potential: R&B and Carribean Edition

THURSDAY, MAR. 20 | 8 P.M. - 1 A.M. 1621 Cecil B. Moore Avenue

TLO Event Complex features a special R&B and Carribean showcase with live performances and an opportunity to network with industry professionals.

Aziz Ansari: Hypothetical Tour at The Met

SATURDAY, MAR. 22 | 7 P.M.

858 North Broad Street

Comedian Aziz Ansari performs his new comedy tour at The Met next Saturday.

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AROUND CAMPUS

Malcolm X’s legacy on Ramadan in Philadelphia

Many of Philadelphia’s 300,000 Muslims trace their spiritual roots to Malcolm X.

BY JADON GEORGE Features Staff Writer

The street photographer Saleem Ahmed grew up in a desi community in Connecticut. His family attended a mosque practicing Sunni Islam, although they belonged to the Shia sect.

But Ahmed, now a journalism professor at Temple, had never seen anything quite like the enormous, mint green Masjid Makkah on Susquehanna Avenue, just north of Main Campus. The preaching, the styles of dress and even the furniture arrangements were all distinct from Islam as he’d long known it.

Every day around lunchtime, all month, the sidewalks around Susquehanna Avenue have been teeming with life — far more than what’s normal for a weekday. It’s Ramadan, and everyone from food truck vendors to school children drop what they’re doing to gather at Masjid Makkah to see if the mosque has found a volunteer to open the building for midday prayers.

As a grad student back in Connecticut, Ahmed discovered Black Muslim culture had influenced Philadelphia beyond the ummah: Lush beards and thin moustaches, a sunnah of the faith, simply became Philly Beards on non-Muslims’ faces.

“It has always kind of left this impression that, yes, it’s the same religion or same book,” Ahmed said. “But the interpretation has a lot of variation. They’re just slightly different.”

Philadelphia hosts more than three dozen mosques; estimates place its number of Muslims around 300,000. Most, like the congregants at Masjid Makkah, adhere to the tenets of Sunnism. Still, many now aligned with what observers call traditional Islam trace their roots to the Nation of Islam.

Wallace Fard Muhammad mysteriously appeared in Detroit and preached

the Nation’s doctrines in the city’s Black communities. Then, as quickly as he appeared, Fard vanished, leaving the group now called Black Muslims in the hands of Elijah Muhammad.

Most Black Americans firmly remained in the Christian church. Some Muslims saw the Nation’s teachings as shirk. And the Southern Poverty Law Center alleges its rhetoric smacks of racism, sexism and homophobia.

El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, the preacher known for most of his adult life as Malcolm X, ministered at the Nation of Islam’s Temple No. 12 — a mosque that first stood on Lancaster Avenue near 42nd Street, then moved to the site now occupied by Masjid Makkah in 1962. At a time when racists routinely met calls for racial equality with savage violence, Malcolm X envisioned Islam as a vehicle for Black separation, Black self-defense and Black pride.

His principles soon became the basis of the Black Power movement.

“It’s not always about religion here,” said Zain Abdullah, a professor emeritus of religious studies. “It’s about self-determination — empowerment through a different cultural lens. And the Nation of Islam created a new lens through which black people could see themselves and feel empowered.”

Elijah Muhammad ejected Malcolm X from the Nation in 1963, ostensibly for breaking a sect-wide gag order on the Kennedy assassination. But during the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm X changed his name and accused Elijah Muhammad of illicit polygamy, religious fraud and bigotry.

Malcolm hadn’t abandoned his belief in Black unity and distinction, however. He launched his own organizations, famously dedicated to achieving racial equality by “any means necessary.”

On Feb. 21, 1965, a group of gunmen fired upon Malcolm X during a speech in Harlem. Law enforcement would initially blame the Nation of Islam for the assassination. But later developments soon called into question the role of intelligence agencies and the NYPD in his killing.

Many Black Muslim communities, including Philadelphia’s, intertwined themselves with the mainstream faith in the late 20th century, uniting with those who had migrated from the Eastern Hemisphere. That migration accelerated when Warith Deen Muhammad, another former No. 12 minister and Elijah’s son, inherited the group and effectively folded it into the wider faith.

“A lot of people from my generation, they was used to the discipline and the orientation we had that really made us stand out,” said Abdul-Rahim Muhammad, a former member of No. 12 and chairman of the New Africa Center. “We don’t have that anymore.” Yet many of the Nation’s cultural innovations persist to this day, he said.

Americans now almost universally view the term “Negro” as offensive. Even non-Muslims commonly choose Arabic names over anglicized monikers. And figures like Malcolm X helped articulate the message that African Americans

ought to relish their culture, their bodies and one another.

“This is what makes this country great,” Abdullah said. “As long as it taps into its diversity, instead of condemning its diversity, it’ll continue to be great.”

jadon.george@temple.edu @jgeorgescribe

JADON GEORGE / THE TEMPLE NEWS

The site of Temple No. 12, where Malcolm X first taught, is now the roaster supplying West Philadelphia’s Green Line cafes.

AROUND CAMPUS

Temple Mock Trial reaches regional recognition

The highly decorated team earned a bid to the Opening Round Championship Series.

BY MADELYNNE FERRO

For The Temple News

Ezra Pipik and the rest of the Temple Mock Trial are no strangers to long hours of practice and thorough research. For the group of full-time students, memorizing case law and participating in weekly three-hour-long scrimmages requires serious dedication.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Pipik, a senior criminal justice major and president of Temple Mock Trial. “I mean, just hours wise, I don’t think I’ve spent a year in a mock trial where I didn’t spend more time on it than any class I’ve ever had.”

But this year, the long hours paid off. After winning six of eight rounds at the Regional Tournament, Temple’s Mock Trial A Team received a bid for the American Mock Trial Association’s Opening Round Championship Series tournament on March 8-9.

The team’s wins allowed them to advance with the other top 192 of 790 teams to receive the invitation. At ORCS, Temple’s team competed against 24 others in hopes of securing one of six spots to advance to the national championship. After securing three wins and five losses, they did not qualify for the national championship, but members are still hopeful for the team’s future following a largely successful season.

In addition to the team’s collective success in the previous regional round, Hailey Timmons, a senior history major and the club’s vice president, received an Outstanding Attorney award for work during the competition. She was awarded alongside two other Temple attorneys and three Temple witnesses for their character executions.

Despite the team’s recent accolades, their performances at the beginning of the year paled in comparison to their triumph at regionals. The A and B teams only won a combined three rounds at the

team’s first invitational, making it apparent that major changes to their scheme were needed.

“We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, how does [this] happen?’” Timmons said. “I don’t regret it, because I think that’s what made us better. To understand we don’t want to feel this loss ever again.”

Pipik, Timmons and the B Team’s captains took those losses to heart. Following the first invitational, the team had what Pipik described as a practice of honesty, and candidly told the team what needed to change to make progress during the next year.

In response, both the A and B teams put in the work and exceeded expectations.

“The team that I was leading actually had a majority of the new members,” said Olivia DeMaio, a senior legal studies major and one of the B Team co-captains. “It was really impressive to see all the growth from them. There was a point in the season [where] we were able to win more than half of our actual competition rounds.”

As captain of the B Team, DeMaio’s work with new members was extensive but rewarding.

“It gives me a lot of pride because they did a lot of work, which then makes me proud that I’ve been able to motivate them to do that kind of work,” DeMaio said. “It gives me a lot of confidence in the quality of the team.”

The team’s excellence is partially due to the outstanding performance by its young core. The club has a limited number of veteran mock trial contributors, with only five graduating seniors, and about half of the 25-member group competing in their first year at the collegiate level.

The combination of great leadership from the team’s veterans and raw energy from rookie members has brought not only success for this year, but hope for the future.

Anjali Iyengar, a 2024 psychology alumna and co-captain of the B Team, led an all-freshman team excluding her-

self and DeMaio. The co-captains hope their direction of the team will leave a lasting imprint on the returning members.

“All of the captains are leaving, all four of us, so we’re really hoping that the new leadership makes the club their own while also remembering all the information that they got over the past years,” said Iyengar. “There’s definitely a lot of potential, like some of them are better than any members I’ve ever seen on the team, and I think that they can all do really well.”

The future of the team leaves lingering hope for the captains aiming to leave a legacy, but there’s no doubt the team’s focus lies in their upcoming competition.

“I’m extremely confident,” Pipik said. “I feel like the lineup that we’re putting together now is the best I’ve felt about it all season, and definitely, honestly, the

madelynne.ferro@temple.edu

best I felt about in my three years.”

KAYLA MCMONAGLE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Temple’s Mock Trial team won three rounds but lost five in the Championship Series Tournament.

AROUND CAMPUS

Students, faculty reflect on COVID, five years out

The pandemic’s formal restrictions largely ended years ago. But its impact remains.

BY JADON GEORGE Features Staff Writer

In 2018, Evin Karatas suffered the first of several depressive episodes that plagued his Temple years. He’d left the academic pressure-cooker of engineering to major in public health, but the fog still stymied him: He failed a class and received a grade of “incomplete” in another. Then, he lost his grandmother in the summer of 2019.

“2020 is going to be my year,” Karatas recalled thinking at the time. “Definitely.”

Three months in, a plague intervened: The World Health Organization declared COVID-19, the deadly respiratory illness originating from the Chinese industrial city of Wuhan, a pandemic. NBA center Rudy Gobert became the first pro athlete in the U.S. to test positive for the virus on March 11, prompting most sports leagues to suspend their schedules.

Forewarned by news of the thousands killed when the pandemic first surfaced in Asia and Europe, governments ordered nearly all public spaces closed within days — so people could stay home, out of direct physical contact with one another. And schools emptied their dorms and classrooms, promising students learning would soon resume via teleconference.

Five years later, the world chases normalcy: Storefronts are open. Sports stadiums fill with fans. Yet millions ultimately died from the virus; millions more found themselves disabled by its effects. And many of its disruptions have left permanent marks on both the world and Temple’s community.

Rafael Friedlander entered the college admissions process in the winter months of 2020, as a high school junior. The pandemic was still oceans away. He ultimately applied to 13 schools, but the Bethesda, Maryland, native only toured one before the virus grounded most of

the country’s college recruits: Temple.

So, despite the restrictions and the uncertainty, he chose to attend when the university welcomed students back to campus in the fall of 2021.

“Taking a gap year would have just meant sitting at home, waiting for the pandemic to end,” said Friedlander, a senior architecture major. “Or I still would have been out there, getting a job, working and making money.”

Linda Richardson, for example, spent years trying to revive the long-dormant Uptown Theater, a onetime stop on the “chitterlin’ circuit” where Black audiences received equal service during segregation. As part of her mission, Richardson invited classes of Temple students to tour the building and learn about its history. She also recruited contractors to try and redevelop the space without trying to tear down the theater

or replace it with something else.

The educational outreach stopped when the pandemic forced Temple to freeze in-person activities. Pandemic-era workplace restrictions prevented construction and upkeep on the Uptown itself. And Richardson, the theater’s most prominent and effective champion, died in November 2020.

Members of the board overseeing the Uptown, known as the Uptown Entertainment Development Corporation, say the site now routinely faces vandalism and trespassing. Security cameras and equipment from the Uptown’s low-power FM radio station were torn out of the walls by intruders. And a band tried to play an unauthorized concert on the Uptown’s dilapidated stage, according to two people who work with the board.

Howard-educated mechanical en-

gineer Mariama Wood, Richardson’s youngest daughter, helped advise the Uptown during its past attempts to revive the building. But she’s assumed larger roles in the project since Richardson’s death. Now, she says she hopes Temple looks to help protect the Uptown and deepen the two institutions’ relationship.

“We’re hoping with new leadership, we can start new conversations,” Wood said.

On-campus buildings found their plans altered by the pandemic, too. Temple’s Charles Library had barely been open six months when the virus left Main Campus largely vacant. New library buildings are rare anywhere, let alone one as sleek and state-of-the-art as Charles. But instead of getting acclimated to their new environment, library staff would spend the next several years

FILE / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Temple students reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic five years after its made landfall in the United States.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

adapting Charles to shifts in the disease’s impact, according to Libraries dean Joe Lucia.

“The building was designed with principles of flexibility and openness,” Lucia said. Study rooms could easily become classrooms, or even makeshift studios for remote learning.

In the fall of 2020, Temple restarted in-person learning with strict limits on class sizes in a process that meant convening some courses in Charles, Lucia said. When a string of positive tests forced the school to again “go remote,” the library remained open — thanks in part to a small group of university researchers and staff.

“We had a lot of students who needed access to wireless, or a study space, for various reasons,” Lucia said. “So, we operated the building with a skeleton crew, really, for most of that academic year.”

Zoom represents perhaps COVID19’s longest legacy in higher education. The public often viewed web-learning differently than in-person college — the fairy stepchild of chain-style academies like DeVry and more reputable vocational schools, like Universal Technical Institute.

Not anymore: Even Ivy League universities still offer courses and class meetings through the triumphant tele-

FEATURES

conferencing app, despite pandemic-era studies showing students learn less through a screen.

Many professors struggled to hold students’ attention when they were confined to Zoom — and say they now find themselves forced to fight for their classes’ eyes in person. But not everyone shared those frustrations.

“We were truly navigating uncharted terrain,” said Timothy Welbeck, a legal scholar who now directs Temple’s Office of Anti-Racism.

Welbeck spent years teaching courses in the humanities and in African American studies, both online and in-person. So, when the pandemic began, he convened his students one last time to map out a pandemic-era version of their coursework.

Miracle of miracles, he says they were willing and able to learn through the small, dim window of their computers.

“The resolve of the community as a whole at Temple, and my students in particular, was admirable — just to be able to navigate those challenges in that way,” he said.

Buzzwords like “resilience.” The myth and cant of “powering through adversity”: These became staples of the world’s pandemic-era vocabulary. But

I C E S

What was your favorite part of spring break?

the inspirational talk didn’t resonate with everyone.

Karatas left Temple before the spring of 2021, eventually trying his hand at community college and vocational school. He’s now an apprentice at a Bucks County HVAC company. Getting out of the academic pressure cooker might have played a role in improving his mental health. But Karatas added he had fond memories of Temple, Karatas said.

“I do think I needed a break, emotionally and mentally, from that institution,” Karatas said. “But I also have a lot of things that I do really miss from that time period of my life. So I think I just needed a change.”

jadon.george@temple.edu @jgeorgescribe

CARTER MILES

Freshman jazz performance major | He/Him

“ Being in nature and getting to hang out with my friends. It was just very relaxing. ”

FRALLEY PANZO

Sophomore psychology major | She/Her

“ Definitely relaxing and kind of not having to worry about school or really anything important. It was really nice spending time with people I care about. ”

KAT BRYAN

Freshman theater major | They/Them

“ My roommate, her aunt, has a cabin in West Virginia, and so we just had a bunch of friends and we all went there and hung out for like, a day or two. ”

AVIANA GEROSOLE

Sophomore marketing major | She/Her

“ I went to Puerto Rico with some of my friends. Overall the whole thing was great. We went and we went to the rainforest which was honestly my favorite part. ”

PHOTOS BY JACK LARSON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

BASKETBALL

Fran Dunphy: Turning coaching into friendships

Former Temple head coach and Big 5 legend Fran Dunphy recently announced his retirement.

BY RYAN MACK Sports Editor

When Fran Dunphy’s successful college basketball career wrapped up 55 years ago, he had no idea where his life might take him next. The former guard played the sport his entire life and eventually played for La Salle from 1967-70.

When Dunphy took off his shoes for the last time he decided to dip his toe into coaching in 1971. He traveled to West Point, New York, where he served as an assistant coach at the United States Military Academy before the opportunity to go back to his roots came knocking on his door.

The athletic director at Malvern Preparatory School, Dunphy’s high school alma mater, reached out to offer him the basketball head coaching position in 1977. Dunphy left Malvern Prep after three seasons to join his former teammate Lefty Ervin’s coaching staff at La Salle.

Forty-six years later, and Dunphy never left the City of Brotherly Love. Instead, he became the Big 5’s winningest coach while at three different Philadelphia schools.

On Feb. 20, the current La Salle head coach announced he will retire following the 2024-25 season. While his coaching career comes to an end, Dunphy’s impact goes far beyond the hardwood.

“He just happens to be a basketball coach,” said Colgate head coach Matt Langel, who played under Dunphy at Penn and coached with him at both Penn and Temple. “What he really is, is a guy who cares deeply about people and helping others. Basketball just happens to be the forum that has given him that opportunity.”

GETTING STARTED

Dunphy grew up like any other Philadelphia kid; ingrained into the city’s

sports culture. He took interest in the Eagles, Phillies and the then-Philadelphia Warriors in the early 50’s. Eventually, he explored his passion for basketball in southwest Philadelphia while playing in the local Police Athletic League.

But his most impressionable introduction to basketball was in games he didn’t play in.

Every winter, Philadelphia’s Division I basketball teams faced off at the University of Pennsylvania’s illustrious venue, The Palestra. Dunphy was there every year to watch Temple, Penn, St. Joseph’s, La Salle and Villanova play each other for bragging rights in the city.

“It was just awesome,” Dunphy said. “Then the games were all on Wednesday night, Friday night or Saturday night. You spent a number of days during the course of the winter at The Palestra watching games. It was just absolutely awesome. I still think it’s part of the fabric of Philadelphia sports.”

A couple decades later, Dunphy found himself coaching on the sidelines of the court he once watched the college stars of his day play on.

Penn hired Dunphy as an assistant coach in 1988 under then head coach Tom Schneider for a single season. In 1989, Schneider resigned to coach at Loyola, leaving a void open in the Quakers’ head coaching position.

Despite wanting the job, Dunphy wasn’t sure if he was good enough to land it.

“I had no idea if I could get the job or not. I just wanted it,” Dunphy said. “[I] told somebody that I did and I just outlasted other people. Some people dropped out. Some people got a better job. They finally came back to me, knowing that I wanted the job.”

Dunphy went from someone Penn reluctantly hired to the Quakers’ all-time leader in wins by racking up 310 victories in his 17 seasons at The Palestra, a record he holds to this day. He led the Quakers to 10 Ivy League titles and nine NCAA tournament appearances.

The Big 5 legend’s reputation grew as he became increasingly known for expecting the most out of his players.

“He said it to me when he was recruiting me,” Langel said. “Then again

when I graduated. ‘When you come here, I’m not going to be your best friend, I’m your coach. There’s going to be times when you don’t agree with me or what we’re doing, or you may not even like me and that’s okay.’

FOLLOWING A LEGEND

While Dunphy was creating his legacy at Penn, John Chaney was doing the same as Temple’s head coach. Chaney turned the Owls into the powerhouse of the Atlantic-10 Conference for three decades, pumping out stars like Mark Macon, Eddie Jones and Aaron Mckie.

Chaney won 516 games during his time on North Broad Street and took the Owls dancing 17 times. However, Temple had missed the NCAA Tournament four consecutive seasons by the time 2006 rolled around – leading to Chaney’s retirement.

Dunphy was tapped as the replacement, a daunting task for the Quakers’ coach. Temple’s remaining players were hesitant of a new leader coming in, but one thing was certain — they viewed Dunphy as a winner. It didn’t take long

JUAN COLON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

BASKETBALL

to realize that the two coaches weren’t very different and the Owls were quickly bought in.

“Both of them are extremely, extremely smart basketball minds,” said former Temple guard and current assistant coach Chris Clark. “They were more similar than they were different. I think their styles in terms of how they coached was different, but they were very similar. Both of them were very hard-nosed and tough. They got the best out of you.”

Despite coming to Temple with a winning record, the trend didn’t continue instantly. The Owls struggled in the 2006-07 season with just 12 wins, the least since the 1975-76 season.

The lack of success ate at Dunphy, who felt the pressure of filling Chaney’s shoes.

“Nobody puts more pressure on you than you put on yourself to be successful,” Dunphy said. “Anybody else could go to work one day and make a mistake and nobody’s talking about it. If you make a mistake in the coaching profession, everybody knows about it and everybody’s got their opinions.”

Dunphy didn’t have to worry for much longer. He guided Temple to an A-10 championship in his second season which kickstarted six consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

Winning became the standard during his time in North Philadelphia. Dunphy built a winning culture and it carried through each era. Players like Dionte Christmas, Mark Tyndale and Lavoy Allen passed the mantle to Ryan Brooks and Khalif Wyatt and the cycle continued.

“We already knew what the mission was,” Christmas said. “It wasn’t really a lot of celebration, it was like, ‘let’s get to it.’ That was the leaders that we had, that’s what made us a really good team. That’s why the guys under us, like Louis Guzman and then Ryan Brooks, you see how those guys led. They led the same way. It just kind of trickled down. We just said it was like the new beginning of a culture.”

Temple was a consistent participant in the big dance during Dunphy’s 13-year stint, only missing the cut five times. However, Temple won just two games and never advanced past the first weekend. Dunphy’s not one for regrets, but that’s the one thing he says he wishes

could have gone differently.

“You hope that you have some success going to the tournament is one thing, winning is another,” Dunphy said. “We didn’t do that much once we got into the tournament, so I always have second thoughts about that. I wish we had been more successful in the regular season. I wish we had been more successful in the NCAA Tournament, but that’s what happened.”

LIFE COACH

Although his accomplishments on the court are lengthy, Dunphy’s biggest successes were the relationships he made off the court.

“It’s not just a four year thing with coach,” said former Temple guard Shizz Alston Jr. “It’s for life. No matter what you know, what happens in your professional career, whether you can play basketball or not. He’s always gonna look out for you.”

Dunphy was known for being a man of few words who was hard on his players, but there was an unwavering support behind it. He forged bonds with players that traveled even after their playing days ended. Whether it was bringing players like Clark, Langel or Shawn Trice to his staff or encouraging Christmas to get his degree, the coach still kept tabs on whoever stepped on a court under his watch.

“He was always saying, [basketball is] just a tool to open up doors for you,” Christmas said. “He’s always preached that. That’s why he was so adamant about me getting my degree, because he knew at one point the basketball is going to stop bouncing and you have to have something to fall back on.”

Dunphy did everything he could for his players and his team wanted to return the favor. That was fully displayed when the Owls were matched up against No. 25 Central Florida in Dunphy’s final game at The Liacouras Center.

The team locked in when it mattered most with a chance to give their coach one final home win. Temple picked up a 67-62 win, which not only gave Dunphy a victory but virtually clinched a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

“It was special, man,” Alston said. “Everything was for him. Every night, I would go out there and do what I had to do. I didn’t want to lose because I wanted him to go on the highest note, because

that’s what he deserved.”

RETURN TO THE BIG 5

Dunphy retired from Temple’s coaching position in 2019 and spent the next two years completing side quests. He served as Temple’s interim athletic director, was on the NIT selection committee and picked up his grandson from school.

Getting back into coaching was the last thing he ever expected.

However, that thought was thrown out the window when his alma mater asked him to be their head coach in 2022. The answer would have been a simple no if it was any other school, but La Salle lured Dunphy out of retirement for three more seasons.

“It’s because it gave what it gave me,” Dunphy said. “I love the place. It was important to me to try to give back, to try to help the institution. The way they asked me to do it was through coaching basketball, so I wanted to put every effort into being as good as we could be.”

La Salle didn’t have the same amount of success that Temple or Penn saw, but Dunphy will continue to give back to the university. Although he’s retiring from coaching, he’ll still be around the La Salle community, transitioning into a special

assistant for the president with a lifetime contract.

Basketball will always run through Dunphy’s veins, so people will still find him at a nearby court. He will spend his time watching high school, college and pro hoops, including Cristo Rey High School, where Christmas is an assistant coach.

Being out of the game now, the hope among his peers is that the Big 5’s alltime winningest coach gets all the praise he deserves. He earned respect from the people he interacted with and became a role model for many of the players that he coached.

In fact, it’s earned him a nickname: The G.O.A.T.

“He’s done it at three different schools in the Big 5,” Christmas said. “Who’s done that? He’s won championships at Penn. He’s won multiple championships at Temple. What else can you say, he’s The G.O.A.T. Every time I see him, I’m in awe like ‘I actually had a chance to play with this guy.’ I want everybody to give him his flowers while he’s still here, because he deserves it.”

ryan.mack0001@temple.edu @Ryan_mack18

FILE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Fran Dunphy with the late Temple Basketball coach John Chaney.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Owls need East at her best in the AAC tournament

Temple Women’s Basketball guard Tiarra East struggled for much of conference play.

BY COLIN SCHOFIELD Assistant Sports Editor

Former Temple guard Aleah Nelson entered last season projected to be the Owls’ leading scorer but was inconsistent for much of the year, which was evident when it mattered most. During last season’s American Athletic Conference tournament, Nelson went just 4-21 from the field, scored 15 total points and had nine turnovers in Temple’s two games.

10-seed Rice bounced Temple in the semi-finals as a result.

Nelson finished second in scoring for Temple last season, trailing only guard Tiarra East, who returned for her senior season. East was expected to guide the Owls on offense but has instead experienced similar difficulties to Nelson throughout this season. East struggled to be efficient offensively during conference play but turned a corner to close out the regular season.

The guard racked up 18, 33 and 21 points in Temple’s final three games, respectively, showcasing her ability to score at a high level. The end of the regular season showed what East is capable of as a scorer and how important she is to the team. She will have to continue that performance if Temple hopes to make a run at a conference championship.

“I put in a lot of work with my trainer,” East said. “We worked on just continuing to get better at the things that I’m already good at and then sharpening up my three-point shooting and coming off ball screens.”

Being a veteran leader for Temple, East will be a key player in the postseason and has to show she is capable of shouldering that load. She can score at a high level as evidenced by her hot streak to end the season. If Temple wants to avoid last year’s heartbreak, it will need East to carry her momentum into the tournament and continue to fire on all cylinders.

East performed as expected during non-conference play, averaging 16 points per game and having multiple standout performances. She scored 28 of Temple’s 59 points in the Owls’ win against VCU on Nov. 15. She showcased the kind of scorer she is again in the Big 5 Classic Championship against Villanova on Dec. 6 when she had 26 points, with 11 of them coming in the fourth quarter to put the game away.

“[East is] a very good basketball player,” said head coach Diane Richardson following Temple’s win against Villanova. “We want her to be able to do the things that we know she can do. She did that today and she’s continuing to do that each and every game, whether it’s scoring or assisting or defending.”

While East is capable of scoring 20 points per game, she was never expected to do so. Richardson runs her “equal opportunity offense,” where all five players on the court are able to score, which makes it difficult for defenses to hone in on one player.

The game plan showed its prowess this season, especially in conference play where Temple had the top-scoring offense in the AAC by averaging 70

points per game. The offensive production helped mask struggles from East for much of conference play.

East started conference action with 21 points against UAB on Dec. 29, but then her troubles really began to set in.

The guard went more than a month without topping 20 points and had more games in single digits than double digits before the final three games of the season.

While the “equal opportunity offense” helped overcome East’s struggles at times, the unit as a whole also had troubles. When both parties experienced issues, it spelled doom for Temple. This was especially evident when the Owls lost four of five games in the middle of conference play.

In losses to North Texas and Tulane, East went a combined 3-29 from the field and missed all 10 three-point attempts. She had 18 points against UTSA, but failed to record a single point in the fourth quarter and Temple squandered an 11-point lead to lose its third straight game.

East’s struggles persisted as Temple began its win streak, but with a double-bye in the conference tournament

on the line in the final three games, she reemerged into the spotlight.

She put up 21 points against Memphis on Feb. 25, then a career-high 33 points against Rice on Feb. 28. East scored 17 of the 33 points against Rice in the third quarter to help Temple gain control for a crucial win. In Temple’s win against Charlotte on March 4, East scored 18 points and again stepped up when it mattered with 11 points in the fourth quarter to help the Owls secure a six-point win.

East will have her first opportunity to shine when the Owls open their AAC tournament on Monday afternoon against either Tulsa or the winner of Florida Atlantic and Charlotte.

“You’ll see her just really focused, that’s why I’m calling her LeBron [James,]” Richardson said. “She’s really grown this year in terms of using her voice and she understands that we expect her to be the leader and to be the face of the program. She’s pretty fierce, so she really loves the game and she’s really passionate about the game.”

colin.schofield@temple.edu @colinjschofield

JEREMY SHOVER / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Temple guard Tiarra East needs to play well in the AAC Tournament for the Owls to have success.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Three players to watch in men’s AAC tournament

Here’s who needs to perform at their highest level in the AAC tournament.

BY SIENNA CONAGHAN Assistant Sports Editor

For the first half of the season, Temple (17-14, 9-9 American Athletic Conference) was firmly in the mix for a topfour seed in the AAC tournament. But they quickly fell off and took a dip in the standings during the tail end of the regular season to fall to the No. 7 seed.

Guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. has missed eight of the Owls’ last nine games with a toe injury and they have lost five of those games without the nation’s fourth-leading scorer. To make matters worse, the team’s primary ball handler, guard Quante Berry, has struggled without Mashburn which has forced other players to step up.

“We’re a deep team and our guys know you have to play well to get minutes,” said head coach Adam Fisher. “You gotta defend, you gotta rebound. It’s not always the stat sheet stuff, it’s other things that we look at or we lock in when we go in the game. When your number’s called, you gotta be ready.”

With Mashburn’s status still day-today and Berry’s performance shaky in the absence of the veteran guard, here are some players who need to step up if the Owls want to make another unexpected run in the conference tournament.

STEVE SETTLE III

Settle is Temple’s most consistent and reliable forward, but his abilities don’t stop in the paint. Being in his fifth year, he brings experience to a young roster and is beneficial anywhere on the court.

Settle is third on the team in scoring, averaging 12.3 points per game while being a threat both down low and from beyond the arc. He shoots 42% from threepoint range which forces opponents’ defenses to stay spaced.

“I have so much confidence with [Settle], no matter if he’s 0-5 [from the field] or 5-5, it doesn’t matter,” Mashburn said. “I see him put in the work

every single day and he’s a terrific player. He’s really a key piece for us and him being an older guy, I can trust him with anything.”

Temple’s defense has struggled immensely this season with most of its troubles coming from the frontcourt.

The Owls’ big men typically get in foul trouble quickly but Settle has been the most disciplined of the group. He needs to continue to play clean defense so that he’s not forced to sit for long periods of time.

The forward is also crucial on the glass, leading the team with 6.2 rebounds per contest. If Settle continues the strong all-around performance that he typically plays with, he will be a crucial piece of the Owls’ postseason run.

ZION STANFORD

Stanford has stepped up this year when Temple has needed a scorer. The guard averages 13 points on 46% shooting from the field this season, only below Mashburn. He’s broken out of his shell

recently and scored at least 17 points in four of the last five games.

Stanford can shoot from anywhere on the court while also being able to put his head down and get to the basket. He has been helpful when the frontcourt gets in foul trouble as he stands at 6-foot, 6-inches and can guard any position. Stanford needs to continue putting up shots and making efficient passes to help his team as much as he can in the tournament.

“Just keeping a next man up mentality, that’s what I focus on,” Stanford said. “Players on your team may get injured or may get sick or some things like that. There’s always that trust in your work, being ready when your number is called.”

AIDEN TOBIASON

Despite only being a freshman, Tobiason has earned significant minutes and become reliable on the court. He has consistently been a bright spot in the Owls’ struggling defense and brings a spark of energy every time he checks

into games.

Tobiason is constantly moving on offense which keeps lanes open to get to the basket and he’s always ready to step in to help on defense. He has taken whatever role Temple needs and he has been especially crucial without Mashburn and Berry.

The guard has scored double figures in four of the games Mashburn was out, showing his ability to get points despite not taking many shots. Tobiason has also led the offense when Berry is underperforming and has looked composed while doing so. Heading into the tournament, he needs to be confident in his offensive abilities and play strong defense.

“[Tobiason’s] now proven ‘I can do this,’” Fisher said. “So he’s got to keep doing those things while doing all the little things and then just continue on this right path each game and each day getting better.”

sienna.conaghan@temple.edu @Sienna_Paige2

HAYNIE KIM, LIBBIE KLINE-LOUNSBERRY / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Steve Settle, Zion Stanford, and Aiden Tobiason have stepped up this season and to become reliable players.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Owls coast past Charlotte, advance to semifinals

Temple Women’s Basketball used a 16-point third quarter run to take down Charlotte.

BY COLIN SCHOFIELD Assistant Sports Editor

FORT WORTH, Texas — Just six days ago, Temple scored just four points in the first quarter against a bottom-of-the-conference Charlotte team. The Owls ultimately prevailed in that game to win by six points, entering the American Athletic Conference tournament on a six-game win streak.

The Owls’ first matchup of the tournament happened to be Charlotte again, who was coming off back-to-back wins in the conference tournament as the 12 seed. Temple left no doubt this time around.

Temple buried any concerns about another slow start by jumping out to an 11-point lead to set the tone. Charlotte never got the Owls’ lead below double digits and a 16-point run in the third quarter buried the hatchet as Temple coasted into the semi-finals.

Temple (20-10, 13-5 AAC) blew past Charlotte (11-21, 4-14 AAC) 65-34 Monday afternoon at Dickies Arena. The 34 points are the fewest Temple has allowed since it gave up 39 to Iona on Dec. 6, 2018.

“It was a hard fought game,” said Temple head coach Diane Richardson. “We followed the scouting report and I am really proud of our young ladies that followed the scout and we came out with a win today.”

While Temple found its groove on offense, its defense also stepped up and heightened the intensity. The Owls held Charlotte scoreless for the first five minutes and forced two turnovers that led to baskets. The second forced turnover led to a fastbreak layup for guard Tiarra East and prompted a Charlotte timeout as Temple pushed its lead to 11-0.

The timeout momentarily stopped the bleeding for Charlotte as it finally got on the board with a jumper from guard Alexis Andrews. However, Temple kept its foot on the gas with Gary connecting on another three, then forwards Anissa Rivera and Jaleesa Molina converting

layups from offensive rebounds. Temple grabbed six offensive rebounds in the first quarter that helped it take an 18-6 lead heading into the second quarter.

“We knew that our defense was going to carry us today, but what we wanted to add to that was to get out and start strong,” Richardson said. “We jumped out and scored some baskets and then we stopped them. That was our game plan, to start strong, but to play some tough defense.”

Rivera continued to make an impact off the bench and made a three to get the scoring started in the second quarter. However, the Owls’ offense went cold after Rivera’s triple. Temple made just three more field goals for the remainder of the quarter and committed six turnovers in the second quarter.

While the offense stumbled, the Owls’ defense continued to clamp down. Charlotte was limited to just 19% shooting from the field in the second quarter which allowed Temple to maintain a double-digit lead. Temple went the final three minutes without a point but en-

tered halftime with a 28-17 advantage.

The Owls continued to dominate the 49ers on both sides of the ball coming out of the locker room. Molina got the first bucket of the second half which was quickly answered by Charlotte forward Keanna Rembert. Temple completely took command of the game after Rembert’s bucket.

The Owls embarked on a 16-0 run during the ensuing six minutes that saw its 30-19 lead balloon to 46-19. Guard Tarriyonna Gary started the run with a three before the Owls shifted their focus to attacking the basket. The next 13 points in Temple’s onslaught were either in the paint or at the free throw line.

By the time the dust settled in the third quarter, Temple held a 53-26 lead and outscored the 49ers by 16 points. The Owls held Charlotte to just three made field goals while forcing seven turnovers and drawing seven fouls in the third quarter. The big third quarter allowed Temple to put the game in cruise control for the final 10 minutes and it breezed to the victory.

“Before the game, I went to my teammates and I was like, ‘We know we’re the best team in this conference, but we have to prove that every time we step on the court,’” Gary said. “So in order to do that, we just had to come out, play hard defense, get Charlotte riled up and it was going to translate to the offensive end.”

Temple will be back in action to punch its ticket to the AAC Championship in the semi-finals against No. 9 seed Rice, (16-16, 7-11 AAC) who defeated No. 1 seed UTSA in the quarterfinals, on March 11 at 7 p.m.

colin.schofield@temple.edu @colinjschofield

JAISON NIEVES / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Temple forward Amaya Oliver recorded a double-double in Temple’s 65-34 win against Charlotte on Monday afternoon.

Throw all expectations out the window for Owls

Temple’s midseason blunders spoiled what fans hoped would be a strong season.

BY RYAN MACK Sports Editor

Prior to the 2024-25 season, Temple was picked to finish sixth in the American Athletic Conference preseason poll a year after making a miraculous run to the AAC championship game as a bottom-seeded team.

Temple lured in New Mexico transfer Jamal Mashburn Jr. and pried Lynn Geer III from Big 5 foe Saint Joseph’s in the offseason to bolster expectations and provide hope for a more complete season.

Temple ended the season seventh in the AAC, a step up from finishing at the bottom of the conference last season. However, head coach Adam Fisher’s second season at the helm left much to be desired.

Temple’s conference schedule was a roller coaster. They held a spot in the top

CONTINUED FROM 32

Despite knocking off No. 16 Memphis on Jan. 16 and hanging with the second-ranked team in the conference in North Texas on Jan. 22, the Owls have struggled to maintain constant success. The team hasn’t been able to knock off teams it should beat with ease. Temple went into double overtime against Charlotte on Jan. 29, who ranks last in the conference and lost to the 49ers on the road on Feb. 19 in overtime.

Temple has the potential to make a run if guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. is healthy and the team is firing on all cylinders, but the last month of the season has shown reason for concern.

RETURN OF THE MASH?

The biggest question heading into the tournament is if Mashburn will heal in time to return to the lineup. The

four of the conference at one point and it seemed like the team had had a chance to compete for a conference title.

Then they unraveled in February, winning just two games while free-falling from down the conference standings. Temple enters the conference tournament as the No. 7 seed and will take on Tulsa on March 13. After beating the conference’s best and losing to the worst, throw away any and all expectations you might have for the Owls this week in the AAC tournament.

“We treat every game the same,” Fisher said. “We go into every game with the exact same preparation. For us, this is our approach, this is what we do. We’re very consistent with it, so that no game becomes too big or too low.”

It was reasonable for fans to be hopeful at the start of the conference play. Temple followed up its victory against nationally-ranked Memphis on Jan. 16 by defeating Tulane on Jan. 19, who was fourth in the conference at the time. The Owls needed a last-second shot to fall to defeat the Green Wave but looked like

the much better team against the Tigers.

The Owls were heading in the right direction, despite some growing pains, like their loss to La Salle on Nov. 30, 2024, that thwarted its attempt at a Big 5 championship. Mashburn had been carrying the offensive load as the fourth-leading scorer in the country but Temple’s depth was also on full display with guards Quante Berry and Zion Stanford taking leaps in their sophomore seasons.

Instead, Temple has been just about inconsistent since its victory against Memphis. The Owls lost to North Texas on Jan. 22, which was expected because of the Mean Green’s top-ranked scoring defense. But then Temple lost its next game to UTSA — the third-worst team in the conference.

The bad losses continued to snowball from there and Temple hasn’t been able to recover. They fell to Tulsa on Feb. 12, when they completely unraveled in the second half and managed to let a double-digit lead slip from their grasp. The same thing happened exactly a week

later when bottom-feeder Charlotte handed Temple a fourth straight loss. However, unexpected circumstances contributed to the outcomes. Greer played just five games in Cherry and White before being suspended on Jan. 11. Guard Jameel Brown never touched the court after Dec. 7, 2024, after being away from the team for personal reasons and Mashburn missed seven of the last eight games with a toe injury.

Temple still looked competitive despite the unpredictable events and Mashburn’s absence, but the team doesn’t look the same even when he has played. Temple looked like it had a chance to compete in the AAC two months ago but now, the Owls may be lucky to escape their first tournament game unscathed.

ryan.mack0001@temple.edu @Ryan_mack18

guard hasn’t played in eight of Temple’s last nine games, including the final regular season game against North Texas on March 9. Whether or not the guard is back for the tournament, the Owls will have some adjustments to make.

Temple has the fourth-best scoring offense in the AAC, and Mashburn — the nation’s third-leading scorer — is a large reason for that. The Owls have adapted without him as other players have stepped up to take the responsibilities. However, they still find themselves in desperate need of cohesion.

“We’re missing [Mashburn’s] presence, his leadership, the way he can command the ball at the end of the game, get a bucket at any given time,” said forward Steve Settle III. “We’re missing all aspects of him.”

The Owls haven’t played with Mashburn since Feb. 26 and his transition back onto the floor might not be seamless. Temple has gotten used to other

players taking the majority of the shots. Making a sudden switch back, especially in a single elimination environment, could cause problems.

DEFENSIVE STRUGGLES

The Owls have boasted a high-powered offense throughout the season but haven’t found success due to their lack of ability on the other side of the court. Temple’s defense has been its Achilles’ heel all season, being one of the worst in the conference and country.

Temple ranks last in the conference in scoring defense, giving up 78 points per game, the most it has allowed since the 2013-14 season. The defensive struggles have been even worse against AAC opponents, giving up at least 80 points in 11 games. Overall, Temple’s defense ranks 315th out of 355 teams in the country.

“Some things the team needs to focus on is really just defense,” said guard

Shane Dezonie. “That’s something that we’ve been trying to work on for the longest, defense. Another thing, it’s just rebounding. Being in the American Conference, it’s a very tough and physical conference, so we’re trying to bring the physicality, bring that Temple, Broad Street, toughness, to the conference.”

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@Ryan_mack18 sienna.conaghan@temple.edu

@Sienna_Paige2 colin.schofield@temple.edu @colinjschofield

LOOKING FOR MARCH SUCCESS

Temple enters the AAC tournament as the No. 7 seed and will try to recreate last year’s run.

BY TTN SPORTS STAFF

For The Temple News

After looking like a contender in the American Athletic Conference tournament for much of the year, Temple hit its lowest point of the season two weeks ago. The Owls were blown out by 16 points by UAB on Feb. 23 to push their losing streak to six games.

Instead of continuing to freefall, Temple picked itself back up and started to gain steam. The Owls ended the season 3-0 in its last three games to go into the AAC tournament with momentum. Temple went on a Cinderella run to the championship game last year and will have to recreate that magic to earn its first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2018-19 season.

“It’s our turn to continue this legacy that was built here,” said head coach Adam Fisher. “Last year’s team is last year’s team. This year’s team is going to get one shot at it. This is our one shot to do this together.”

Here is everything you need to know as the Owls prepare for another tournament run.

HOW FAR CAN TEMPLE GO?

Temple will open its tournament by facing off against No. 10 seed Tulsa in the second round. The Owls split their season series against the Golden Hurricane with both teams stealing wins on the road. From there, the Owls would need to beat the No. 2 seed North Texas in the quarterfinals to advance to the semis.

Temple had a miraculous run to the championship game last season with a lower seed than they have this year, but a repeat performance might be tougher this time around. The Owls’ lackluster defense may get in the way of its goals as the team has been inconsistent throughout the season.

HAYNIE KIM / THE TEMPLE NEWS

The Temple Men’s Basketball team is gearing up for the AAC Tournament.