Volume 90, Issue 25

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temple-news.com VOL. 90 ISS. 25

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012

Waivering support for NID

PROVOST CALLS FOR RESTRUCTURINGS

As the improvement district pends, some at Temple have spoken out against it.

The second draft of the White Paper calls for the scrutinized restructuring proposals.

SEAN CARLIN Assistant News Editor The North Central Neighborhood Improvement District proposed for the area surrounding Main Campus is supported by Temple, but is not without its fair share of dissenters. One of the most outspoken residents against the improvement district is Vivian VanStory who is the president and founder of the Community Land Trust Corporation, a nonprofit organization in North Philadelphia. While VanStory and her organization oppose the NCNID, William Bergman, vice president and chief of staff at Temple, is listed as a board member of the CLTC. VanStory said when she was gathering support for the organization, she approached Bergman, who said that he’d like to be part of it. Ray Betzner, assistant vice president of university communications, said after a conversation with Bergman that he is not part of the board, which VanStory refutes. “If he didn’t want to be part of the board he would have wrote me a letter,” VanStory said. “I think he’s caught in between now. So, I’m not putting his back against the wall. If he wasn’t on the board, he would have said he didn’t want to be on the board.” Bergman has not responded to multiple requests for an interview by The Temple News. Although confusion has risen from Bergman’s position with the CLTC, other people affiliated with Temple have come out against the NCNID. James White, trustee and former executive vice president, testified against the bill at a city council hearing on March 13. White, the former managing director of Philadelphia, listed numerous reasons for his opposition to the bill, including the supposed improvement of security in the neighborhood, which is allotted $75,000 of the district’s $450,000 initial budget, according to the bill. “There has been absolutely no

BRIAN DZENIS Editor-in-Chief

P

rovost Richard Englert’s White Paper laid out numerous possibilities for university restructuring in December 2011 and, in March, after discussions between the provost and faculty, those proposals have begun to become more clear. On March 15, four proposals and one memorandum stemming from the December version of the White Paper were sent out to faculty across the university. Three of them discuss the restructuring of Tyler School of Art, Boyer College of Music and Dance, the School of Communications and Theater and the College of Education. The fourth one deals with policies involving faculty across the university and the memorandum discussed changes involving student feedback forms. In the first restructuring proposal, Tyler, Boyer and the theater and film and media arts departments from SCT would become units under a newly created center for fine and performing arts. Each unit will be represented by a director that would answer to one dean who oversees the center. Each of the units would maintain its existing faculty, departments and academic programs. Instead of combining Tyler and Boyer together, a move that would affect

MEASURING DIVERSITY, p.5 Cary Carr argues that GLBT identification should be an option during the college admissions process.

LIVING SAVING THE EARTH, p.7 Earth Hour, held last weekend, sought to save energy and pay tribute to the planet by encouraging participants to shut off their electricity.

A&E ART AND RELIGION, p.9 The Chabad House for the Arts recently opened its South Street gallery to create a space for Jewish student artists at local art colleges.

SPORTS COMEBACK SEASON, p.20 The softball team learned sign language to better communicate with the Owls’ ace Capri Catalano.

Lewis Katz will head the company that owns the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. JOEY CRANNEY The Temple News Lewis Katz, a member of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees and chair of the athletics committee, led a team of six investors who purchased the Philadelphia Media Network, the parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, yesterday, April 2. The group of six, which includes insurance executive George E. Norcross III and philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, purchased PMN for $55 million, with an additional investment of $10 million in operation costs, from a group of hedge funds that bought out the company from bankruptcy in 2010. The team of investors will own PMN under General Media LLC, though the company will still operate under its current name. Katz and Norcross have been named managing partners, while Lenfest will act as Chairman of the group. “A world-class city needs world-class journalism to tell its story, and that’s what we have at The Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com,” Katz said in a press release. “These newspapers have a historic tradition of outstanding journalism in our city, and we want to preserve that tradition and marry it to the exciting digital opportunities that are revolutionizing the news business.” Katz was a part of the discussion of potential buyers of PMN since it was reported at the end of January that the company could be headed for sale. Former Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Flyers’ owner Ed Snider were reportedly working on a team with Katz, before Rendell asked Lenfest to take over as chairman of the group. On Feb. 17, 300 employees of the Inquirer and Daily News signed a public statement insisting that news coverage will not be compromised or censored under new ownership. “Regardless of who emerges as our new owners, they must guarantee that the integrity of our

“If we can save half a million dollars a year going forward, that’s a major difference.”

PAPER PAGE 2

DISTRICT PAGE 2

OPINION

students, creating the center allows the changes coming from restructuring to occur at the administrative level. “Rather than having a college of fine and performing arts, we would have a center with one dean, but we still maintain the integrity of Tyler, Boyer and the departments of film and media arts and theater,” Englert said. The idea for the center came from faculty proposals and from looking at other institutions, such as New York University’s Tisch School of Art, Rutgers and Boston University, which operate in a manner similar to the proposal. The move is also financially motivated. For the past three years, Robert Stroker has served as dean of Boyer and interim dean of Tyler, a move that saved the university $1.3 million during a three-year span, at approximately $450,000 a Richard Englert / year. Creating provost the center allows the savings to continue, Englert said. “If we can save half a million dollars a year going forward, that’s a major difference,” Englert said. “If we can make those reductions, we’ll do it in a second.” Under the proposal, Stroker would become the full-time dean of the center as well as the vice provost for the arts. For the faculty affected by the creation of the center, there are still more questions they have for the provost, but they have acknowledged there could be some benefits from becoming part of the center. Mark Radhert, a law professor and secretary for the Faculty Senate, listed the faculty’s remaining questions concerning

Trustee to own local news orgs.

Illustration Lucas J. Ballasy

NEWSPAPERS PAGE 2

TSG tickets face off before elections Before polls opened, RUN TEMPLE and Temple Advocating Progress debated. AMELIA BRUST The Temple News Temple Advocating for Progress and RUN TEMPLE engaged in the second executive ticket debate yesterday, April 2, in the Student Center atrium. Candidates answered questions on student-administrative relations and restructuring student government, similar to the topics discussed during the first debate on March 26. Responses from each side became more personally defensive throughout the debate.

NEWS DESK 215-204-7419

“We’ve been running Temple before we were RUN TEMPLE, and honestly I will say we were tapping in before they were ‘TAP in,’” Jaimee Swift, RUN TEMPLE candidate for vice president of external affairs, said, referring to TAP’s campaign slogan. “We didn’t just show up a week before campaigning started to Temple Student Government,” Julian Hamer, TAP candidate for vice president of services, said in closing. “Running Temple is not just three people.” TSG Elections Commissioner Shanee Satchell asked questions submitted after last week’s debate and then handed the microphone to audience members. Tickets had three minutes to answer Satchell’s

DEBATE PAGE 3

EDUCATED VOTE • The elections for Temple Student Government executive office will take place today, April 3, and tomorrow, April 4. • To vote, visit uvote.temple. edu. • Use the QR code below for The Temple News’ coverage of the campaigns.

• LUIS FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ TTN

The two teams running for TSG executive office faced off in a heated debate last night in the Student Center atrium.

If you don’t have a smartphone, visit: templenews.com/category/news/ tsg.

NEWS@TEMPLE-NEWS.COM


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Volume 90, Issue 25 by The Temple News - Issuu