TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017 VOL. 95 ISS. 28
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A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.
L&I hopes to open office near campus City Council could approve two new Licenses and Inspections offices in rapidly developing areas. By KELLY BRENNAN Community Beat Reporter
EVAN EASTERLING/THE TEMPLE NEWS Will Mundy, 72, is the head of the Page Street Garden Residential Association and the block captain of 1600 Page Street. He rakes the garden next to his house so he can provide fresh fruits and vegetables to his neighbors year-round.
A community experiencing change PART II OF A SERIES North Philadelphians have seen firsthand how Temple is changing their neighborhood. By MICHAELA WINBERG, GRACE SHALLOW & EVAN EASTERLING
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orin Collins grew up in North Philadelphia. She spent summers with her friends, munching on cheesesteaks and sipping cherry coke at a shop on North Broad Street, playing hopscotch, jumping rope and attending tennis lessons offered on the courts near Pearson and McGonigle halls. She’d volunteer at the “self-help center” her mother established on 15th Street near Diamond. It offered programs like arts and crafts classes and tutoring for the community. When it was colder, and school was back in session, her family would go to a Rothschild factory on Broad Street near Lehigh Avenue to pick up pieces of fabric to make school projects. Collins left the neighborhood for nearly 20 years to work in the military
GRACE SHALLOW/THE TEMPLE NEWS The Rev. Renee McKenzie leads a weekly service in the Church of the Advocate.
and for airlines tracking and maintaining aircraft. When she returned to Philadelphia in the late 1990s to care for her sick father, a fraternity house had replaced the shop on Broad Street near Norris where Collins ate her first cheesesteak. Her mother’s self-help center was closed and the factory was gone. Everything was so different from her childhood, when she lived at 12th and Huntingdon streets with her mother, father and three siblings. “Just that whole feel of a bustling, productive community is gone,” Collins said. “Watching buildings fall down and houses fall down just from the wind blowing. That’s pretty rough. I didn’t un-
derstand it. I still don’t.” Collins’ story is one of many like it for people who grew up in North Philadelphia. The area’s history has been influenced by Temple’s presence. In Part II of our series on community relations, The Temple News hopes to tell the story of the neighborhoods surrounding Main Campus by detailing its history
City Council will vote to approve two new Department of Licenses and Inspections districts before it goes out of session for the summer. One of the district offices will serve the Temple area because of the increase in development in the area. With City Council’s approval, the department would oversee districts in the Temple and Point Breeze areas of the city. Currently, L&I oversees five geographic districts throughout the entire city. Offices would be located in both new districts to monitor the increased development. The Temple area and the Point Breeze area have been major development “hot spots.” There has been an increase in construction permits and licenses unlike anywhere else in the city, which prompted L&I’s proposal to create the new districts, said Karen Guss, L&I’s director of communications. Guss said City Council was “very supportive” of L&I’s creation of the two new districts. “This office would be a way for the city to be more efficient in monitoring development in the Temple University area, responding to the volume of applications for city services in a timely manner and — just as important — being engaged with our existing residents in the area,” City Council President Darrell Clarke wrote in a statement. Clarke represents much of the area in North Philadelphia where the development boom has been taking place. According to the department’s website, L&I regulates construction by reviewing construction plans and conducting building inspections. The department monitors land use and zoning in the city and enforces city construction
DISTRICT | PAGE 6
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COMMUNITY | PAGE 8
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Experience this story with video and more photos at longform.temple-news.com.
GENEVA HEFFERNAN/THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore Troy Madden gets an oar at the beginning of practice Thursday. The crew team’s next event is the Dad Vail Regatta on May 12.
Finding space to pray, live out their faith on campus Muslim students are resourceful in using available space to pray.
sides the head and ears, all other body parts must be washed three times. Depending how much time each student spends on Main Campus on a given day, they may have to pray twice here and three times at home, while other students may need to pray four times a day on campus. Students said the Interfaith Prayer Space can become crowded due to its limited size and the number of students who use it. Some can’t use this space at all due to their limited amount of time between classes. As a result, some students try to find their own spaces to pray on campus, or they wait until they leave to pray.
By JENNY ROBERTS Opinion Editor
The floor in the Interfaith Prayer Space is covered in red prayer rugs positioned so students can face Mecca. The room, nestled in a corner of the Student Center’s third floor, is the size of a small office, and its walls are bare except for a single clock. “Because it’s an interfaith prayer room, we’re not allowed to hang things, we’re not allowed to change anything,” said Fahtma Saad, a sophomore psychology major and secretary of the Muslim Students Association. “The fact that we’re even allowed to keep the prayer mats down is a big plus.”
ELENA IWATA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior film major and President of the Muslim Students Association Ibrahim Souadda uses the Interfaith Prayer Space to pray. Muslims pray five times per day.
Before each prayer, Muslims must perform “wudu,” a cleansing practice that requires them to wash their hands, mouth, nose, face, arms, head, ears and feet with water. Be-
PRAYER | PAGE 10
ONLINE
Practicing Muslims are required to pray five times per day. This requirement, called “salat,” is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, which are duties required of every Muslim. The
prayers are “Al-Fajr,” “Al-Zhur,” “Al’Asr,” “Al-Maghrib” and “Al-’Isha.” The times of these prayers change slightly throughout the year as the time of sunrise changes.
NEWS | PAGES 2-3, 6
OPINION | PAGES 4-5
FEATURES | PAGES 7, 10-16
SPORTS | PAGES 17-20
The search for the dean for the Beasley School of Law is over. Read more on Page 2.
A Chick-fil-A location shouldn’t open on Main Campus because of the brand’s history of anti-LGBTQ actions. Read more on Page 4.
A student advocates for Obamacare because her medical bills would be $50,000 per year without it. Read more on Page 7.
The football team ended its spring practices with the Cherry and White game on Saturday. Read more on Pages 19 and 20.
Experience this story with video and more photos at longform.temple-news.com.
NEWS
PAGE 2
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
DEAN SEARCH
Interim dean steps up out of ‘caretaker role’ to lead Beasley Gregory Mandel, Beasley School of Law’s new dean, has served as interim dean since July. By GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK Assistant News Editor To Gregory Mandel, the Beasley School of Law already has a strong regional reputation, but as the newly appointed dean, he wants to extend this reputation around the world. Mandel, who has worked at Temple for 10 years and is the Peter J. Liacouras Professor of Law, served as the school’s interim dean after JoAnne Epps left in July to become Provost. Last week, he was officially appointed to the deanship. The application for the Beasley School of Law deanship invited people of “nontraditional backgrounds” to apply. Mandel said hiring processes in the future for faculty and other positions will follow this mindset. Mandel added that he is excited to step out of the “caretaker role” he
was in as interim dean. “This is now a chance to think about where we go from here, how we build on the success that we’ve had,” Mandel added. Mandel said he wants to expand the law school’s name nationally and internationally through stronger relationships with different institutions. He said he hopes to strengthen relationships and increase its name locally with institutions like the National Constitution Center, and at the state level in the Attorney General’s office. “With Greg at the helm, the law school is poised to build on the momentum established by decades of faculty excellence and the visionary guidance of its former dean, Provost JoAnne Epps,” President Richard Englert said in a news release. He said he will also work toward making the school a leader in providing access and admission to underserved groups. “There’s funding to do some research on what kinds of outreach work and what kinds of support for students before law school, during law school, after law school helps us achieve that mission,” Mandel added. “So we can enhance not only
Supporting some of the law school’s community outreach programs like the Legal Aid Office and the Sheller Center for Social Justice will continue and expand, Mandel said. He said the role of law schools in society is to improve the lives of their surrounding communities. “When you think about the role that law schools can play in helping to better support society, we do that through our [scholarly work], we do that through our advocacy, through our community engagement, through training the next generation of lawyers,” Mandel added. “All of that can help support a community. And we have a community with a lot of needs right around us,” he added. “We have lots of communities in need throughout Philadelphia and throughout the region.” gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick GENEVA HEFFERNAN/THE TEMPLE NEWS Gregory Mandel was recently named as the new dean of the Beasley School of Law.
our school and how we attract and support students here, but then also hopefully some of those lessons can
redound for other schools and help to improve the role law schools can play in social mobility.”
TSG begins process to change constitution, bylaws An ad hoc committee in Parliament proposed the changes last week. By AMANDA LIEN TSG Beat Reporter CONOR ROTTMUND FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS President Richard Englert (left), participates in a panel at the Barnes Foundation with the presidents of the Community College of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Thomas Jefferson University on Thursday.
Englert talks campus issues with other college presidents They discussed lowered state funding, collaboration and how their schools can help improve the city. By TAYLOR HORN Online Beat Reporter Five university presidents gathered on Thursday to discuss issues facing education and health in Philadelphia and the role that their institutions play in resolving these problems. “I think that people were very optimistic, looking to the future, looking for ways to forge new partnerships among our institutions and institutions within Philadelphia,” Temple President Richard Englert told The Temple News after the panel. “That could be to the benefit of everybody. So it’s that notion of partnerships and optimism I think is really important.” The event, “The University and the City,” was hosted by The Philadelphia Citizen, a solutions-based news organization, as part of its “Citizen Speaks” series. The panel discussion took place at the Barnes Foundation from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. with a short reception afterward. The panel also included President Donald Generals from the Community College of Philadelphia, President John Fry from Drexel University, President and CEO Stephen Klasko from Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health and President Amy Gutmann from University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia Citizen Chairman Jeremy Nowak moderated the event and asked the presidents a variety of questions about how they plan to deal with the future of their institutions and how they think Philadelphia
News Desk 215-204-7419 news@temple-news.com
leaders can change their strategies to improve the city. The presidents discussed tuition costs, gentrification, diversity, global health care, student debt, social networking and globalization. During the panel discussion, Englert touched on the issue of lowered state funding for universities. “We have to struggle with, as a public institution we are getting fewer state dollars, how do we keep the sticker price of tuition low enough so that people who are first generation kids or families won’t be afraid of looking at a high price,” Englert told the audience. Temple, like other state-related universities in Pennsylvania, did not receive any funding increase in Gov. Tom Wolf ’s proposed budget for 2017-18. The school’s funding remained level at about $150 million. Temple suffered a 19 percent budget cut in 2011, and has since gained back about a third of the lost funding. Englert said that some of the answers to this problem are to continue to work with partners within the state, keep administrative and institutional costs lower, provide programs like Temple’s “Fly in 4” to ensure that students graduate in four years and provide scholarships to those most in need. In terms of solving problems as leaders, the presidents agreed that social networking must be improved in Philadelphia. “We’re creating more jobs, innovating the ecosystem,” Gutmann said to the audience. “We have to collaborate more, but I am very positive about this city.” taylor.suzanne.horn@temple.edu Editor’s Note: Gillian McGoldrick, the Assistant News Editor for The Temple News is also a Junior Editor for The Philadelphia Citizen. She had no role in the reporting or editing of this story.
TSG is nearing the end of the process to make sweeping changes to its constitution, which would further define roles of each branch and the positions within them. A joint committee made up of representatives from Parliament and the Executive Branch unanimously approved the 19 changes to the constitution last week. Parliament unanimously passed the changes to the constitution at a special session on Monday. The Executive Branch will have completed casting its votes by Friday, completing the amendment process. Parliament also approved 13 of 14 changes to its bylaws — almost all of them passed unanimously. Representatives did not approve the addition of office hours to their duties. Parliament created an ad hoc committee in March to revise and clarify both the constitution and Parliament’s bylaws. The changes to the constitution include a greater separation of powers between Parliament and the Executive Branch, which created conflict between the two entities this semester. “The changes go back to the formation of Parliament,” said Varun Sivakumar, an at-large representative and member of the ad hoc committee. “After our first semester, we realized there are some things we can improve on. … Both [Student Body President Aron Cowen] and the representatives submitted changes and we discussed the merits of each proposed change. We submitted the ones we thought would be the best.” The proposed changes to the constitution would require Parliament to confirm the Executive Branch’s nominees for Parliamentarian, Auditor General, Secretary for the Parliament and Communications Director. The Elections Commissioner would still be appointed only by the Executive Branch. Under the revised constitution, the Parliamentarian would no longer be able to block changes to Parliament’s bylaws and the Auditor General could no longer block changes to the Executive Branch’s bylaws. The revised constitution would also establish an Ethics Board, which was proposed by Activate TU’s incoming administration during campaigning. Under the Ethics Board, the Parliamentarian would investigate misconduct by members of Parliament — a responsibility currently held by the Auditor General. Guidelines for amending the Elections Code would also be included in the revised constitution. The Elections Commissioner
would draft an amendment and propose it to the Ethics Board. Parliament unanimously approved Activate TU’s nominee Morrease Leftwich, a sophomore political science and Africology and African American studies major, to be Auditor General. Activate TU’s nominee for Parliamentarian, Jacob Kurtz, the current Tyler School of Art representative, was not approved because too many representatives had to leave the meeting early. Kurtz will be formally approved at next week’s full Parliament meeting. The revised constitution does not allow executive officers or the Speaker of the Parliament to hold other executive board positions on other campus organizations without approval from TSG’s faculty adviser. “There were objections to the amendment,” said Bridget Warlea, one of the multicultural representatives in Parliament and a member of the ad hoc committee. “Some members thought that taking them away from their offices would take them away from the communities they serve.” Under the revised bylaws, the Secretary for the Parliament will not serve as a representative. The Secretary would be responsible for recording meeting minutes and completing other “administrative tasks.” The current Secretary, Alexis Culp, is also Parliament’s RHA representative. The revised bylaws also clarified that the Parliamentarian is not allowed to speak during a Parliament session without the Speaker’s permission. The Liaison to the Parliament, who is appointed by the Executive Branch and serves as a go-between for Parliament and the Executive Branch, was also officially removed. The liaison resigned in February this year and Parliament has been functioning without the role filled since, said Parliamentarian Jemie Fofanah. amanda.lien@temple.edu @amandajlien Editor’s Note: Varun Sivakumar is a writer for The Temple News. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this story.
activate tu nominees for ethics board MORREASE LEFTWICH Auditor General Not Yet Confirmed
JACOB KURTZ Parliamentarian
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
NEWS
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
PAGE 3
Executive Branch fulfills some promises, changes tune on others TSG helped establish more counseling resources and Parliament. By AMANDA LIEN TSG Beat Reporter Empower TU, which served as Temple Student Government’s executive team for 2016-17, will leave TSG on May 1. Empower TU leaders Aron Cowen, Jai Singletary, Kelly Dawson and the rest of the Executive Branch worked during their administration to help establish gender-inclusive housing and bring a Women Organized Against Rape satellite office to Main Campus. Dawson, the vice president of
internal services, was the liaison between students and the university while the collaboration with WOAR was finalized. In January, Dawson said the partnership helped alleviate concerns about “the politics of accusing someone.” “It’s important that Temple create a third party,” she said. Titus Knox, TSG’s director of student affairs and former president of the Queer Student Union, said in February that the Executive Branch reached out to students to learn what they wanted for gender-inclusive housing and then shared that information with the departments working to make that a reality. Gender-inclusive housing will be offered for the first time on Main Campus for Fall 2017. During its administration, Empower TU also established Parlia-
JENNY KERRIGAN FILE PHOTO Aron Cowen, Jai Singletary and Kelly Dawson make up Empower TU, the Temple Student Government executive team that has served this academic year.
ment, a 37-member legislative body. “Overall, I think it’s worked out very well,” said Cowen, the student body president. “As with any large structural change, there’s going to be growing pains and that’s part of it. I think it was completely worth it and I think it’s on good footing for the future.” The initial structure of Parliament was the product of more than 200 hours of executive meetings, Cowen added. The Executive Branch compared the proposed structure of Parliament to two dozen schools with similar student legislative bodies. “We had a strong slate of candidates, both in the special election and this one, which bodes really well for the future of [Parliament],” he said. Cowen said he thought the greatest challenge of his administration was representing the entire student body. “You really have to make sure you’re not the only one in the room,” he said. “One person can’t represent 40,000 voices with the diversity of thought they deserve. Leadership isn’t about one person, it’s about facilitating and being a platform for everyone else.” Past TSG administrations recognized the need to expand Tuttleman Counseling Services because students were still facing long wait times, Cowen said. Tuttleman will gain a 50 percent space increase this summer when it moves to 1700 N. Broad St. “It was just a matter of us being conscious and advocating for it in meetings with facilities and financial departments and keeping this as our priority,” Cowen said.
“We had students say ‘now that I think the wait line might not be as long, I can finally get the help I need,’” he added. “That’s really gratifying. That’s what it’s all about.” Empower TU’s platform outlined plans for TSG to obtain a voting seat on the Board of Trustees. Cowen said those plans changed after he learned how the Board functioned. “The Board operates mainly by consensus,” he said. “I honestly can’t think of a time where one vote made any difference. We found that the more important thing was … making sure we had a seat at the table in the conversations leading up to a vote.” During the Board’s public sessions, there is seldom open discussion on the voting topics and trustees almost always unanimously approve motions. Singletary, the vice president of external affairs, headed the Student Accessibility Task Force. He worked with Shawn Aleong, TSG’s deputy director of campus life and diversity, to construct a student-led task force to “observe areas of improvement” in Temple’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Students who applied to the task force reviewed buildings on Main Campus and checked them against a modified ADA checklist, focusing on areas like bathrooms, signs, elevators and stairs, Singletary said. Leaders of the task force met with Facilities Management on Monday to report the task force’s findings through a policy proposal pitch, Singletary said. The task force found that bathrooms in Ritter Hall’s upper levels did not have accessible stall doors. They
also found that some bathrooms in Ritter, Gladfelter and Anderson halls did not have grab bars and that not all signs around campus had Braille, he added. “My next question is, ‘who do we need to talk to? What do we need to say?’” Singletary said. “And how can we say it in order to be convincing, to make sure that whoever we talk to takes it seriously and implements the necessary adjustments?” Empower TU also established community meetings where students and community members could interact with the hopes of setting a precedent, Singletary said. “It’s not a secret that, right now, among students, among community residents, among professors, that it’s not the healthiest relationship,” he said. Both Singletary and Cowen were involved with the Good Neighbor Initiative, a program that encourages students to build relationships with community residents. Singletary, who sat on a committee to “revamp” the program, wished he would have been involved sooner. “I feel like we jumped on it too late,” he said. “We hope, given the time we have left, we can change to make sure that the new program is fully functioning and has no gaps by the 2017-18 academic year.” amanda.lien@temple.edu @amandajlien
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OPINION
PAGE 4
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
MAIN CAMPUS A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921. Joe Brandt Editor-in-Chief Paige Gross Managing Editor Michaela Winberg Supervising Editor Julie Christie News Editor Jenny Roberts Opinion Editor
The Temple News is an editorially independent weekly publication serving the Temple University community.
Emily Scott Features Editor Owen McCue Sports Editor Gillian McGoldrick Asst. News Editor Evan Easterling Asst. Sports Editor Grace Shallow Deputy Features Editor Erin Moran Deputy Features Editor Linh Than Multimedia Editor Abbie Lee Multimedia Editor
Adjacent commentary is reflective of their authors, not The Temple News.
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Visit us online at temple-news.com. Send submissions to letters@temple-news.com. The Temple News is located at: Student Center, Room 243 1755 N. 13th St. Philadelphia, PA 19122
Unsigned editorial content represents the opinion of The Temple News.
EDITORIALS
More prayer space needed The university should consider creating an interfaith prayer center in future construction. Having a more accessible interfaith space on campus would show a dedicated commitment to religious diversity at Temple. At the moment, though, space is lacking. That much is clear from a special report in this week’s Features section, on pages 10 and 11. Muslim students, whose religion requires them to pray five times a day facing Mecca, struggle to fit in the Interfaith Prayer Space in the Student Center. But the Interfaith Prayer Space can only fit about eight people at once. And each Friday, when it comes time for Jummah — a congregational service typically attended by about 100 students — a space large enough to fit all the students is hard to find. Temple, which has one prayer room on Main Campus and about 38,000 students enrolled, falls behind some other comparable schools in terms of accommodating religious diversity. Nearby universities like Rutgers and Penn State make several rooms available for prayer, meditation and other spiritual activity. When Ibrahim Souadda, the president
of the Muslim Students Association at Temple, spoke with President Richard Englert about creating an interfaith prayer center on Main Campus, he was told it wouldn’t be feasible. “There are probably buildings for lots of purposes that we could do, but we have to invest our resources wisely in the buildings that are most needed as we go,” Englert explained to The Temple News. We understand that space is lacking on Main Campus, and that making a space for a relatively small group may not seem reasonable to the administration. But an interfaith prayer center — or even an additional prayer room — would help religious students, not just Muslim students, more easily practice their religion as part of a wholesome campus life. In the next year, when buildings under construction (the library on Liacouras Walk designed by a premier architect and the Student Health and Wellness Center for athletes and club teams) are completed, the university should consider if any space can be allocated for inclusion.
Respect city policies A new office near Main Campus will hopefully hold developers and students accountable. City Council should approve the creation of two Licenses and Inspections districts and offices, one of which would be near Main Campus. This would be an important step toward making sure that developers and property owners near Temple actually adhere to the city’s policies. This year, The Temple News reported that developers violated the rules in historic districts near Temple and that City Council delayed a resolution to address trash on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. We also reported residents’ concerns about the environmental impact of university construction. With this new district, students, residents and developers would be more conscious of the regulations that are put in place to keep people safe and to respect the rights of others they share space with. Too often, we hear
residents complaining about trash and misuse of vacant lots. A new L&I building would be more likely to hear the concerns of residents from the area and make sure the department is responding to them. “This office would be a way for the City to be more efficient in monitoring development in the Temple University area,” wrote City Council President Darrell Clarke, who also represents most of the area that has seen a development boom around Temple, in a statement. Karen Guss, the director of communications for L&I, said there “tends to be friction” between students and community residents, and that the new office will help L&I better understand the issues. Hopefully, with an understanding of these issues, there should come a solution.
CORRECTIONS 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 Joe Brandt at editor@temple-news.com or 215-204-6737. letters@temple-news.com
Chick-fil-A’s presence concerning Temple should rethink bringing Chick-fil-A to campus given its history of anti-LGBTQ action.
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hick-fil-A is set to open in the Student Center next fall as part of the university’s food service transition from Sodexo to Aramark. The fast food restaurant chain is already open at more than 250 campuses nationwide. “[It] is the most requested brand by college students, including those surveyed at Temple,” Michael Scales, associate vice president of business services, wrote in an email. “We benefit from the name recognition, quality ZACH KOCIS and predictability [of Chick-fil-A].” Despite the restaurant’s popularity, Temple should be hesitant to bring the chain to Main Campus given its history of anti-LGBTQ actions. In 2012, Chick-fil-A was the subject of national attention regarding donations to anti-LGBTQ groups and discriminatory comments made by Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A. In an interview with the Biblical Reporter, a North Carolina Baptist publication, Cathy said he was “guilty as charged,” when asked if he supports the “traditional family,” meaning marriage exclusively between heterosexual couples. “We are very much supportive of the family, the biblical definition of the family unit,” Cathy told the Biblical Reporter.
Investigations into the company’s tax filings by Equality Matters, a communications initiative to advocate for LGBTQ rights and “correct anti-gay misinformation,” found that Chick-fil-A had given nearly $5 million to anti-LGBTQ groups through its charity, the WinShape Foundation, since 2003. Among the groups that received donations were Exodus International, a group that promoted conversion therapy before it shut down in 2013, and the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated as a hate group for spreading misinformation about LGBTQ people. “There are sections of the university community who may feel aggrieved and concerned over the company executive’s past pronouncements and stance on LGBT matters,” said Jay Sinha, a marketing and supply chain management professor. “There is certainly some level of concern given our stance on diversity and inclusion.” “As a member of the LGBT community, I’m upset every time I see a new Chick-fil-A location because it sucks to know that a company frankly hates you,” said Maria Campbell, a senior marketing major. As a university community that often prides itself on inclusion, we should not support a restaurant chain that unabashedly finances discrimination. How can we expect students who identify as LGBTQ to feel at home on Main Campus when the university welcomes a company with this kind of ideology? “I’m against it,” said Quinn Heath, a junior computer science and criminal justice major and the vice president of the Queer Student Union. “I think that Temple tries to go for that ‘Diversity University’ spiel, and I think that if
you’re using that, you should try to walk the path that you’re speaking. It’s not like there’s [not] an alternative place that sells chicken that you could find, like basically anyone else [that] hasn’t come out against gay marriage.” After criticism of Cathy’s comments in 2012, the company said it respects all sexual orientations in a statement, explaining that its foundation “is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.” The Civil Rights Agenda of Chicago reported that Chickfil-A’s Winshape Foundation stopped funding anti-LGBTQ groups in September 2012. But the values asserted by the brand are still concerning. Chick-fil-A currently has a 0 rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, in all categories related to policies and benefits. Unsurprisingly, Chick-fil-A does not have workplace protections in place for the LGBTQ community, which might include non-discrimination policies or the presence of an LGBTQ employee resource group, according to the HRC. Temple needs to be sensitive to all students and faculty members. Hosting a restaurant chain with a history of discrimination is not supportive of Temple’s LGBTQ population, nor representative of the values of our university community. Temple should realize that a company with a history of supporting discrimination has no place on Main Campus. zach.kocis@temple.edu
HEALTH
Organ donors ‘contribute to humankind’ Becoming an organ donor is as easy as filling out a form when you renew your driver’s license.
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his summer my family will come together to celebrate two milestones: my 19th birthday and the fourth anniversary of my little brother’s liver transplant. We always have two cakes every July 9th to honor the two special occasions. My brother and I sit side by side, smiling while our family sings, “Happy birthday to Jayna and Tommy’s liver.” I am thrilled to be able to share my birthday with such a JAYNA SCHAFFER meaningful event for my brother. Tommy suffered from severe liver damage as a result of his cystic fibrosis. When we received the call that he was able to get a liver transplant, he had been on the waiting list for about a year. Right now, there are more than 120,000 people in the United States who are waiting on that call, according to LiveOnNY, the second largest federal organ procurement organization in the country. And about 18 people die every day waiting for a transplant. But one organ donor can save up to eight of these lives. That is why it’s essential we all become organ donors. There’s no excuse to reject this simple responsibility — it requires very little effort and can create such a large impact on the lives of others. Michael Ruggieri, an anatomy and cell biology professor, said he can’t think of one reason someone wouldn’t become an organ donor. People can become organ donors by simply signing a form when they get their driver’s licenses renewed. “We make a lot of use out of organ transplant donors,” Ruggieri said. “And my driver’s license says ‘organ donor’ underneath the picture on it.”
Taydra Fahie, a junior engineering major, is not an organ donor because she shares a common misconception. Some people think they will not receive urgent medical treatment if they have “organ donor” marked on their licenses. “I feel like if I get into an accident, I feel that if something happens to me, [first responders] would not try as much as they would, just because I am an organ donor,” Fahie said. “They’re not going to take your or-
SASHA LASAKOW | THE TEMPLE NEWS
gans until you’re finished with them,” Ruggieri said. “It’s not like they’re going to come knock on your door and say, ‘We came here to take your liver from you.’” Before Aikia Powell started working as a transplant representative at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, even she shared this common misconception. This is actually the exact opposite of what would happen during a medical emergency, Powell said. “If you get in an accident and you die on the scene, you don’t meet the requirement now to be an organ donor,” Powell said. “You physically have to be in a hospital, and you have to get to intensive care to be an organ donor.”
Of course, it’s hard for students to consider planning for our deaths during college. But if the unexpected happens, organ donation is a way to bring some good out of the bad. It is hard for me to find a valid reason not to be an organ donor, considering the impact I could possibly make on someone’s life, like another organ donor did for my brother. “There are a lot of people who are alive today just because of people who have donated organs,” Ruggieri said. “And it’s a way for you to continue to contribute to humankind even after you have passed on.” Chaviva Galapo, a freshman business administration and legal studies major, said she is proud to be an organ donor and thinks it is an important humanitarian act. “I know people who have needed organ donations, and if I can help out somebody else, that’s the most important thing,” Galapo said. “I’m Jewish and I’m not allowed to donate my organs, but to me that’s more important than the religious aspect.” The reality is that our healthy organs are not going to do any good if we aren’t around to use them. If the unthinkable happens, you should not take the chance of having your organs go to waste. Perhaps the only bright side to a medical tragedy is that your life could save up to eight more lives after you’ve passed. I am so thankful for the person whose organs saved Tommy’s life. He wouldn’t be alive today without his new liver. While he still suffers from cystic fibrosis, he does not get sick as often as he used to, he no longer has jaundiced skin and eyes and he is able to play sports without getting so tired. I hope many more children like him get a second chance at life due to the kindness of one stranger. jayna.alexandra.schaffer@temple.edu
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
OPINION
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
PAGE 5
THE ESSAYIST
Viewing the wreckage of Chernobyl: 31 years later A student recounts her visit to Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear explosion that occurred in 1986.
By LAURA SMYTHE
I
awoke in Kyiv, Ukraine, with strange adrenaline pumping through my veins. A tour guide would soon pick up my friend Chris and me from our hotel to take us to Chernobyl, the town where a major nuclear explosion occurred in 1986. I work part time as an account coordinator for a company that supplies police security equipment through United States embassies abroad, and this was my spring break. I’d spent half the night online, trying to determine if visiting Chernobyl was indeed safe. Ukraine allows visits up to five days, but scientists say Chernobyl won’t be habitable due to the lasting effects of radiation for 20,000 years. Part of me wondered why I was spending $150 to willingly walk into the aftermath of a nuclear catastrophe. The explosion of Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant, Reactor 4, is one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. The explosion resulted from a combination of mechanical and human error, and the radioactive particles released into the air caused severe cancers, genetic mutations and birth defects across eastern Europe for generations. The accident also resulted in the mass relocation of Ukrainian citizens and significant damage to the environment. Now, Chernobyl is completely abandoned. And Wednesday will mark 31 years from the explosion. “Is this really safe?” I nervously asked our tour guide, Igor, who arrived promptly at 8 a.m. “I’ve been hundreds of times,” Igor said. “And the lunches are prepared outside of Chernobyl, or so they say.” Soon we reached a security checkpoint in the exclusion zone, a
30-kilometer uninhabitable buffer area around Reactor 4 meant to prevent radioactivity from spreading. We signed liability paperwork as our passports were inspected. The guards instructed us to not touch walls or vegetation, as they harbored the highest levels of radiation. I realized I was really there, and my anxiety worsened. But there was no turning back now. Clearing security, we drove through the deserted region, parking the car in spots along the way to walk around. The roads were smooth — most of the pavement had been replaced to reduce radiation levels. The surrounding woodlands used to be called the Red Forest for their colorful foliage, but now the trees are barren. While exploring, we used a Geiger counter, a tool that detects radiation, to alert us of jumps in levels. Entering the buildings is technically prohibited, but I quickly learned the tour guides like to break rules to impress guests. Igor first led us through some abandoned homes. We balanced on rotting, exposed floorboards. Random shoes, kitchen apparatus and wall décor were strewn about, signs of a life once lived. Next, we explored a daycare center. Rooms were filled with rickety bunk beds, creepy dolls and children’s toys. Outside, Igor showed us how the Geiger counter jumped near dirt or moss. We continued to Reactor 4, now in a concrete casing to prevent further contamination. It’s still functional, and I watched workers nonchalantly walk inside. We took a break for lunch. Chris and I were too nervous to eat the soup or vegetables provided. We stuck to bread and bottled water. “I’m never going to make another joke again,” Igor said. In Pripyat, a neighboring town
FROM THE ARCHIVE
also affected by the nuclear explosion, we saw an abandoned amusement park that operated for only one day. According to Igor, it opened early that day to distract residents from the explosion. We continued to a nearby community pool, which Igor said was used for 10 years after the accident. The decaying diving board and basketball hoop were eerie — people once came here for fun. Igor led us through abandoned apartments and schools. Soviet propaganda hung on the walls and chemistry sets and textbooks lay forgotten in the classrooms. One classroom was filled with gas masks. Most of the time, I felt like I was in a scene right out of a horror movie. Before leaving in the evening, we had to undergo a full-body radiation check. I stepped into the machine, petrified I’d be contaminated and left behind. Thankfully, I was cleared.
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DISABILITY
Autism Speaks should change focus
T
GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?
I left Chernobyl feeling reminded of life’s unpredictability — unforeseen accidents can happen anytime, and we are helpless to the consequences.
LAURA SMYTHE FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS There are tours available in the Ukrainian towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat, where vistors can view the areas affected by the explosion of Reactor 4, a nuclear power plant.
Autism Speaks needs to invest more funds toward resources for people with autism.
Dec. 2, 1965: Gov. William Scranton (right) signed a bill making Temple a state-related university. The Temple News reported on the appropriations bill that lowered tuition for full-time Pennsylvania residents from $920 to $450. As a result, Gladfelter said the university expected enrollment to increase by 25 percent by 1970. On Thursday, five university presidents gathered to discuss education and health in Philadelphia at an event called “The Century of the City.” President Richard Englert spoke at the panel about the university’s funding. State-related universities in Pennsylvania did not receive any budget increase this year, and Temple suffered a 19 percent budget cut in 2011. “We have to struggle with, as a public institution, we are getting fewer state dollars, how do we keep the sticker price of tuition low?” Englert said at the event.
Though Chernobyl was one of the most interesting places I’ve seen, it weighed heavily on my mind that it was never meant to be a tourist attraction. It felt strange to be a tourist there, taking photos of the remnants of people’s lives affected by a deadly biological disaster.
his month, President Donald Trump lit up the White House blue in honor of Autism Awareness Month, using the color associated with the organization Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is an advocacy group focused on providing support for people with autism and researching potential causes of autism. While the organization has been successful in creating brand recognition and raising awareness about JENNY ROBERTS OPINION EDITOR autism, it has continually signaled that it should be thought of as an unfortunate circumstance both through advertising and its own organizational actions. “I think the concern that many people with autism have about Autism Speaks is that they very much have a focus on identifying the cause of autism and trying to cure autism,” said Matt Tincani, a psychological studies in education professor. “And that upsets people who are on the spectrum, because it’s like, ‘Well, I’m a person with autism, you’re basically trying to eliminate people with autism in curing it.” Autism Speaks needs to shift its focus on research, which accounts for 32 percent of its budget, to instead
providing support to people with autism so they can find jobs, maintain social relationships and live independently. The organization also needs to do a better job of presenting autism in a positive light, despite the challenges people with autism and their families face. “There’s tremendous focus on early screening and early intervention and sort of making the symptoms of autism go away, and I think that’s important,” Tincani said. “But there are still people with autism in the world and they need support and they need help.” According to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, less than 4 percent of Autism Speaks’ budget goes towards the “Family Service” grants that the organization uses to fund services. This is a meager percentage. Some funds need to be directed to actually helping people with autism, most of whom are adults, Tincani said. “I think it’s important to fund the research, but there needs to be a balance,” he said. Those looking to support people with autism this month should consider donating to local organizations instead of Autism Speaks. These organizations can have a more direct impact on providing services for people with autism. In Pennsylvania, the organization ASERT provides access to regional services and offers information to families. At Temple, the sorority Alpha Xi Delta works with Autism Speaks because it is the sorority’s national philanthropy. Iliana Sadler, president of Temple’s chapter, said her sorority works with people with autism in other ways though, too. Every fall, Temple’s
chapter participates in Huddle Up for Autism, a fundraising and awareness event for the Center for Autism Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in partnership with the Philadelphia Eagles. “We make sure we are really doing more for the autism community than just Autism Speaks,” said Sadler, a junior finance and economics major. “We don’t spend a lot of time advocating for the philanthropy itself. We focus our energy on advocating for those who we are raising this money for.” While Autism Speaks may have some work to do to better represent the community of people with autism, we can work individually to help people with autism by being better allies here on Main Campus. Jonathan Atiencia is a student in the Academy of Adult Learning who has autism. He said other students should learn “how to be respectful” and “how to help someone” who has autism. “I think they should know about ... people with autism at Temple’s campus,” said Atiencia, a freshman media studies and production major. “And then they’d be respectful and they wouldn’t make fun of anyone.” I agree with Atiencia. We can all be better allies. And we should be working to do so year-round. But perhaps, we can use Autism Awareness Month as a chance to call attention to how organizations with the ability to create a larger impact can improve their mission, too. jenny.roberts@temple.edu @jennyroberts511
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NEWS
PAGE 6
NEWS BRIEFS UNIVERSITY NEWS
TUHS doctors named to ‘Best Doctors’ list Philadelphia magazine released its “Top Doctors” list for 2017, featuring 76 Temple University Health System physicians who represent 30 medical specialties ranging from cardiovascular disease to plastic surgery. The university doctors, all nominated by their professional peers, practice within TUHS at Temple University Hospital, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Jeanes Hospital or as community-based physicians with Temple Physicians, Inc. The number of Temple doctors featured on the list increased since 2016, which recognized 72 doctors. Larry Kaiser, the Lewis Katz Dean of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, said in a news release that he and the university take “great pride” in the honor. Kaiser added that it is “proof … of the breadth and depth of medical expertise and clinical services offered to patients across Temple University Health System.” - Noah Tanen
SRC to add teachers to school district At the School Reform Commission’s meeting last week about the school district’s 2017-18 budget, Superintendent William Hite announced the district will hire 66 new teachers to remove split classes that have different grades learning in the same room and 47 additional teachers to “end leveling” for grades kindergarten through third, the Inquirer reported. The district will spend $13 million to hire the teachers. Hite also said that the SRC is “committed” to coming up with a contract for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the members of which have been without a contract for four years, the Inquirer reported. According to the Inquirer, there were few details about the budget discussed at the meeting last week. Joyce Wilkerson, the SRC chairwoman and Temple’s senior adviser for community relations and development, told the Inquirer that the public will be informed on the details of their budget in May. The SRC will settle on next year’s budget next month and will present the plan to City Council on May 10. - Kelly Brennan
CITY NEWS
Clarke wary of Mayor’s Rebuild program City Council President Darrell Clarke voiced concerns over potential privatization of public facilities under Rebuild, Mayor Jim Kenney’s $500 million city initiative to revamp Philadelphia’s parks, libraries, and recreational facilities, the Inquirer reported. Clarke represents much of the North Philadelphia area between Center City and Temple. State law requires all work done by Rebuild to be available for purchase. When asked if Philadelphia public property would be sold, Rebuild spokesman David Gould said the city has “no desire to sell off city property.” Gould referenced previous projects completed under the same requirement, such as Delta Air Lines Inc. improving gates at the airport and renovations to public libraries between 1996 and 2002 that did not result in privatizations. As the purchase option applies only to facility improvements, Clarke’s biggest concern regards large-scale Rebuild projects where entire new facilities are constructed. Before renovations can be made, City Council must approve Rebuild’s funding. A vote will likely occur in the coming months. - Laura Smythe
CRIME
Man in critical condition after off-campus shooting A 24-year-old man was listed in critical condition at Temple University Hospital after being shot five times on the corner of 19th Street near Susquehanna Avenue on Friday night, NBC10 reported. Temple Police issued a TU Alert Friday night warning students to “use caution” and “avoid the area” after the shooting. Witnesses said the shooter fled the scene on a black bicycle, NBC10 reported. No suspect has been arrested. - Amanda Lien
News Desk 215-204-7419 news@temple-news.com
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
Study suggests social media marketing helps companies in the short term, hurts long-term The Fox School of Business studied the effectiveness of social media marketing. By NOAH TANEN Research Beat Reporter Researchers in the Fox School of Business are working to uncover the effectiveness of social media marketing and its methods to increase sales for companies. Management and information systems professor Brad Greenwood said the findings could give business managers understanding of how to be more strategic about timing posts and targeting specific audiences. Led by Shuting Wang, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in management information systems, the research drew on social data from WeChat and sales data from a Chinese shoe retailer, Greenwood said. He and Paul Pavlou, the senior associate dean of research, assisted Wang on the project. Wang said while social media posts increase sales in the short term, people will often “get annoyed” by companies’ posts. “In that case, they will unfollow, which will lead to a long-term decrease in purchases,” Wang said. The study found that purchases by followers increased by 5 percent on the
Continued from Page 1
DISTRICT codes and regulations. Currently, the university’s construction east of Broad Street is overseen by the Northeast District Office, on Castor Avenue near Shelmire Avenue, and development west of Broad Street is covered by the North District office, Guss said. The North District office is on Rittenhouse Street near Wakefield, approximately a 25-minute drive from Main Campus. There will soon be a specific office located closer to the Temple area to have “inspection staff located more in the heart of where” development is increasing, Guss said. L&I and the city’s Department of Public Property selected a location for the office at 15th Street and Cecil B. Moore
day of a company’s social media post. But this same post also increased the likelihood of a customer to unfollow by 300 percent. This led to an overall 5 percent decrease in sales in five months and a 20 percent loss of followers in a year. These numbers change based on contextual factors “like what time of day it is, and where people are located,” Greenwood said. Greenwood said if you target audiences in larger cities, “people unfollow a lot faster … and if you post during rush hour, people unfollow a lot faster, but if you post at off-peak hours or [target] smaller locations, that effect seems to go away.” Though the causes behind the findings are not entirely clear, Greenwood said the results may be attributed to customers’ moods at varying times of day or the increased irritability of customers in large cities, who are exposed to more information and media than their rural counterparts. Pavlou said he thinks it’s a matter of how companies “over-do” social media. “They see that the more posts they put out there, the more sales they’re going to see,” Pavlou said. “Companies should be more careful with this and focus more on their long-term goals. Social media is so quick, so immediate that companies say, ‘Well, let me leverage this as much as possible in the short term,’ and they may actually miss the big picture.” The extent of the damage social me-
dia marketing can cause businesses isn’t clear in the research yet, Greenwood said. He added that future research needs to address the question of whether customers will go to competing firms or if they will just stop purchasing in general. Fox students Matthew Brubaker, a junior risk management and insurance major, and Grant McMinn, a junior finance major, see social media marketing as an effective tool for businesses, but an occasional annoyance in their lives. “I think [social media] is a good way to get your idea or business out initially,” Brubaker said. “I always thought it’d be good both in the short term and the long term.” McMinn said he enjoys social media advertisements that he can connect with. “I’ve definitely followed places and then had stuff come up that I don’t relate to and I unfollow them,” he added. Though the research questions social media marketing as a business method, Greenwood said stopping social media marketing “would be lunacy.” “What I think this study highlights is the fact that you need to be very careful about where and when you post,” he said. The paper, which will soon go out for peer review, is a part of Wang’s Ph.D. dissertation in management information systems. The researchers are targeting a journal called Information Systems Research for publication.
Avenue, but an opening date has yet to be determined, Guss added. City Council has to approve the creation of the new districts before the city can take out a lease on the space. The department expects there to be community engagement and outreach with the formation of the new district and office in the Temple area. “The idea is that [the inspectors] will become familiar with the projects that are going on in the Temple area, the developers who are working there, what the neighborhoods are like, and just be able to develop relationships,” Guss said. She added that there “tends to be friction” between students living near residents and having an office in an area where this occurs will help the department understand “the real problems.” Earlier this month, The Temple News reported that several developers have not followed the Historical Preservation Or-
dinance in historical corridors around the university like Diamond Street, and due to a lack of resources, L&I cannot enforce the historical district codes. “It’s too soon to tell what we’ll be able to accomplish concerning these complaints specifically,” Guss added. “The constraints that apply to L&I all over the resource-challenged city is prioritizing safety first. Our focus is always on safety. Certain types of laws can be difficult to enforce.” “One thing that is important is that property owners are responsible for following the rules, regardless of whether someone is coming after them and writing tickets,” Guss said. “Hopefully, by being closer and having more personal interactions, we can enforce that message that owners are responsible for their property.”
noah.tanen@temple.edu
kelly.brennan@temple.edu @_kellybrennan
Financial Services returns to Carnell Hall The renovated space will increase privacy for students and counselors. By LAURA SMYTHE For The Temple News Student Financial Services moved back into its newly renovated office space on Thursday in the ground floor of Carnell Hall with the hopes of increasing privacy and improving the workplace environment. In the service center portion of the office, where students can meet one-onone with financial aid counselors, each counselor now has a sliding glass door to keep conversations about personal finances private. “When you’re dealing with a parent or you’re talking about finances, you want privacy, so one of the great things we have is we’ll be able to provide privacy for the students,” said Sandra Mejia, associate director of SFS. Meet Parmar, a freshman electrical engineering major, said the privacy measures would be beneficial. “With financial stuff, some people want to be more modest about it,” Parmar said. Jillian Caldwell, a junior psychology major, hasn’t yet visited the renovated offices, but thinks the changes make it sound nicer. “Especially because it’s financial aid,
people have heavy things they want to say, so privacy is beneficial,” she said. “I think a more modern, updated office would make for a better experience,” said Megan McCreadie, a senior recreational therapy major. “Having to visit SFS can be stressful, and a better environment with private offices to have a conversation would put me more at ease.” Mejia said SFS is now working on a new text queuing system, where students could put themselves in line for an appointment without being physically present in the office. The service would inform students of wait times and they could text to cancel or postpone their appointments without losing their spots in line. The new queuing system is yet to be approved, but Mejia hopes it will be available in a few months. “We’re trying to beef up customer service,” she said. “Students don’t have time to sit and wait in the office and we don’t want that to stop somebody from coming to see us.” Interim Director of SFS Emilie Van Trieste said she thinks students and parents will feel the difference in the new office design. The entire office space was gutted floor to ceiling, and everything from the windows to the carpet and the ventilation system were redone. The renovations took nine months and started last July. As the SFS office is located on the ground floor, the new office walls are all made out of glass and the windows in the outer building walls were replaced
to bring in more light. The renovations included replaced carpet, newly painted walls and a hallway that connects Carnell Hall to Wachman. Van Trieste said she was thrilled with how the renovations turned out. “It met all the expectations of being more professional and having more privacy included and just being a more welcoming service center,” she said. The renovations included removing the walls in the office’s call center, where student employees reach out to students and families over phone and email. Van Trieste said it creates a more open and collaborative work environment so the SFS team can do their work effectively and efficiently. “I think it feels like a happier place,” Mejia said. “The colors, the lighting, the glass, it feels better.” Student employees were also pleased with the renovations. “The old office was dreary and a little bit miserable,” said Megan McGovern, a junior marketing major who has worked with SFS for 3 years. She added the new office space looks cleaner. “It’s modern and colorful and we come off so coordinated now it will help to invite people over,” Van Trieste said. “I hope this will help get our name out there and people will come by and chat with us,” she added. laura.smythe@temple.edu
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
features TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
F E AT U R E S
PAGE 7
Urban Workshop builds relationships in neighborhoods
KYLE THOMAS FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Since its inception in 2002, the goal of the Urban Workshop project is to revitalize Philadelphia neighborhoods through opportunities like rehabing murals on Germantown Avenue near Alder Street.
The workshop proposes small design ideas to revitalize neighborhoods. By EMILY SCOTT Features Editor
W
hen thinking about urban acupuncture, Sally Harrison compares a neighborhood to a system. “Any urban environment is a system,” said Harrison, an architecture professor. “There are certain places where if you apply a certain amount of pres-
sure or develop it, it is more likely to be a generator than if you were to put it somewhere else or disperse your resources.” Urban acupuncture is an urban design concept that looks at how small design projects can have a larger impact. Harrison started the Urban Workshop in 2002. The workshop proposes ideas to revitalize a neighborhood through small design methods. After the semester’s end, the students and faculty attempt to follow through with the project to make an urban design change that can improve the neighborhood. The workshop then works with the local organization and community to give them a “deliv-
DESIGN | PAGE 16
KYLE THOMAS FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The Urban Workshop has worked to make small design changes along Germantown Avenue.
For student, no ‘plan B’ to Obamacare
Alumna writes novel discussing friendship, cancer Mary Elizabeth Williams and her best friend from college were both diagnosed with cancer.
The Affordable Care Act advocate recently told her story to Seventeen magazine.
By PATRICK BILOW Classroom Beat Reporter
By MEGAN PLATT For The Temple News Joan Fanwick is afraid of eye-drops, but she has no problem with using steroids, hooking herself up to an IV and taking a low-dosage chemotherapy pill, along with 10 other medications each day. Fanwick, a senior early childhood education major, has an extremely rare form of Sjögren’s syndrome — a chronic autoimmune disease that often affects the salivary glands, leading to excessive drying in the eyes and mouth. In Fanwick’s case, it affects her entire body. She experiences extreme fatigue, chronic joint pain and an impact on her nervous and autonomic systems, which affects her blood vessels and internal organs like her heart and digestive tract. Her diagnosis turned her into a politi-
she developed a blood infection. “One of the reasons [I fight so hard to stay in school] is because I do have a chronic illness,” she said. “It’s not going to go away. There’s no end date. I’ll be on immunosuppressants probably my whole life. That’s the reality of it. I didn’t want to risk taking time off and getting behind and not being able to return back to school. That wasn’t an option in my mind.” Along with classes and student-teaching, Fanwick’s normal day includes taking
Mary Elizabeth Williams’ best friend, Debbie Preg, once told her that they were going to grow old and die together at age 90. Williams said she believed her. The pair experienced everything together: they were college roommates, close friends and art students at Temple. They were married only six months apart and their first children had the same expectancy date. In 2010, they shared another life-changing experience: they were both diagnosed with cancer within three months of each other. “Our lives were so parallel,” Williams said. “But they differed in that one of us got better and the other did not.” In September 2014, Preg passed away and Williams, a 1988 radio, TV and film alumna, be-
HEALTH CARE | PAGE 16
FRIENDSHIP | PAGE 15
JULIE HUTCHINSON FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Joan Fanwick has a chronic autoimmune disease and estimates that without the Affordable Care Act, her medical bills would cost $50,000 a year. She has become a health care advocate and is against President Donald Trump’s call to repeal and replace the act.
cal advocate. She speaks out against President Donald Trump’s plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act because she calculated that without her current coverage under the ACA, Fanwick’s medical bills would cost more than $50,000 per year — much more than the college senior can afford. Earlier this month, Fanwick’s health struggles were featured on Seventeen magazine’s website. By studying at Temple, Fanwick goes against the advice of her doctors, who wanted her to withdraw after she got her feeding tube during sophomore year. They also encouraged her to leave school last year when
SCIENCE | PAGE 12
LIVE IN PHILLY | PAGE 14
SERVICE | PAGE 15
CROWDFUND | PAGE 16
Researchers from the Center for Biodiversity created an interactive website called TimeTree that shows the history of life on Earth.
Temple Football played its annual Cherry & White Game in preparation of the upcoming Fall 2017 season.
For the Global Days of Service this week, students, faculty and alumni will volunteer around North Philadelphia.
OwlCrowd, the university’s crowdfunding program, aims to fund projects like Books for Dunbar Elementary.
S P E C I A L R E P O RT
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TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
Resident: communities are ‘living, breathing entities’ Continued from Page 1
COMMUNITY through community leaders, business owners and residents.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK The three vacant lots next to Will Mundy’s house on Page Street near 16th used to be a dumping site for items like clothes, used condoms, car transmissions and tires. It was populated with possums, raccoons and
overgrown with weeds. His wife, Geraldine, suggested he do something about it. He cleaned the lot, but it remained overgrown with weeds until 2008, when he established the Page Street Garden Residential Association. Today, the lots make up a community fruit and vegetable garden where watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew, tomatoes, green peppers and corn are harvested. During the summer, Mundy sets up canopies where people can enjoy refreshments and play dominoes, checkers or chess.
KEY MOMENTS IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA’S HISTORY 1887 The Church of the Advocate’s construction begINS The church, which began construction in 1887 and finished in 1897, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER
1953
Cecil B. Moore gets his law degree from Temple University
1964 race riots on Columbia Avenue The riots started after two police officers responded to a domestic dispute at 22nd Street and Columbia Avenue, now known as Cecil B. Moore Avenue. The riots lasted for three days. Two people died and more than 300 were arrested for various charges.
Moore, an and social activist who held voter registration drives, became the president of Philadelphia’s chapter of the NAACP in 1962 and successfully fought for integration of Girard College.
1968 FREEDOM THEATRE OPENs The theater, originally the mansion of 19th-century actor Edwin Forrest, opened in 1968 and served as an African-American cultural center.
COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER
1990
Mundy, the head of the garden association and the block captain of the 1600 block of Page Street, said the garden is a safe haven for nearby residents during summers. The 72-yearold manages to run it, despite his fixed income. “The wear and tear on me as a person is offset by the joy that this brings to my residents who I’m the block captain for,” Mundy said. “My duties as a block captain extend more to just making sure the street is clean.” Mundy said most of the non-student residents on his block are elderly people. He knows families who feed their children soft pretzels or potato chips for breakfast, and he can’t meet the demand for fresh produce on his block. If Mundy had his way, the garden would look much different than it does now. He wants to build a dome over it so he can produce crops year-round. He wishes for posters of African-American leaders like Cecil B. Moore and Martin Luther King Jr. along the fence inside — “a walk through history in a garden.” This summer, three students who will graduate from Benjamin Franklin High School on Broad Street near Spring Garden will participate in a five-week program in the garden. They’ll learn basic gardening and alternative career paths to those they were considering, Mundy said. Nearby residents and Temple students volunteer, but Mundy said he still needs more people to help. He also has to run the garden without the ability to ask nearby residents for money because they’re either students “trying to work their way through college” or people living on fixed incomes. “I would love for Temple to sponsor it, or I would love for Temple to put us on their list of organizations, community urban organizations that can help us out with this, bringing this into reality,” Mundy said. “But I’m not going to sit around and twirl my fingers and say, ‘Woe is me,’ or ‘Woe is us. This is impossible, I’m working with people who are 70 or 80 years old.’” “I want to leave a legacy that others would want to keep it going,” he added. “If just one or two people could do this, or one or two senior citizens can do this, can you imagine what could be achieved if more people did it throughout the city? A lot of people have gardens in their backyard, but they don’t take on the responsibility of a garden that pro-
duces crop year-round. That’s what we want to do.”
A RELATIONSHIP ON THE MEND A statue of the angel Gabriel blowing his trumpet used to sit on top of the Church of the Advocate on Diamond Street near 18th, looking over North Philadelphia. About 20 years ago, the statue became worn and needed to be taken down. But the Rev. Renee McKenzie still thinks about its image every time she closes her eyes and imagines the church’s mission: connecting with the North Philadelphia community. As the church’s senior pastor, McKenzie presides over a weekly service in the church’s sanctuary. The statue, streaked with erosion and water damage, is now in the back of the sanctuary, directly in McKenzie’s line of vision as she preaches. It is weathered on the outside, but McKenzie said what it symbolizes is still just as important to her. McKenzie became the senior pastor at Church of the Advocate in 2011. About six years earlier, she received her Ph.D. in religion from Temple. She said she didn’t know a lot about the community while she was attending Temple, and she was shocked by the “vitality of North Philadelphia for the African-American culture” when she started working at the church. She added that the activism sparked by North Philadelphia historical figures like Cecil B. Moore and the Rev. Leon Sullivan is embedded in the community. It inspires her to offer social services like a soup kitchen and computer lab for community residents. Working with people from the church showed McKenzie, a former physical therapist, that being a pastor is her life’s calling. “What it demands of me is that I love people and that I love and respect the person who is sitting across from me,” McKenzie said. “I have to fight for their right to have the best in life. I have to fight for their right to have social justice.” At Berean Presbyterian Church on Broad and Diamond streets, the Rev. Michael Evans said the church’s mission is summed up in a prayer recited every Sunday at service, part of which reads, “We pray the power of the Holy Spirit will help us as a
congregation to … provide hope and minister to needs of our community.” In addition to hosting free community dine-ins and giving out clothing, the church also allows organizations like the Girl Scouts and recovery groups Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to meet in its space, Evans said. He added that love is offered to every person who enters Berean, despite any differences. “The door is open to all,” he said.
‘SERVERS OF THE PEOPLE’ At 1617 Barber Shop & Beauty Salon on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 16th Street, a tattered one dollar bill is taped to a piece of computer paper behind shop manager Darryl Salley’s desk. Above the bill, a handwritten message reads, “Some people will kill for this. Some people would even rob their loved ones for this. The destroyer of this dollar has a different opinion.” On a corkboard next to the paper, another dollar bill hangs on the wall — this one with “no disrespect” written across it with a black marker. 1617’s owner, Talib Abdul Mujid, 50, said the bills symbolize that money is a reward, but not the shop’s only focus. Abdul Mujid has owned the shop for nearly eight years and lectures twice a month in geography and urban studies professor Walter Gholson’s Black Males in the City class. His theme is “the art of survival,” and he talks about how Black males in inner cities can experience violence and drugs at early ages. “We are career barbers, we are servers of the people,” Abdul Mujid said. “If it comes to the money, we’ll rip the money up. You can always get more money. You can’t repair relationships sometimes when you rip them up.” Willie Williams worked two jobs while he went to college. One of them was at the beer distributor at Montgomery Avenue and Gratz Street. He saved enough money to rent the building in 1966 and bought it in 1967. Before he passed away last month, Williams owned and operated Montgomery Beer Distributor and “helped raise a lot of the community by being a strong Black male in the area,” his oldest grandson, Otis Williams, said. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
GRACE SHALLOW/THE TEMPLE NEWS
Neighborhood demographics begin to shift Between the 1990 and 2010 censuses, six North Philadelphia zip codes — including 19140, which includes the Health Sciences Campus — lost 42,128 residents, or nearly 18 percent of their 1990 population, according to a Pew Trusts report. This section of the city lost 19.3 percent of its AfricanAmerican population, but Hispanic population grew by 2.8 percent.
2014
Temple purchases William Penn High School
DON OTTO FILE PHOTO
William Penn closed in 2010 after nearly 40 years of service to North Philadelphia. The school was assessed at $32.5 million in 2013, but Temple purchased it for $15 million in the following year as the School District of Philadelphia tried to make up for a budget deficit. The newly opened Temple Sports Complex is at the site.
GRACE SHALLOW/THE TEMPLE NEWS The Rev. Renee McKenzie stands in the sanctuary of the Church of the Advocate with a statue of the angel Gabriel on April 17.
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GRACE SHALLOW/THE TEMPLE NEWS A tattered one dollar bill hangs behind Darryl Salley’s desk at 1617 Barber Shop & Beauty Salon on Cecil B. Moore Avenue. It symbolizes the importance of building relationships over making money.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Otis, 41, and his uncle Richard, 46, operate Montgomery Beer Distributor and practice the same principles Willie did. Richard has been coaching girls and boys basketball teams for more than a decade. He said there are 117 kids from West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, East Oak Lane, Upper Darby and Sharon Hill in the organization. Working in the store became “a rite of passage” for the men in the family and gave them a collegelevel business course as teenagers, Otis said. “Being here so long, like I said, we’ve witnessed quite a bit and seen a lot of people prosper in the area, seen a lot of different things,” Otis said.
TEMPLE’S PRESENCE 1300 Residence Hall’s basement is a storage space with exposed vents, a concrete floor, discarded boxsprings and cleaning products stacked against the walls. But tucked in its back corner, the door of Greg Bonaparte’s office is covered with photos of smiling church congregations, volunteer events and award ceremonies. Inside, photos of his son and wife are pinned to a corkboard hanging above his desk, so he can look at them as he works. The office is, in a way, Bonaparte’s personal storage space for the memories he’s created as a lifelong North Philadelphia resident. Bonaparte works as a general mechanic in 1300, but his involvement with the university extends beyond his day job. He has helped plan
university projects like the construction of White Hall as a member of Temple’s Partnership Planning Community and Campus West Committee. Despite his involvement in the university’s growth, the neighborhood still doesn’t look familiar to him. “It went up so fast it will make your head spin,” Bonaparte said. “North Philadelphia was supposed to be a little raggedy-down area, from what people were saying.” According to “Philadelphia’s Changing Neighborhoods,” a report about gentrification released by the Pew Charitable Trusts in May 2016, three census tracts which Main Campus is a part were predominantly
for students — a 1,144 percent increase. For local businesses, the influx of students living off Main Campus has impacted revenue. In Montgomery Beer Distributor’s 50-year history, significant numbers of students moving off campus west of Broad Street only began in the early 2000s, Otis said. Some people lose up to 75 percent of their business when classes aren’t in session and national chain stores like Radio Shack haven’t lasted in the area, he added. “You have to adjust how you market,” Otis said. “You have to adjust how you order things. When school is not in, certain quantities of beer, like kegs and different stuff, I won’t sell as
PAGE 9 many or I won’t buy as many. Most of the neighborhood people that stay here, their order patterns and the stuff that they want is a little bit different.” “It’s just some obstacles you have to overcome for your business to last in this type of environment,” he added. Religious and cultural centers are also impacted by North Philadelphia’s evolving landscape. Dorin Collins, who grew up in North Philadelphia, still visits the neighborhood as a parishioner at Berean, and attends the church’s Bible study on Wednesdays and weekly Sunday service. Growing up, she went to a parish near 11th and Huntingdon streets, but started attending Berean when her mother was sick. Collins’ mother asked her to make sure the pastor spoke over her body after she passed. She hasn’t left the church since, she said, and Temple’s growth has been shocking for her. Collins said the influx of Temple students has pushed the North Philadelphia community farther away from Berean, making it more difficult for them to attend mass. Rev. McKenzie, from the Church of the Advocate, is tasked with balancing North Philadelphia’s culture, providing for the community and acting as a liaison for Temple. She said she’s been able to accomplish it to an “extent” through partnerships with a few of Temple’s departments or schools, like research projects with the College of Public Health. “I learned as I was anticipating coming here that there was this broken relationship between the university and the community, and I just wanted to see if we can just try to bridge that gap,” McKenzie said.
But she said institution-wide community relations efforts are lacking. “I think that the Advocate is a trusted entity in the community, which Temple I don’t think is yet,” McKenzie added. “I think maybe it can be, but it’s not there yet. … It’s just a person-to-person touch because the university is this mammoth thing. It’s so decentralized. ... Who do you talk to to enter into a relationship with the university?” Sandra Haughton, the executive producing director at Freedom Theatre on Broad Street near Master, said the theater has done some partnerships with Temple programs, but none on a university level — similar to McKenzie’s experience at Church of the Advocate. This year, Haughton will celebrate the theater’s 50th anniversary as an African-American institution. She hopes to begin offering programs that appeal to students moving into North Philadelphia — an effort to stay relevant. “Gentrification is always difficult because communities change,” she added. “They’re living, breathing entities. If you were here 50 years ago, you’re not going to be the same as you are in this environment, this economic environment. If you want to be around for another 50 years, you have to adapt.” news@temple-news.com
Coming May 9: Part III will explore outreach to the North Philadelphia community on behalf of Temple administration.
I learned as I was anticipating coming here that there was this broken relationship between the university and the community, and I just wanted to see if can just try to bridge that gap. The Rev. Renee McKenzie Church of the Advocate
Black in 2000, but not in 2014. The report also states that the median sale price for residences west of Main Campus rose from $11,250 in 200001 to $140,000 in 2013-14 due to the development of off-campus housing
GRACE SHALLOW/THE TEMPLE NEWS North Philadelphia resident Greg Bonaparte works as a general mechanic in 1300 Residence Hall. Photos of his family and friends hang behind his desk while he works on March 29.
RESIDENTS SOUND OFF ON THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH TEMPLE
To be honest, it’s good for the area. Because I can go back 20, 25 years and this area was real bad. There’s a plus side. The plus side is more businesses coming. With Temple, you got more vendors coming out here, because as big as Temple gets, Temple is the main attraction for people outside of Philadelphia that come to Philadelphia. That main attraction, if it keeps booming, the neighborhood booms. Charles Scott South Philadelphia resident, construction worker
They could interact more. Some of them act like they’re too good to be around here, but you live around here. You ain’t no better than the next because you go to Temple. They could interact and give more programs for the kids. I know a lot of them got school programs, but it’s a lot more, like, you know, take them on field trips. Especially the children, because, you know, the way they act out here, it stems from homes. Maybe they could do a better job than some of these kids’ parents are doing with them. Sondra Haynesworth 17th Street and Susquehanna Avenue
Over the years, it’s the best thing that happened to North Philly. I can say that much. I’ve been living here since I was … about 7, and now I’m 35. That’s the best thing to have happened to North Philly. They’re developing [the neighborhood]. They wasn’t even doing this stuff before, so I can say that’s a plus. It’s starting to look presentable. Stephen Corbitt 20th and Montgomery
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TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
Muslim students ‘find creative ways’ to make prayer Continued from Page 1
PRAYER Some Muslim students see a need for more spaces to pray on Main Campus. Saad said when prayer time begins, about 15 to 20 people try to access the Interfaith Prayer Space, which fits about eight people. Hannah Keogh, who converted to Islam last year, said there isn’t enough room to keep at a distance from men who are praying. Men and women can pray together, but there is usually a divider or open space separating them in traditional mosques. Temple’s prayer room does not have a divider. “Men and women are supposed to be separated,” said Keogh, a senior early childhood education major. “And we do pray behind the men, but sometimes it’s just a little too close and I just don’t feel comfortable.” But Quaiser Abdullah, an adult & organizational development professor and the faculty adviser of MSA, believes the current space is fulfilling the needs of students. Abdullah, a 2003 political sci-
don’t use the washing stations or know they exist because they are on the north side of the Student Center, while the Interfaith Prayer Space is on the south side. “We pray over here so it’s just more convenient to go to the bathroom nearby,” Keogh said. “I’d rather just put my feet in the sink.” “You find creative ways to make
It’s not always convenient because [at] Temple…space is always a commodity. Quaiser Abdullah MSA Adviser
your prayer ... because that’s what we are required to do,” Abdullah said. “It’s not always convenient because [at] Temple … space is always a commodity.” The MSA has also created a makeshift space for prayer under the staircases in Tuttleman Learning Center. Hira Majid, a senior biomedical engineering major, said she thinks
SHEFA AHSAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS A group of Muslim students takes a break between classes to pray Asr prayer under the stairwell on the first floor of Tuttleman Learning Center.
venient if there was just like a room and you could just pray.” Ali Murad, a sophomore neuroscience major and the Islamic edu-
ELENA IWATA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS A sign hangs on the door of the Interfaith Prayer Space, reminding Muslim men to leave space for Muslim women.
ence and religion alumnus, was the president of MSA during his junior year. He wrote a proposal to the Division of Student Affairs as president asking for an interfaith space and a washing area for “wudu.” As a result, washing stations were created in the men’s and women’s bathrooms on the second floor of the Student Center. Abdullah said many students
there should be more spaces to pray scattered throughout campus. “Even if it’s just like a room or a little office or even like a closet,” said Majid, president of Temple’s chapter of the United Muslim Relief, an organization that raises money to alleviate poverty with a focus on Muslim populations. “In every building, there could be at least one room, like in the TECH Center, it would be really con-
cation chair of MSA, said he spoke with Samantha Dauber, a tech support specialist, at the TECH Center service desk to see if a space could be sectioned off for Muslim students to pray under a stairwell. Murad said he was told that praying under the stairwell was not allowed for safety reasons. But Dauber later emailed Murad to let him know he could pray in the hallway behind
SHEFA AHSAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS There are washing stations for students to perform “wudu” in the men’s and women’s bathrooms on the second floor of Student Center North.
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the music lab. Sabrina Zouaghi, a sophomore bioengineering major and international student from Algeria, agreed having space at the TECH Center would be helpful so she doesn’t have to leave in the middle of her work. Last fall, Zouaghi tried to pray in a breakout room at the TECH Center, but she was interrupted by other students. “I cannot talk if I’m praying, and I understand that people do not know that, but once you’re [saying] the prayer you cannot stop,” she said. “So people came to me and they’re like, ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’” she said. “I was thinking in my head, ‘I cannot talk.’ … I felt like I was being rude because they were talking to me and I was just ignoring them.” Now Zouaghi delays her prayer until she gets home, which she said she technically shouldn’t do — the point of prayer is to make time to be spiritual throughout the day. Abdullah said this is a concern other Muslim students have expressed. “I would definitely say postNovember 2016, the concern heightened,” Abdullah said. “Because you never know what may happen if you’re praying and then somebody sees you praying, what that can turn into.”
TRAVEL BAN Following the election of President Donald Trump in November, MSA reached out to University President Richard Englert for a meeting. They spoke a week after the election. “We just talked in general,” Englert said. “I wanted to reassure them that we would definitely do whatever it is to make our students feel comfortable.” In the days following the election, there were reports of hostile confrontations involving minority students at campuses across the country, including some attacks on Muslim women who were wearing a hijab, a headscarf worn for modesty. In November, Trump made several vague comments about the possibility of a registry of Muslims living in the United States. In December, Trump proposed to ban immigration for all Muslims. “It just kind of heightened whatever ill feeling people had toward Muslims,” Murad said of Trump’s election. “It was kind of just like an unveiling rather than a creation of issues.” On Nov. 14, Englert and Provost JoAnne Epps sent an email to the university community to address these reported “acts of violence and intimiCONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
ELENA IWATA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The Interfaith Prayer Space in the Student Center can only fit about eight people at once.
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MAX SIMONS FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Muslim Students Association Faculty Adviser Quaiser Abdullah emailed President Englert following the travel ban.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
for every Muslim on the earth, which in general is not a good thing.”
dation.” The email outlined resources available to students, faculty and staff like Tuttleman Counseling Services and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership, a space dedicated to multiculturalism and diversity. Shortly after the presidential inauguration, Trump signed an executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries to the United States on Jan. 27. On Jan. 29, a message from Abdullah was forwarded to MSA’s email listing. “We know this is a targeted Muslim ban,” he wrote. “The president has chosen to take the approach of discrimination and hate in an attempt to satisfy a need to feel safe.” On the same day, Englert sent out an email to the university community that referred those concerned about their immigration status to International Student and Scholar Services. “Students were worried because it seemed like this was the start of a promise that was made during the campaign,” Abdullah said. “There seemed to be this idea that Muslims were going to be in the spotlight … of this administration.” Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, and there are an estimated 200,000 Muslims in Philadelphia. The university, however, does not collect data on students’ religions. Some Muslim students said their faith comes up in Intellectual Heritage, political science and sociology classes. Some students willingly discuss their faith, while others feel put on the spot. “There’s not many of us in each class,” said Ibrahim Souadda, a senior film and media arts major and MSA’s president. “You’re like the resident expert on the religion, and you speak
INTERFAITH SPACE Anytime Souadda speaks with someone “important” at the university, he asks for more space. He said he advocates mostly for a religious life center or a cultural center on Main Campus. “Temple has a budget, and they spend it on things like football stadiums and athletics,” he said. “Maybe a more productive way of spending money is increasing communal spac-
Englert told Souadda such a space wouldn’t be financially feasible. The university was already undertaking construction projects like the new library and the Student Health and Wellness Center. “Those are major, major investments,” Englert told The Temple News. “And there are probably buildings for lots of purposes that we could do, but we have to invest our resources wisely in the buildings that are most needed as we go.” Englert said Souadda offered a “very thoughtful suggestion,” but that currently an interfaith or cultural center is not on the “immediate horizon.” Father Shaun Mahoney is the director of the Temple University Newman Center, a Catholic ministry for students on Broad Street near Susquehanna Avenue. He remembers meeting with former University President David Adamany in the early 2000s to discuss using space in the
Maybe a more productive way of spending money is increasing communal spaces. Ibrahim Souadda MSA President
PAGE 11 Adamany also told the council that the space wouldn’t be an appropriate area for an interfaith space because it contains Christian symbols. Englert said he hasn’t heard that space is a “major issue” from other students. “My understanding is that Student Affairs provides space to students both in the residence halls and the Student Activities Center,” Englert said. “That’s what we do for all
SHEFA AHSAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS A Quran sits on a stand in the Interfaith Prayer Space in Room A326 of the Village in the Student Center.
our students, for all purposes.” Student Center Operations allows students to reserve spaces in the Student Center, Morgan Hall and Mitten Hall. Catholic and Jewish students on Main Campus have access to facilities
ELENA IWATA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Ibrahim Souadda is the President of the Muslim Students Association. He said Temple needs an interfaith or cultural center on Main Campus.
es, and maybe taking care of your student body in a more practical dayto-day way.” Souadda mentioned his idea for an interfaith prayer center to Englert last semester in the meeting following the presidential election.
Baptist Temple — now the Temple Performing Arts Center — as an interfaith area. Mahoney said he met with Adamany and other members of Temple’s Interfaith Council. But the president said the space was needed for the arts.
the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Jewish students on Main Campus have registered Hillel at Temple as a student organization, and they also have access to The Edward H. Rosen Center for Jewish Life at the corner of 15th and Norris streets. The center was created in 2009 with the help of Rosen, a former university trustee who died in October 2014. The closest mosque to Main Campus is Makkah Masjid on
separate from the university for services and religious events. While student leaders at the Newman Center have registered it as a student organization through the university, the physical space the center occupies is owned and funded by
Susquehanna Avenue near Park, but it does not have a connection to the university. Muslim students instead use the Student Center to hold events and services. On Fridays, the MSA uses the Underground for Jummah, a congregational prayer held every Friday around 1 p.m. But the Underground isn’t always available, and they sometimes defer to Morgan Hall. There are only three reservation spaces large enough to fit the 100 or so students who attend Jummah: the Underground, Student Center Room 217 A&B and Morgan Hall Room D301. The MSA is not guaranteed access to these spaces. Last Friday, the MSA could not book any of the spaces large enough for Jummah, so students had to complete the prayer off campus. Student organizations can also only book two reservations through the Student Center each week, a policy that will change in Fall 2017. For the MSA, this means one of its reservations is used every week to schedule Jummah, limiting other events and meetings the organization can have. After he spoke with Souadda in preparation for last semester, Chris Carey, the senior director of Student Activities, reached out to Student Center Operations to see if Jummah could be considered “a non-organization reservation,” meaning it wouldn’t count toward MSA’s two weekly allowances. “And my response at that point was, ‘Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to do that,’” said Jason Levy, the senior director of Student Center Operations. “If we go down that path, then any student organization can say, ‘We want more than two,’ because literally every student organization can serve the entire community,” Levy said. “For me, it was a slippery-slope request because there’s a lot of groups that would want to do that same thing. We just don’t have the space.” Levy said Student Center Operations only has 19 reservable spaces, and there are about 390 registered student organizations. Souadda also spoke with Tiffenia Archie, the assistant vice president of IDEAL, about using a lecture room at IDEAL’s building, the Burrow, for Jummah. But the space, at Broad Street near Diamond, was not suited to fit the number of students who attend while still being able to face in the direction necessary for prayer. “People have been helpful,” Souadda said. “But there’s only so much you can do when the system ties your hands.” “You do what you have to do, but I think if Temple is going to pride itself on diversity and culture and that’s going to be the big thing … students need to feel comfortable on campus,” he added. jenny.roberts@temple.edu
SHEFA AHSAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The sisters’ side of the congregation listens to the sermon at a Jummah prayer held in the Underground of the Student Center. About 100 students attend the prayer.
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Professors create website for history of Earth, evolution The website compiles information from more than 3,000 studies into a public database. By MORIAH THOMAN For The Temple News Blair Hedges can name species that lived more than 50 million years ago by clicking on a website he helped create. Biology professors Sudhir Kumar and Hedges co-direct TimeTree, an interactive website that allows users to discover species divergence, or when a species splits into two. The pair are both Laura H. Carnell professors, which recognizes stand-out educators and researchers, in the College of Science and Technology. This project is part of the Center for Biodiversity, which focuses on evolution under Hedges’ direction. The website also allows users to build a time tree, which is an evolutionary tree of life chart that also looks at the evolutionary history of a species, family or class. TimeTree takes data from more than 3,000 academic articles and compiles them into a public knowledge database on the tree of life, a research tool used to understand the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms. The website also shows the evolutionary timescale for more than 97,000 species. “[TimeTree] not only tells you about the evolutionary history of the relationship of species, but also when they came about,” Kumar said. “That is exactly what TimeTree is about and we can add bells and whistles and new tools to it, but ultimately the basic concept of that particular resource is TimeTree.” TimeTree came to fruition in the late 1990s, when Hedges and Kumar were Ph.D. students at Pennsylvania State University and Hedges earned a grant from NASA. “It was the beginning of the astrobiology institute that NASA has, and we proposed this database and they liked the idea and funded it,” Hedges said. Kumar said when the first version of the TimeTree website was released in 2006, there were only a few thousand species and a few hundred studies contained. “TimeTree’s [purpose] is to give people information on the timescale of the evolution of life,” Hedges said. “Family trees, like the family trees for people or species, are really how things are related, but it’s not necessarily a time scale. It uses relationships we have, and then it adds the other dimension of time.”
Kumar said the most interesting aspect of TimeTree is the challenge of how to accurately represent knowledge from a large number of studies in a single picture. Hedges works on the design of the database and checks the quality of the data. Sarah Hanson, a full-time research assistant in Center for Biodiversity, has worked on TimeTree since 2012 and is a data curator for the website. She also earned her master’s in globalization and development communication in 2016. “It’s my job to identify studies that are useful for TimeTree,” Hanson said. “It’s also my job to contact the authors to ask for their data files and organize and prepare the data to be entered into the database.” In the future, Hedges hopes the website will continue to expand and develop new tools, like adding more abiological features and making navigation on the site easier. “Most importantly, we want to keep up with the progress of science,” Hedges said. “It takes a lot of work to do that, and at the moment, Sarah has 1,000 new studies to add to the database.” moriah.thoman@temple.edu GENEVA HEFFERNAN/THE TEMPLE NEWS Blair Hedges and Sudhir Kumar, both biology professors, work at the Center for Biodiversity and developed a map to visualize Earth’s history.
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Cherry & White game held at practice field Friends, family and students gathered at 10th and Diamond streets for the annual Cherry & White Game street fair on Saturday. Each year, Temple football divides its squad into two teams, white team “Greatness Doesn’t Quit” and cherry team “Temple Tuff,” to play a spring game in preparation for the upcoming fall season. A street fair with food and games was held before kickoff. Sye’smed, 6, enjoyed a game of cornhole with his grandfather, while others ate watermelon, burgers and hot dogs. The Temple University Bookstore also provided discounted Temple apparel for fans. Stella the Owl, Hooter and the Temple Temperors all attended the pregame festivities. The Temple Temperors include alumni who dress up in royalty garb and are Temple football season-ticket holders. The first 1,500 fans to arrive at the street fair were offered T-shirts in either cherry or white. Those who chose the color corresponding to the winning team won various discounts to local businesses around Main Campus. Greatness Doesn’t Quit defeated Temple Tuff 17-14.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
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Global Days of Service focus on supporting North Philadelphia The Global Days of Service were previously only held on one day. By MARISSA HOWE For The Temple News Sonia Galiber thinks it’s important for students to know where they are in order to make a change in North Philadelphia. “Understand who you are and where you come from and what privileges may come with your life experience… and what role you play in this greater society,” said Galiber, a 2014 political science alumna and the director of operations at Philly Urban Creators. “That is how culture changes, culture has changed from the way people think.” Philly Urban Creators is a nonprofit that runs a two-acre farm on 11th and Dauphin streets that seeks to develop and revitalize the surrounding area through art and education. It is also one of several organizations that is hosting volunteer events
for this year’s annual Global Days of Service, an effort to encourage service and volunteering organized by the Office of Alumni Relations at Temple. The weeklong event will have opportunities open to students, faculty, alumni and anyone else who wishes to give their time. The Global Days of Service started on Monday and will run through Sunday. Participants in the Global Days of Service will have the opportunity to volunteer with Philly Urban Creators on April 29. At the beginning of this session, they will learn about the history of North Philadelphia and the origins of the Urban Creators. After they work on the urban farm or assist in cleanup efforts, the volunteers will end their time with a debriefing discussion about what they have learned and how they can contribute to the community in North Philadelphia. “As a student, you want to know where your school comes from, and as a North Philly resident you need to know where North Philly comes from,” Galiber said. “There’s a certain level of pride and love that comes from learning that history.” This annual event was originally
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FRIENDSHIP gan writing a book called “A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science & Cancer.” The Salon magazine writer will release her book on Wednesday. It reflects on Williams’ experiences with fighting her own cancer and losing a best friend to ovarian cancer. “The prime love story in the book is one between two friends,” Williams said. “And to be able to still feel her friendship makes this one of the greatest love stories ever.” While they studied at Temple, Williams and Preg worked together on art projects in their apartment in Center City. And in sickness, Williams said Preg taught her how to deal with the cancer she was fighting. “Debbie dealt with it with such grace,” Williams said. “She has been an inspiration in so many ways.” Jill Burke-Huyette, a 1987 radio, TV and film alumna, also lived with the two in Center City. She considers them two of her closest friends. BurkeHuyette lived in Peabody Hall with Preg her freshman year. After she studied abroad in London with Williams, the three moved in together. “I have never had friends that were as close as we were,” Burke-Huyette said. “It left me speechless and devastated when they were both diagnosed.” “I am glad they had one another to be with,” she added. “Those were trying times that required a lot of faith.” Williams sought treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where she opted to undergo a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy drug combination — ipilimumab and nivolumab — which was not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The immunotherapy treatment is designed to use the body’s own defense system to target and at-
only one day, but Maura McGlone, the associate director of university partnerships, said the office received feedback from people who had missed the event or were unable to participate on the designated day. “It’s not a one-and-done thing,” McGlone said. “If you forget that your thing was on Tuesday, you still have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to do something else.” This annual event, which has occurred since 2013, was previously limited to alumni and took place in the fall. It is now open to students, faculty members and anyone else who wishes to participate. This year, the organization reached its goal for 500 volunteers. Dawn Ramos, the president of the College of Liberal Arts Alumni Association, hopes that since this event is now in the spring, the weather will encourage more volunteers to contribute. This year, there are 33 registered volunteer sites across the United States and at Temple University Japan. People who cannot volunteer at
tack cancer cells so that they can be eliminated and prevented. “I figured it was my best shot,” Williams said. “And I soon became one of the first people to survive stage IV melanoma.” In 2015, the immunotherapy drug combination treatment was approved by the FDA and is now used to treat several different kinds of skin cancer. But even though she survived, Williams said she will never forget that her best friend didn’t.
these sites but still want to contribute, can submit their work to the Office of Alumni Relations website so that service they have done elsewhere is counted toward the overall impact of the Global Days of Service. There are four main sites, or featured projects, that give back specifically to the North Philadelphia community. These four projects focus on hunger, the environment, health and education. Temple will partner with organizations like the Share Food Program to help distribute food to low-income Philadelphians, the Tanner G. Duckrey Elementary School on Diamond Street near 15th, where volunteers will aid teachers in their classrooms or clean the school, and the North Broad Renaissance, which aims to clean and revitalize the area around North Broad Street. In addition, there will be a blood drive on Tuesday in the Liacouras Center. “It all takes 15 minutes,” McGlone said. “You give the gift of life and you’re able to save more people than you think, and so we wanted to hold one of those on campus.”
Temple will also hold a fundraising initiative on Tuesday called Temple Toast. Blake Piper, the assistant director of programs and initiatives, said the event is “a 24-hour day of giving, so it’s one day for everyone at the university to come together and make a donation.” When making a donation, people can choose to give to a college or program at Temple, like athletics, the library or specific scholarship funds. Temple Toast started in 2015. This year’s goal is to have 1,500 donors in one day. “If you combine our first two years of Temple Toast together, we received $250,000 from over 2,500 donors,” Piper said. “We don’t have any monetary goals because we are really all about participation.” “Temple has such a large alumni base, has such a large student base, who are really passionate and have this kind of spirit behind them,” McGlone said. marissa.howe@temple.edu @marissahowe24
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To still be able to feel her friendship makes this one of the greatest love stories ever. Mary Elizabeth Williams 1988 radio, TV and film alumna
“I didn’t want to write a book about how great I was to have defeated cancer,” she said. “I wrote it from a point of view of someone who was hurt and deeply humbled by cancer.” Williams said writing her book was the way she coped with that hurt — she would dump what she was feeling onto blank pages. “I think that people will have hope and will learn about cancer treatment after reading Mary Elizabeth’s book,” Burke-Huyette said. “She wrote it in a way that is relatable and easy to understand.” “I hope people can also learn that we need one another,” Williams said. “I want people to take from my book a story about friendship because no one should have to go through anything alone.” patrick.bilow@temple.edu
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F E AT U R E S
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TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
Donors have ‘immediate impact’ through OwlCrowd Through its ninth campaign, the university is sponsoring six projects this year. By ERIN MORAN Deputy Features Editor The Philadelphia Aphasia Community at Temple, a program that facilitates free therapy and support groups for adults, often struggles to afford the resources it needs, including up-to-date technology. The groups are for adults with aphasia — a communication disorder caused by brain damage, often after one experiences a stroke — who otherwise may not have the support they need. “We have groups members who have told us they come here, they talk with us and then they go home and that’s all the conversation they have for the week,” said Gayle DeDe, the director of PACT. “They literally don’t talk to another person.” “Because we don’t charge our group members and we don’t really have a budget, we’ve gotten creative in some ways,” she added. This year, DeDe hopes the costs of running the groups will be offset by funding from OwlCrowd, the university’s crowdfunding program supported by alumni, donors, students
and their families. OwlCrowd’s ninth campaign began on March 20 and benefits six projects. As of Monday, PACT has raised $3,237, Engineers Without Borders has raised $1,855, the Veterans Honor Scholarship has raised $1,485, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has raised $1,810, Ambler EarthFest Transportation Angels has raised $3,454 and Books for Dunbar Elementary has raised $2,193. OwlCrowd aims to fund all six projects in 45 days before the campaign ends on May 4. Wayne Green, who attends PACT’s groups, said some of his favorites are the music group, the spirituality group and Finding the Words: Authors with Aphasia, which pairs people with aphasia with speech-language-hearing students to write short books. “I like the [recreational therapy] group too because I get to talk to everybody and have a good time,” Green said. “They help me.” PACT is currently at 64 percent of its $5,000 goal. Blake Piper, the assistant director of programs and initiatives, helps manage OwlCrowd by selecting the projects for each campaign, maintaining the website and promoting projects to alumni. He said when groups apply for funding through OwlCrowd, the selection committee chooses causes based on the likelihood of success and whether the proj-
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DESIGN erable” project and that they can continue to raise funds for and build. The design collaborative brings together architecture professors and students to work on an urban design project that addresses issues in Philadelphia neighborhoods like Kensington and Norris Square. The project uses the urban acupuncture theory. Students from the community development program and Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha — a nonprofit that works in the areas of behavioral health, affordable housing, substance use treatment and other support services for Philadelphians, — have also worked with the collaborative. Harrison, who has worked in the architecture department since 1992, received a grant from the university in the early 2000s to form the Urban Workshop with landscape architecture, geography and urban studies and fine arts faculty members. The latest project, which ended in Spring 2016, was a collaboration between Tyler School of Art’s planning & community development department’s graduate planning workshop and APM. The groups researched the area around 6th Street and Susquehanna Avenue and the history of Germantown Avenue to see if a pop-up marketplace could help revitalize the community. The APM project originally started in 2009 when the organization set up a “master plan” for improving the Germantown Avenue corridor, said Angel Rodriguez, APM’s vice president of community and economic development. One of the suggestions that came from the plan included a possible pop-up marketplace that would increase the amount of people walking in the area. APM ap-
ect will have a direct, specific impact. “They fall in line with Temple’s mission and benefit the community as a whole or give students an educational opportunity that they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Piper said. For example, Piper said Engineers Without Borders aims to send engineering students to a small town in Peru for a project that will provide clean drinking water to about 30 people.
They fall in line with Temple’s mission and benefit the community as a whole . Blake Piper Assistant director of Temple’s programs and initiatives
Temple’s chapter of honor society Phi Beta Kappa will make a tangible impact closer to home, Piper said. The group wants to raise $3,000 to provide a book to every student at Dunbar Promise Academy on 12th Street near Montgomery Avenue. A $5 donation can buy three books for students to take home, Piper said. “Our goals are first and foremost to get books into the hands and homes and hearts of young kids,” said Matt Wray, a sociology professor and the president of Phi Beta Kappa. “That’s really core to anyone’s intel-
proached the planning & community development department and the Urban Workshop research the feasibility of the project and create renderings. The students worked on this in Spring 2016. APM applied for a grant through the 2017 Knight Cities Challenge, but was not chosen as a finalist. Rodriguez said he sees this as a slight “hiccup,” but the project will continue. The organization is working on getting zoning permits and conducting several walkability studies this year along the Germantown Avenue corridor. “It is really about the activation of the corridor and getting people excited about the city and the rest will come,” Rodriguez said. The workshop’s first projects were with the Norris Square Community Alliance. From 2002 to 2003, the collaborative worked to make design changes to local schools and repurpose an open lot, which has now become the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. “The whole idea was relationships,” Harrison said. “You don’t just jump in with a parachute and say, ‘We are going to make your neighborhood beautiful.’ We are going to work underneath what the issues are, what the needs and aspirations for community members are.” Harrison said for the next Urban Workshop, she wants to take a look at gentrification in two neighborhoods with different socioeconomic levels. The basis for Urban Workshop’s projects are strengthening communities. “A lot of times communities can test out ideas and we are a perfect opportunity for them to be like, ‘Oh, OK, it could be like this,” Harrison said. “It’s blue-sky thinking.” emily.ivy.scott@temple.edu @emilyivyscott
COURTESY JOSEPH LABOLITO Sally Harrison, an architecture professor, is the founder of the Urban Workshop. The design collaborative has made suggestions on ways to improve neighborhoods like North Philadelphia and Kensington.
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lectual development, is that they have access to books.” “The truth is that’s a fairly privileged, middle-class benefit, to have a home full of books,” Wray added. “It’s not true of every home in America. It’s not true of every home in Philadelphia.” The Ambler EarthFest Transportation Angels increases young students’ access to educational tools. EarthFest, an annual Earth Day celebration at Ambler Campus, introduces kindergarten through 12thgrade students from a five-county radius to about 90 exhibitors like the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Franklin Institute and Temple’s landscape architecture & horticulture department. The Transportation Angels help defray the cost of getting to the “giant science fair” by funding buses for schools that otherwise could not afford the trip, said Jim Duffy, a public relations coordinator at Ambler Campus who helps plan EarthFest. “I think to really connect student to the idea that the environment is important, that STEM education is important, you really have to connect with them young,” Duffy said. “Basically empowering them to learn what they can do to protect and preserve the planet for the future.” At Main Campus, computer and information sciences instructor Claudia Pine-Simon is using OwlCrowd for the fourth year in a row to bring
female students to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference in Orlando, Florida. OwlCrowd provides $1,000 scholarships to help cover travel and registration costs. Pine-Simon said three of the 10 students who attended last year’s conference in Houston used OwlCrowd scholarships. Pine-Simon said the conference is “life-changing” for the students who attend, many of whom receive on-the-spot interviews and even job offers from companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google. “When you see 18,000 successful women in this field, it can’t help but change your outlook about not only yourself, but the world,” she said. “[The students] all come back like you’re on top of the world and you’re going to do so much and you’re so energized in so many ways.” Piper said by donating to one of the six projects, alumni, students, parents and friends can make a difference. “I think that every single one of the projects is really going to have an immediate impact and really benefit something specific and tangible,” he said. “[Donors] can really know that they are having an impact.” erin.moran@temple.edu @ernmrntweets
JULIE HUTCHINSON FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Joan Fanwick, a senior early childhood education major, uses a CADD Prizm IV pump daily for three hours in her apartment near Main Campus.
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HEALTHCARE ing, Fanwick’s normal day includes taking 10 to 15 pills. One of her medications is an immunosuppressant drug — the equivalent of a low chemotherapy dose. She’s used to setting up her feeding tube and hooking herself up to IVs through the port located in her chest. Fanwick received her diagnosis last year at age 20 after 10 years of chronic joint pain and orthopedic problems, resulting in double hip surgery during her teenage years. The ACA is the only way she is able to pay for treatments, she said. She is not covered by her parents’ health insurance because their plan only covers doctors from her home state of Connecticut. Fanwick’s disease is so rare that it requires specialists, most of whom are based in New York City. “[My disease is] not usually this severe or life-threatening, so people don’t take it that seriously,” Fanwick said. “I’m in the 10
percent that has nervous system involvement and the 2 percent of that which include autonomic involvement, so like cardiovascular, digestive and other internal organs.” The severity of Fanwick’s health care concerns is uncommon among students. Mark Denys, the senior administrator of Student Health Services, said a repeal of the ACA would not have a substantial impact on most students who use Temple’s health services. “The only thing we use insurance for is to get blood drawn or medications or if we have to refer them to a specialist,” Denys said. He said the most common cause for a visit to SHS is cold and flu symptoms, which require a $10 rapid strep test for strep throat. “We’ve had a couple [students concerned about a potential repeal of the ACA], but definitely not an overwhelming number,” Denys said. “A few folks that get their medications from us and are afraid that that might go away, but it’s very few.” Fanwick hopes that by shar-
ing her story and personalizing the disease, representatives like Sen. Pat Toomey — whose office she often calls — are more likely to vote to keep the ACA in effect. She is also working with an advocacy organization called Health Stories Project to create a video to help others understand the severity of her disease. She added that many people — even people who have less severe cases of Sjögren’s syndrome — don’t understand her health care struggles. “It’s a little terrifying sometimes,” she said. “Because you think that if you put a face to it, then people will care more. But especially the article from Seventeen was also posted on Yahoo, and the Yahoo comments were like insane. A lot of people saying that it was ‘fake news’ and I was like, ‘No, this is my life.’” “There really is no plan B, which is a little scary,” Fanwick added. “If I wasn’t able to get the life-saving treatments that I currently get, I would be wheelchair- and bed-bound. School wouldn’t be an option.” megan.platt@temple.edu
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
S P O RT S
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
SPORTS BRIEFS
TRACK & FIELD
As career winds down, Chapman hopes to set personal records in final meets The senior jumper has the Penn Relays and the conference championships to accomplish her goal. By KEVIN SCHAEFFER For The Temple News Simone Chapman likes to the same thing on the night before every meet. “I watch videos of Olympic jumpers, old and new,” the senior jumper said. “I try to see the exact steps they use, their technique that makes them so good. That has really helped me out in my career, mimicking the great jumpers.” Chapman is one of Temple’s seven seniors this season. Most of them have been dealing with injuries that have affected the team’s results. The plethora of injuries can be seen at any workout. Coach Elvis Forde sets up a workout for each group of his athletes, sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers. But only about 75 percent can participate in the full plan. Others either have to stop midway, not participate at the same level as their
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teammates or do a different regimen. Chapman was one of the few who people who finished everything Forde laid out for her to do at Wednesday’s practice. “It has been a real up-and-down outdoor season for the girls,” Forde said. “It has been hard for anyone to get a rhythm going when a few girls miss practice here, and others there. It has been a somewhat disappointing season overall.” Chapman said she would only do one thing differently if she could re-do her career: continue to achieve personal bests throughout her senior season in the triple jump. She set personal records almost every season, indoor and outdoor, until her senior campaign. She has two guaranteed meets left in her Temple career. Only the Penn Relays and the American Athletic Conference championship remain unless she qualifies for the NCAA East Regional. She is hoping to end her senior season strong. Chapman is short on opportunities to break her personal triple jump record of 11.92 meters, but she hopes her pre-meet routine can push her over the top. Chapman’s 11.54-meter triple jump at Saturday’s Morgan State Legacy Invitational in Baltimore was her best this season.
“With the year almost over, we’re pretty much done with all of the conditioning, especially with the injuries we’re dealing with,” Chapman said. “But now we’re just really focused on runway work, which is really heavy on technique in these workouts, making sure every step is as precise as it can be.” Even if Chapman doesn’t break her own record, she has come to terms with this being her last season of competing in track & field after being on a team for the last 12 years. She is an environmental studies major and wants to work in government in either policy, environmental law or geographical information systems. Chapman hasn’t ruled out stepping away from track completely. After establishing her professional career, she thinks she could help coach kids and help them achieve their goals like she did. “I’ve always thought about doing some type of coaching,” Chapman said. “I think I would want to coach little kids early on when they just start running track.”
TRACK & FIELD
Moore sets school record in weekend competion The Owls competed in two events on Friday and Saturday. Freshman distance runner Grace Moore and the distance quad competed at the Larry Ellis Invitational on Friday at Princeton University. Moore finished the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10 minutes, 41.68 seconds to break the school record set by junior distance runner Katie Pinson, who set a personal best in Friday’s event. Sophomore distance runner Katie Leisher ran a personal-best time in the 1,500 on Friday. In Saturday’s 1,500 at the Morgan State Legacy Invitational, freshman distance runner Millie Howard placed second and Pinson placed third. Sophomore multis competitor Crystal Jones placed fourth in both the 400 and 100 hurdles. Senior hurdler and jumper Sydnee Jacques placed seventh in the 100 hurdles. Senior sprinter and jumper Jimmia McCluskey earned a season-best in the long jump. Senior hurdler and jumper Simone Chapman’s triple jump was also a season-high. Distance runners freshman Caitlin O’Brien, graduate student Emily Nist and senior Megan Schneider all placed in the top five of Saturday’s 5,000. Temple’s next event is the Penn Relays, which are from April 27-29 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field. -Evan Easterling
kevinschaeffer@temple.edu @_kevinschaeffer
PATRICK CLARK FILE PHOTO Freshman Grace Moore (left), sophomore Katie Leisher and freshman Millie Howard practice at Belmont Plateau on Oct. 26.
MEN’S TENNIS
Tulane ends Owls’ season in conference tourney The Owls ended their season with a 4-0 loss to Tulane in the first round of the American Athletic Conference tournament in Florida. With the loss, the Owls finished their season with an overall record of 17-10. They recorded just one win in five matches against conference opponents. The loss also marks the second season in a row in which the Owls ended their season with a 4-0 sweep in the first round of the conference tournament. The Owls have never made it past the round of eight of The American’s conference championship since joining the conference at the beginning of the 2013-14 season. Seniors Filip Stipcic and Vineet Naran are the only two Owls who will graduate in Spring 2017. -Dan Wilson
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Freshman attacker Owen Winters prepares for a drill during practice at Howarth Field last Tuesday.
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LACROSSE ing to do whatever it takes to win.” “This season has had a lot of ups and downs,” said Ryan Fitzpatrick, a senior defender and team officer who played on the 2015 championship team. “But we have a great team and I really think we could win the national championship again. First we just need to get to the dance and then anything can happen.” Senior Tristan Karten leads the team in scoring with 27 goals and 12 assists while fellow senior Griffin O’Donnell has started in goal this season. Underclassmen are also among the team leaders. Freshman Luke Brennan has 11 goals and 10 assists, and sophomore Bailey Haines has tallied 14 goals and two assists. On April 14, Temple went to State College to take on No. 1 Penn State. The Owls fell in overtime by a score of 6-5 in what Berkelbach called an “electric” atmosphere. “It was a really competitive game,” Berkelbach said. “Penn State Club Lacrosse is a powerhouse and they thought we couldn’t hang with them. I told the guys that if you bring that energy to every game for the rest of the season, I promise
we’ll be going to nationals.” Coach Chris Berkelbach, Eric’s older brother, said games like that are representative of how the year has gone. The Owls took down local rivals like West Chester University and Drexel University with ease. Temple beat Drexel by five goals on April 13, and Karten scored five goals in Temple’s 10-5 win against the Golden Rams on March 3. Temple, however, fell to more competitive teams like the University of Virginia and Navy, which are both ranked in the Top 25 of the Ratings Percentage Index. Temple is No. 31. “Some of our losses feel like could’ve, would’ve, should’ve,” Chris said. “We could have won that game, we should have beaten that team, but we just couldn’t get the job done. But I think at this point, I’m very happy and the team is very close to where we need to be going into the playoffs.” Chris started coaching the club team on a volunteer basis when he moved to Philadelphia in 2014 and is credited for turning the team around. The 26-year-old played club lacrosse at Rutgers and was an assistant coach for his high school coach’s club team. After Eric continually complained about the lack of organization and com-
petitiveness of the Temple club team, Chris decided to help. Eric said the team went from being the “most frustrating thing” he had ever been a part of to Division II champions in one year. “The whole thing has changed since our freshman year,” Eric said. “More people started talking about us, more people started coming to our games and the whole thing just took a huge turn and for us. It was a lot of fun.” Chris said he is not sure about his future with the team. While he originally joined to help his brother, he is now very much invested in the team and cannot see himself leaving anytime soon. But this season is the top priority for the Owls’ coach. Temple is one victory away from reaching the national tournament in his brother’s final season. “Making it to nationals would just be a great experience for our team,” Chris said. “In general, Temple Men’s Club Lacrosse is not viewed as a great team. So I think that making the trip to nationals would really get our name out there. And once we get there, anything can happen.” graham.foley@temple.edu @graham_foley3
HOJUN YU FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore Uladzimir Dorash (right), stands by as freshman Francisco Bohorquez serves during their doubles match in Temple’s 7-0 win against Rider University at the Student Pavilion on April 12.
MEN’S SOCCER
Mueller signs with German pro team Former defender Stefan Mueller signed with German team TB Upshusen, adding to the list of athletes who will play professionally after graduation. Forward Jorge Gomez Sanchez, defender Carlos Moros Gracia and defender Matt Mahoney have all signed professional contracts in the past few months. Both sides of Mueller’s family are from Germany, he has a German passport and he can speak some German. His sister is living in Germany and playing soccer while she studies in graduate school. Mueller played in 70 career games and started in all of them, playing a main role in Temple’s defense since his freshman year. Mueller missed only three games and tallied a goal and four assists in his career. -Maura Razanauskas
sports@temple-news.com
S P O RT S
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TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
ROWING
Chance encounter leads ballerina into Varsity 8 boat Coach Rebecca Gryzbowski met grad student Emilie Mehler at the gym one day. By TOM IGNUDO For The Temple News Rebecca Grzybowski is always looking for athletes to join her rowing team. As she walked off the treadmill at the Temple University Fitness Center, she noticed Emilie Mehler on the rowing machine and approached her about joining the team. The two stayed in touch throughout Summer 2013, and eventually Mehler became a part of the team’s Novice 8 boat as a sophomore in Fall 2013. After four years of experience on the team, the graduate student now races in the Varsity 8 boat. Mehler made the jump to the boat as a junior thanks to her background in ballet and theater. “I’m really glad I went to the gym that day,” Grzybowski said. “And I’m glad I said something, because a lot of times you see women around campus and you’re like, ‘She looks really athletic.’ And sometimes you’re busy and don’t say anything, but I opened my mouth, and I’m glad she said yes.” Mehler has practiced ballet since she was 3 years old at the Metropoli-
tan Ballet Academy in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. She continued to stay involved with ballet and theater throughout grade school and high school. Mehler’s mom started the musicals at McKinley Elementary in Elkins Park. In Mehler’s first musical in fourth grade, she played Amaryllis in “The Music Man” — a Tony Awardwinning show that debuted in 1957. Mehler didn’t know all of the time she spent in the ballet academy and theater would help her rowing career. Posture in rowing is vital to the way a boat of eight or four can work as a unit in the water. If one rower is out of rhythm, it will have a negative impact on the unit, Grzybowski said. “As a dancer, everything is kind of naturally very tall and supported and sort of the way you carry yourself is very graceful and elevated,” Grzybowski said. “So you recognize that right away when you see how she carries herself.” Grzybowski wasn’t the only one to notice Mehler’s posture — the rest of her team did, too. One day at practice last year while they were on the rowing machines next to each other, sophomore Ciara O’Sullivan told Mehler she always tries to sit like she does. “The way she carries herself from ballet, I thought that was pretty intimidating,” senior Lea Millio said. “Just the way she sits and stands. We were all like, ‘Why is she doing that?’”
COURTESY KIM MEHLER Graduate rower Emilie Mehler (left), performs in “La Sylphide” at Abington Friends High School in June 2010.
Once Mehler joined Millio on the Varsity 8 boat as a junior, she always sought rowing advice. Mehler also brought a new perspective to the boat because she didn’t have any prior experience, which helped the rowers collaborate and grow together, Millio said. Initially, Mehler was terrified
when she made the switch to the Varsity 8 boat, but as a graduate student, she hopes to guide the team’s younger rowers. “Every year the boat changes, and it may change drastically or it may change not that much,” Mehler said. “But either way, the type of people who you tend to get are the really,
LACROSSE
Owls continue Friends of Jaclyn tradition The program pairs children with brain tumors to local high schools and colleges. By TESSA SAYERS Lacrosse Beat Reporter When she was first introduced to the lacrosse team in April 2010, Lily Adkins was 4 years old and had to use a walker to get around. Her family was still trying to accept the possibility she would never be able to walk or run like other kids. Adkins was diagnosed with an ependymoma brain tumor at 14 months old. Her father, Mike, said her childhood development had started to regress. Lily couldn’t sit up anymore. The family’s pediatrician referred them to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors removed the tumor. Lily, now 11, has been cancer-free for nearly 10 years. Seven years after she first met the lacrosse team, Lily proved her doctors wrong when she ran onto Howarth Field after she was announced as an honorary starter at the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation game on April 8 against Villanova. “We are really thrilled to watch her thriving as a young, healthy girl going through life,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “Our team is around to provide our support and love, and any time they can make it to our games she is a part of it as much as possible.” The Adkins family first heard about Friends of Jaclyn — a nonprofit founded in 2005 that pairs children with brain tumors with local high school and college teams to help improve their quality of life and raise awareness — during Lily’s inpatient stay at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The Murphy family started the foundation when their daughter Jaclyn was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a malignant brain tumor. She was adopted by Northwestern University's lacrosse team as an honorary member and sports@temple-news.com
wanted to share her experience with other sick children. Murphy celebrated her 22nd birthday six months ago. Temple’s lacrosse team became involved with the Friends of Jaclyn organization in 2008 when they adopted Devon Lam, who was diagnosed with a tumor at 19 months old in 2004 and passed away in December 2008. On April 3, 2010, the team had a Friends of Jaclyn Foundation game, where it invited local families affected by brain cancer to attend. The Adkins family heard about it and decided to attend. They were introduced to the team through the foundation and the Lam family. A few months later, Lily was adopted by the team. “No one treated her differently,” Mike said. “They treated her like a rock star. That was great. It has given her this amazing confidence. She has gone from shy and quiet to a really good, caring, outgoing young woman, and it’s great. A big part of that is really Temple Lacrosse and the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation.” “I really like it,” Lily said. “It’s like I’m hanging out with my friends and it’s really fun.” While the Adkins family considers Temple Lacrosse an inspiration to Lily, the Owls consider Lily an even bigger inspiration to them. With 58 seconds remaining against Villanova, Rosen called a timeout. Before running back onto the field, the team yelled “For Lily.” That was the motivation the Owls needed to come away with the 1311 win. “We went into the game saying that we were going to play for Lily,” senior midfielder Morgan Glassford said. “It was all for her today and it was awesome.” Temple Lacrosse is one of 752 high school and college athletic programs that participate with the organization, said Denis Murphy, Jaclyn’s father and a co-founder of Friends of Jaclyn. “You could never have dreamed it would be at this magnitude,” he said.
EVAN EASTERLING/THE TEMPLE NEWS Coach Bonnie Rosen (left), and Lily Adkins walked around the Temple Sports Complex and hung out after Temple’s win against Villanova on April 8.
In 2013, Temple Football joined the lacrosse team and adopted 15-year-old Chris Richer, who suffered from neurofibromatosis — a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerve tissue. He signed a ceremonial letter of intent with the team and was given his own jersey and locker, along with an invitation to attend all practices and games. Richer was the fourth child adopted by a Temple team. Before being cut in 2014, the softball team was also involved, adopting then six-year-old Vanessa Moresi in 2011. “From our end, I hope it provides a bigger picture to our players that school work is not the hardest
thing in the world and winning and losing is not the hardest thing in the world and being tired from exercise is not the hardest thing in the world,” Rosen said. “When you look at a young girl who has been through as much as she has and see the smile and her thriving, it’s really a wonderful perspective piece for our team.” “Bonnie has had these girls making a difference since their freshman year,” Murphy said. “To change one child’s life is pretty powerful.”
really driven, really, really fit and athletically inclined.” “I think those people have really helped me grow in the sport,” she added. “It’s just been a wild ride.” thomas.ignudo@temple.edu @Ignudo5
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DAWKINS way guys and us Jersey guys, we’re not the high-praised athletes, so we just always have to work through, how I would say it, the mud.” Dawkins was a second-team AllAmerican Athletic Conference selection in 2015 and a first team all-conference selection in 2016. He also performed well at the NFL Scouting Combine, where he was one of the top 15 performers among offensive linemen in the three-cone drill, broad jump and 20-yard shuttle. “Yeah, we should get Dion back,” offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude said after watching Dawkins at Temple’s Pro Day in March. “I was over at the workout and he’s a beautiful looking dude.” Most mock drafts project Dawkins as a second-round pick, although some have him going in the first round. CBS Sports ranked Dawkins as the 56th-best player in this year’s draft and the fourth-best offensive guard. Dawkins is not sure if he will play offensive tackle or guard in the NFL. “I try to stay away from it, but social media, it drags you in,” Dawkins said. “I’m just very excited to see where I end up because it could be anywhere. I could end up on the first day, second day, who knows, even the third day. But wherever I end up, I know it will be the right fit.” “With the frame, power, agility and mentality to help quickly at tackle or guard, Dawkins looks like a potential Day One starter,” CBS Sports’ Rob Rang wrote. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein described Dawkins as “a well-schooled, three-year starter who has chance to transition into an early starter.” Dawkins agrees with the assessment. “They’re going to get a day-one starter, not just off of ability, but just the work ethic,” Dawkins said. “I’m just going to grind and grind and grind, so I make myself known.” Dawkins will keep things simple during the draft on Thursday and Friday. His mom wanted him to be with family in Philadelphia when he hears his name called. “I’m going to enjoy one night with the family, and then after that, it’s back to work,” he said. owen.mccue@temple.edu
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S P O RT S
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
PAGE 19
SPRING FOOTBALL
Uncertainty surrounds specialists
Five underclassmen to keep an eye on this summer By OWEN MCCUE Sports Editor
1. REDSHIRT-FRESHMAN QUARTERBACK ANTHONY RUSSO Temple fans have been itching to see Russo since he signed with the Owls in February 2016. With the departure of Philip Walker, Temple’s all-time leading passer, Russo will have a chance to battle for the quarterback job with redshirt junior Frank Nutile, redshirt sophomore Logan Marchi and freshman Todd Centeio. Russo has a good arm, but there is some question about his fit in offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude’s offense, which features more quarterback runs than the pro-style offense Glenn Thomas ran last year. He completed 7-of-11 passes for 77 yards in Saturday’s Cherry and White game.
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore kicker Aaron Boumerhi kicks off during the Cherry and White game at Chodoff Field on Saturday.
Austin Jones’ return from injury could provide some competition at the kicking position this summer. By EVAN EASTERLING Assistant Sports Editor Austin Jones didn’t know what he tore, but he knew something was wrong when he felt a pop in his left knee. A Memphis player blocked Jones in the back during a kickoff return for a touchdown in the Tigers’ win on Oct. 6. The 26-yard field goal he missed in the fourth quarter was his last attempt of 2016. Tests revealed he had a torn ACL. Doctors estimated it would take him five to seven months to regain full strength. Jones, a right-footed kicker, injured his plant leg. He said he couldn’t kick until about the first week of spring practice, five months after the injury. Ed Foley, the tight ends and special teams coach, said Jones made 11-of-11 extra-point attempts on one step during practice on April 15. He started full-step kicks last week. “It’s been awhile since October,” Jones said. “So you know, actually getting out there on the field, full pads, cleats on, helmet on, it feels good.” The Owls’ senior kicker entered the Memphis game with a school record 17 consecutive made field goal attempts and
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YOUTH of high school. Junior running back Ryquell Armstead was the Owls’ second-highest rated running back in 2015 and quickly carved out a role in the Owls’ backfield, prompting the departure of former four-star recruit T.J. Simmons. Armstead ran for 919 yards and 14 touchdowns last season and will likely take on an even bigger workload after the departure of Jahad Thomas. Junior defensive back Delvon Randall has also been a mainstay in the Owls’ secondary since his arrival on campus in 2015. He earned a single-digit number on Friday after being voted as one of the team’s toughest players. Randall switched from No. 23 to No. 2, debuting his new number at Saturday’s Cherry and White game.
extended his streak to 19 before he missed his first two kicks of the season in the second half. Jones made 23-of-28 field goal attempts in 2015 to set a new school record for made field goal attempts in a season. He also broke the record most points by a kicker and highest field goal percentage with a minimum of 20 attempts. While Jones said he expects to be ready for fall preseason camp, Foley said he has “no idea” if Jones will be ready. “To kick a one-step extra point and kick a 45-yarder to win a game and really be able to plant and lock on that thing are two different things,” Foley said. “So we’re just going to let that thing take care of itself and see how it is.” Sophomore kicker Aaron Boumerhi took over the kicking duties after Jones’ injury. In nine games, he made 15-of-17 field goal attempts, including the first eight of his career. He made both of his attempts against Central Florida on Oct. 15. His 47-yarder, one yard short of his career-long, cut the Owls’ deficit to one possession late in the third quarter of their 26-25 win. Boumerhi assumed punting duties this spring after the team suspended senior Alex Starzyk indefinitely earlier this month. Starzyk averaged 39 yards on his 53 punts in 2016, a decrease from the 42.4 yards per punt he averaged on 63 attempts in 2015. Boumerhi averaged 58.3 yards per kickoff and produced 12 touchbacks last season. Foley said Boumerhi would have
been the backup punter late last season in case Starzyk got hurt. Boumerhi punted at Philipsburg-Osceola Area High School in central Pennsylvania and took reps behind Starzyk in practices last year. “He’s got a really good leg,” Foley said. “So it’s just a matter of getting him comfortable back there. And we haven’t even rugby punted yet, so he can do it if he needs to.” “The ball can easily be kicked, we’ll find somebody to kick it,” Foley added. “But we’ll see what happens with Starz, and hopefully he’ll be back.” Jones kicked field goals and kickoffs at Boone High School in Orlando, Florida but never punted, because the school had Tommy and Johnny Townsend, who play at the University of Florida. Jones said he and the coaching staff haven’t discussed what his role might be once he returns to full health. “We have a pretty good commodity with him and Boum both being back, and they both did a great job for us last year,” Foley said. “I expect that they would compete and do the same thing again next year.” “Nothing’s going to change between us,” Boumerhi said. “Even if it’s competition, or anything like that, nothing is going to change because at the end of the day, we’re all specialists, we all stick together. We’re all close, really close.”
Wright immediately became a weapon on offense last year, running plays out of the Wildcat formation and lining up at wideout to catch passes. “We’re trying to just execute, come watch film, listen to the coaches because we’re young,” Randall said. “We’ve got some experience, but we don’t have as much experience as last year. So just keeping working day-by-day to get where we need to be.” A good amount of the talent from those two classes, however, is still waiting to break through. Ali played four games last year before fracturing his elbow against Stony Brook University. Russo redshirted last year but is in the middle of a four-way quarterback competition this spring. Junior running back Jager Gardner, who broke off a 94-yard touchdown run in his first career start against Southern Methodist in 2015, will likely see more carries as a complement to Armstead in the back
field. Redshirt-sophomore linebackers DaiShaun Grimes and Jeremiah Atoki both chose Temple over other schools in The American, and sophomore Will Kwenkeu had offers from Power 5 schools like the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh. The three will compete for time at linebacker this summer with the loss of three starters from last year’s team. Dioubate, the most hyped talent of them all, played in 12 games as a freshman but only made five tackles. “The young guys, we’re really starting to really understand the defense and really understand as a group how good we can really be,” Dioubate said.
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2. SOPHOMORE DEFENSIVE LINEMAN KARAMO DIOUBATE Dioubate shocked many when he announced he was headed to Temple in January 2016. Though the Owls featured a deep defensive line last year, Rhule chose to play Dioubate instead of redshirting last season. He recorded five tackles, including one tackle for loss and a forced fumble. Dioubate will once again have to fight for snaps on a veteran defensive front that features redshirt seniors Sharif Finch and Greg Webb, senior Jacob Martin and redshirt juniors Michael Dogbe and Freddie Booth-Lloyd. However, it will be worth keeping an eye on if Dioubate carves out a role.
3. REDSHIRT-FRESHMAN OFFENSIVE LINEMAN MATT HENNESSY Hennessy competed for a starting spot on the offensive line as a true freshman in camp last year. He just missed out on earning a spot and played in three games before redshirting. With the departure of Brendan McGowan it looks like Hennessy will be the favorite to win the starting center position this summer. It will be interesting to see how the quarterback battle pans out because Hennessy played with redshirt-junior quarterback Frank Nutile at Don Bosco Preparatory High School.
4. SOPHOMORE LINEBACKER SHAUN BRADLEY Bradley played in 11 games last season after an injury kept him out of training camp. With redshirt-sophomore linebacker Chapelle Russell and redshirt-junior linebacker Jared Folks sitting out this spring with injuries, Bradley became the leader of the Owls’ linebacking corps. Bradley made five tackles in Saturday’s Cherry and White game and even got a carry at running back.
5. REDSHIRT-FRESHMAN TIGHT END KENNY YEBOAH From what The Temple News saw in limited access to practice, the former wide receiver looks like he could be a playmaker at tight end. Romond Deloatch showed how valuable a receiving tight end can be last season when he caught 18 passes for 242 yards and two touchdowns for the Owls. Yeboah and redshirt sophomore Chris Myarick currently have the most career receptions at the tight end position with one each. Yeboah snagged four passes for 34 yards during the Cherry and White game on Saturday.
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SPORTS
S P O RT S
PAGE 20
TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
NFL DRAFT
Dawkins, once overlooked, prepares for NFL draft He called himself a ‘no-star’ recruit before arriving at Temple in 2013. By OWEN MCCUE Sports Editor
D
ion Dawkins had just two Football Bowl Subdivision offers coming out of Rahway High School in New Jersey and Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. The former offensive lineman came to Temple, a program that hasn’t had an offensive lineman drafted since 2003. Now he is preparing for this week’s NFL draft, where he will likely be picked in the first three rounds. As Dawkins stood on the sidelines at Saturday’s Cherry and White game, he was reminded of how far he had come. “I always set my goals high,” he
said. “I planned on achieving every goal that I set. Definitely coming in here, making the NFL was the top goal. First day here, it was a struggle, but it was definitely a long journey, and I’m glad to get where I’m at today.” Dawkins wasn’t rated by most recruiting sites coming out of Rahway as a defensive lineman in Spring 2012. After playing a season on the offensive line at Hargrave Military Academy in Fall 2012, Dawkins earned a two-star rating from Rivals. com in 2013. His only FBS offers were from Temple and Cincinnati. Dawkins played in five games as a freshman at Temple, including two starts, but his season ended after he broke his foot. He earned the starting left tackle job as a sophomore and held the spot for the past three seasons. “I just wasn’t one of those kids that was five-star or four-star,” Dawkins said. “I was a no-star, and I made a way to find it work. Us RahJAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Former offensive lineman Dion Dawkins walks on the sidelines of Chodoff Field during Saturday’s Cherry and White football game.
DAWKINS | PAGE 18
FOOTBALL
MEN’S CLUB LACROSSE
Lacrosse club headed to nationals for second time in past 3 seasons The team won the Division II national title in 2015 before moving to Division I. By GRAHAM FOLEY For The Temple News
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore wide receiver Isaiah Wright (left), runs a route against senior defensive back Mike Jones on Saturday.
Young talent ready to fulfill untapped potential next fall The 2015 and 2016 recruiting classes are poised for breakout seasons next fall. By OWEN MCCUE Sports Editor One never really knows what a recruiting class will look like until a few years down the road. Take for instance last year’s senior group, which was rated as the 84th-best recruiting class in the country coming out of high school in 2013. After helping complete one of the best stretches in program history, the group is likely to have a handful of players drafted in this weekend’s NFL draft, including defensive lineman
Haason Reddick, now a projected first-round pick, who came to Temple as a walk-on. When Matt Rhule penned two four-star recruits in 2015, including redshirt-sophomore defensive back Kareem Ali, he said the Owls were “recruiting with the big dogs.” Rhule was getting kids to choose Temple over traditional football powerhouses. In 2016, Rhule backed that up by signing sophomore defensive lineman Karamo Dioubate, who Rivals ranked as the fifthbest player in Pennsylvania and No. 164 in the country. The class, which Rivals ranked second in the American Athletic Conference, also included redshirt-freshman quarterback Anthony Russo and sophomore wide receiver Isaiah Wright.
The talent from those classes could shine through this fall if the spring was any indication. “They’ve got tremendous athletic ability,” coach Geoff Collins said earlier this spring. “The biggest thing we’re making sure with the younger group is they think they came here and you’re just supposed to win 10 games every year.” “The guys that are juniors and seniors … they knew what it took in the off season, mentally and physically, the toughness and the physicality that’s needed here,” he added. “We’re making sure those guys aren’t missing that piece.” Some of those top recruits have already displayed why Rhule was so keen on them coming out
YOUTH | PAGE 19
In Spring 2015, the men’s club lacrosse team made a name for itself. The Owls, playing with a new coach and new attitude, traveled to State College, Pennsylvania and won the National College Lacrosse League Division II title. It was the culmination of an undefeated, 21-0, season that saw Temple knock off Club Division I powerhouse like Penn State and Rutgers University. “It was pretty unreal,” club president and captain Eric Berkelbach said.
“The whole season, we didn’t think about it, but we just kept winning games. It was a really cool experience.” Now, as a senior, he has a chance to lead his team back for another championship run. But this time, it will be at the D-I level. The Owls (11-5, 3-1 Liberty Division) were ranked No. 8 in the National Collegiate Lacrosse League Top 20 on April 18. They will play in the Sweet 16 round of the national tournament against Navy on Sunday at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. A victory in the playoff game will send Temple to the national tournament, also at Navy, on May 6 and 7. “For myself and the other seniors, we remember winning sophomore year,” Berkelbach said. “But we know it will feel so much better at D-I our senior year. Once we get there, we are go-
LACROSSE | PAGE 17
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore midfielder Ryan Donofry (right), takes a shot on goal during a practice drill at Howarth Field on April 18.
ROWING | PAGE 18
LACROSSE | PAGE 18
FOOTBALL | PAGE 19
BRIEFS | PAGE 17
Graduate student Emilie Mehler has been dancing ballet when she was 3 years old. She now rows in the Owls’ Varsity 8 boat.
Eleven-year-old Lily Adkins has become a special part of the Temple lacrosse program through Friends of Jaclyn.
There are some unanswered questions about the Owls’ specialists group after spring practice.
The men’s tennis team ended its season, the track & field team broke records, other news and notes.
Published on Apr 25, 2017
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