temple-news.com VOL. 90 ISS. 27
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2012
Storied campus takes new role Despite decreasing budgets and enrollment, officials say Ambler still has its place at Temple. SEAN CARLIN Assistant News Editor
D
riving up North Broad Street, Temple is pretty hard to miss. The shops of Avenue North, the majesty of Conwell Hall and the towering Johnson and Hardwick residence halls give an indication of the university’s place. While Main Campus harbors the hustle and bustle feel of an urban university, Ambler Campus offers a starkly different experience to its students. In what the Director of the Ambler Arboretum Jenny Rose Carey refers to as a “hidden gem,” Ambler sneaks up on the average visitor. No big flags, no signs of a huge marketing campaign, just a small cherry-andwhite sign on East Butler Pike showing that the campus is near. Ambler may not have the feel of the urban university that’s situated in North Philadelphia,
but it holds its own with a rich 100-plus-year-old history that stems from its roots in horticulture. And while Ambler’s budget has shrunk and enrollment has decreased in recent years, its administrators maintain that the campus holds relevance in ways that Main Campus does not.
A BOLD START
Ambler was not always the subsidiary to Main Campus that it is today. Founded in 1911 as the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, the Ambler Campus was conceived out of a trip to England by Germantown native and Quaker, Jane Bowne Haines, said Ambler alumna Mary Anne Blair Fry. “She went to England and found out that they had colleges or schools for women to learn the trade of horticulture and perhaps go into business for themselves and be their own boss,” Fry, a 1958 graduate,
TIMOTHY VALSHSTEIN TTN
Ambler Campus provides Temple students with a much different scene than North Philadelphia. However, the last residence hall closed in 2010. Without a residential population, the campus is catering toward adult and commuter students.
AMBLER PAGE 2
No commercial plans for bird design The winning design of the Bird’s Eye View contest may not see widespread use. LAURA DETTER The Temple News
ABI REIMOLD TTN file phto
Molly Denisevicz’s design won a contest aimed at stopping birds from flying into buildings. However, the university does not currently have plans to commercialize the design.
OPINION INEFFECTIVE FORM, p.5 Alex Olivier argues that student feedback forms are ineffective because students don’t take them seriously, and neither do faculty.
A&E SKATE SPACES, p.9 The Franklin’s Paine Park is finally near completion, and the Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund is proposing more parks in other communities.
SPORTS SPRING BALL, p.20 The football team completed its spring season with its annual Cherry and White game at the Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday, April 14.
“I looked to where birds feel safe in urban spaces...and I related that to music.”
The Temple News looks ahead to the challenges that come with the Big East. BRIAN DZENIS Editor-in-Chief Temple returns to the Big East after an unceremonious exit from the conference in 2004 and while the university stands to reap the benefits from moving into a Bowl Championship Series Conference, there are still a myriad of issues to be resolved to ensure this go-around is more successful than last time. “I think [getting in the Big East is] a wonderful opportunity for Temple, it’s great for the student body and it’s great for Temple as far as promoting its name and image on a larger
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scale,” said George Moore, the senior vice president of university council and secretary to the board of trustees who served in negotiating Temple’s agreement to enter the Big East. “It’s also a big responsibility, we have to do it right this time, I mean we really do, and everyone understands that so I think we’ll be in a position to do it right and make it successful.” “It’s not as if all the problems, issues, concerns and challenges go away, it’s difficult, intercollegiate athletics is difficult to keep at an appropriate level with the appropriate amount of resources and for everything to work right,” Moore added. The Temple News spoke with with Moore, Chief Financial Officer Anthony Wagner and Athletic Director Bill Bradshaw to understand what lies ahead for the university
in the Big East, apart from a change of conference opponents on the field.
THE FINANCIALS
Trustee Lewis Katz said at the March 7 Big East press conference that the move changes the university’s athletic budget by “800 percent,” but in reality, the changes won’t be that drastic. “In the near term, there’s not going to be much of a change,” Wagner said. “Our entry into the Big East is phased so with respect to the near term it’s only a fraction of what it’s going to be when it’s fully implemented.” An exact dollar figure for what will become of the university’s athletic budget and the subsidy to athletics has not been compiled yet. The Board of Trustees and university administration are still in the
The district attorney won’t file charges for videos alluding to a threat against Temple. BECKY KERNER The Temple News
process of sorting out how the increased expenses and revenues associated with entering the conference will play out, but some things can already be said with certainty. One of those is that the university’s athletic subsidy, which currently sits at $8,645,410, is slated to decrease with the added revenues. “One of the major reasons we went into the league is that the revenues have a great opportunity to relieve the subsidies for athletics, not entirely, but to reduce the subsidy,” Bradshaw said. “I would suspect that the net will have a dividend to the academic side of the house because those dollars that previously would have subsidized athletics will be available for other purposes,” Wagner add-
As the University of Pittsburgh grapples with a string of bomb threats, Temple has passed the April 10 date of what some believed to be a threat via a series of YouTube videos posted in February. Investigation into the videos, which some believed insinuated a bomb threat at the Bell Tower, led Temple Police and Philadelphia Police Central Detectives to track and find the student video creator at the Edge apartments on Feb. 22. However, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Charging Unit has decided no charges will be filed in the case. On Feb. 22, Temple Police identified the 21-year-old Temple student responsible for creating and posting three YouTube videos seemingly threatening the Bell Tower area. The final video was posted Feb. 16 and was the most overt, said Charles Leone, deputy director of Campus Safety Services. The video showed a cardboard box with ‘4/10/12’ written on it, last Tuesday’s date, and ended with the screen going black and sounds of an explosion. After investigating the incident last month, Temple Police determined there was no threat to the Temple community, Leone said. “We felt the student involved with the video was using it as a scare tactic crossing the line of creativity, [but] there was never a thought of danger,” he added.
BIG EAST PAGE 3
THREAT PAGE 3
Conference paired with concerns
LIVING COMMUTER CAMPUS, p.7 Though Ambler Campus is no longer a residential campus, its student involvement still thrives.
As a response to the approximate 1,000 bird deaths on Main Campus every year, the Birds’ Eye View competition hosted in Tyler School of Art, focused on raising awareness about the collisions and intended to produce designs that will alert birds as they fly closer to objects. However, the university does not currently have plans to mass produce the winning designs for use throughout Main Campus. “The primary goal was to raise awareness about this problem and to get the students thinking about what kind of design they would design for commercial use. So, I think it was twofold. It wasn’t really to say, ‘Oh, we are going to sell
it to a vendor,’” said Sandra “Now, nothing is in a comMcDade, the vice president of mercial application at this point operations in the office of sus- to put the student’s design on tainability. a film. There are companies In mid-February, sopho- that make these films and they more Molly know what our Denisevicz was students have named the windone. But, ner of the comright now, they petition, with have not cona design that nected,” Mcwas inspired Dade said. by power lines With the and the score spring migraof “The Cardition period, nal.” the university “I looked is currently to where birds testing both feel safe in urscreens Molly Denisevicz / the winner, bird’s eye view contest displayed on ban spaces and most times they Paley and the are on the power lines and I decals on the west side of Beurelated that to music,” Denise- ry Hall. vicz said. “It is now the spring miSince Denisevicz was gration season, so birds are named the winner, the univer- moving around and the library sity has displayed her design has been a traditional place along with other entries on the where birds crash into the wincorner of Paley Library, but dow. So, we are in an expericurrently has no further plans ment stage…We are still seeto utilize the designs McDade said. BIRDS PAGE 3
Video creator won’t be charged
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