A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.
VOL. 96 ISSUE 22
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
CRIME
Family sues TUPD for alleged assault
MEN’S BASKETBALL
The alleged assault of a 17-yearold occurred in April 2016 outside the former Pearl Theater. BY KELLY BRENNAN Assistant News Editor
A
17-year-old alleges four current and former Temple Police officers assaulted and wrongfully arrested him in April 2016, according to court docu-
ments. The 17-year-old and his mother Melinda Clark, who is listed in the documents, are suing the four officers and the university for assault, battery and wrongful arrest, according to the civil complaint that was filed on Feb. 14, 2018. The family, represented by Michael Gallagher of MyPhillyLawyer, is seeking a payment of $50,000 in addition to compensation legal fees, interest, costs and punitive damages. The four officers’ names are Andrew Lanetti, Anthony Sherman, Natalie Decoatsworth and Omair Chutgai, according to the complaint. “Temple is aware of the complaint and intends to defend the matter vigorously,” wrote university spokesperson Brandon Lausch in a statement to The Temple News. Gallagher said the family’s chances of winning the lawsuit are good. Despite several attempts, the family could not be reached for comment. “We have a meritorious case,” Gallagher added. “Discovery will hash things out.” On April 15, 2016, the 17-year-old, who was 15 at the time, was arrested by the four Temple Police officers for disorderly conduct. He claims he was inside the former Pearl
LAWSUIT | PAGE 3
The Owls cheer from the sideline during their 85-57 win against UConn on Jan. 28 at the Liacouras Center.
SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS
Owls set for NIT first round No. 5 Temple will play No. 4 Penn State on Wednesday at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pennsylvania. BY EVAN EASTERLING Sports Editor
Temple will be a No. 5 seed in the 32team National Invitation Tournament. The Owls (17-15, 8-10 American Athletic Conference), who entered Selection Sunday on the NIT bubble, will face No. 4 Penn State (21-13, 9-9 Big 10 Conference) in the first round on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Bryce Jordan Center in University
Park, Pennsylvania. The game will air on ESPNU. The winner will advance to face the victor of the game between No. 1 University of Notre Dame and No. 8 Hampton University on Tuesday at 9 p.m. The first three rounds of the tournament are hosted by the higher-seeded school. The NIT culminates with the semifinals on March 27 and the finals on March 29 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Coach Fran Dunphy said a chance to play in the NIT would benefit the sopho-
mores and freshmen. That group of players was not yet on the team when Temple made its most recent postseason appearance, a first-round exit in the 2016 NCAA Tournament against the University of Iowa at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. “It’s another opportunity to play,” Dunphy said. “We’ll have more practices. Any time you get these kids together again, it’s terrific.” The NCAA has changed a few rules
NIT | PAGE 14
ON CAMPUS
CRIME
Amplifying women in filmmaking
City Council president against stadium
The Women’s Fest will showcase 12 films that feature a woman writer, director or cinematographer. BY EMMA PADNER
For The Temple News
In 2014, Sonali Udaybabu grabbed her video camera and headed into the streets of Delhi, India, to participate in a youth-led protest. The non-violent campaign, named “Kiss of Love,” protested right-wing groups that police public displays of affection in India. Udaybabu, a first-year master’s of film and media arts student, turned her footage of the protest into a short documentary film, “The Kiss of Love.” “I hope that after the film people [will want] to talk to me about what was happening,” said Udaybabu, who is an Indian citizen and a queer feminist activist. “I think that is the most crucial thing about this film. It will bring attention to the issues in the world.” The film will be shown at Temple’s second annual Women’s Fest on Wednesday. The festival, which starts at 5 p.m. at the Temple Performing Arts Center, consists of 12 student-produced short films that feature a woman writer, director or cinematographer. The festival is a collaborative work between Diamond Screen Film Series, and Mise-en-Femme Productions, a student film organization. Film and media arts graduate stu-
Darrell Clarke said he would not support the university’s proposal for an on-campus football stadium. BY GILLIAN McGOLDRICK News Editor
group also plans to have the audience vote for the best film. The winning film will screen again during the Diamond Screen Film Festival in May, which highlights that year’s most outstanding student films. This year’s festival will also introduce a discussion panel featuring film and media arts professors LeAnn Erickson and Rea Tajiri. The panel, which will follow the screening, will examine the films in greater detail, looking at motifs and discussing additional context.
A spokesperson for City Council President Darrell Clarke said on Monday that Clarke will not currently support “any City approvals for the stadium.” Jane Roh, Clarke’s communications director, said in a statement to The Temple News that Clarke feels Temple “missed a great opportunity to repair its relationship with residents” while forming its stadium proposal. She added that Clarke will reconsider his position if the university and residents can come to an agreement about the stadium, but it “really seems unlikely that they will, at this point.” As early as 2015, Clarke stated he would not allow the stadium unless the North Philadelphia community’s concerns were appropriately considered by the university. Clarke represents the City Council’s 5th District, which is home to several neighborhoods in North Philadelphia and the area surrounding Main Campus. The proposed on-campus stadium would also be built in the 5th District. “This was always about the university’s relationship with students and near residents and
FILM | PAGE 12
CITY COUNCIL | PAGE 3
HANNAH BURNS / THE TEMPLE NEWS Gabriella Bajaña (left), a senior film and media arts major, and Qiyue Sun, a second-year master’s of film and media arts student, co-organized the Women’s Fest, which features 12 student-produced short films by women.
dents Qiyue Sun and Jon Appel collaborated with senior film and media arts majors Mohammad Ibrahim and Gabriella Bajaña to organize the Women’s Film Fest. Sun, Appel and Ibrahim represent Diamond Screens, while Bajaña represents Mise-en-Femme. “Filmmaking is for some reason kind of a man’s sport, especially in America,” Sun said. “So it’s important to support and encourage female filmmakers.” Together, the group reviewed all of the festival submissions and selected the featured films. During the festival, the
NEWS | PAGES 2-3, 6
OPINION | PAGES 4-5
FEATURES | PAGES 7-12
SPORTS | PAGES 13-16
Temple Student Government members filed to impeach the elections commissioner days before the 2018 elections. Read more on Page 2.
A columnist commended the Pan-African Studies Community Education Program for helping formerly incarcerated people return to society. Read more on Page 4.
A Tyler School of Art alumna is the founding director of the Philadelphia International Airport’s exhibition program. Read more on Page 7.
The lacrosse team will join the American Athletic Conference in 2019. First, it will try to reach its third-straight Big East Conference tournament. Read more on Page 16.
NEWS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 2 ON CAMPUS
FMLA to rally again outside BOT meeting on Tuesday
The student organization will continue to protest the dedication of O’Connor Plaza. BY LINDSAY BOWEN
On-Campus Beat Reporter
The Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance will rally outside the Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. to protest the naming of O’Connor Plaza. Temple’s Young Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Students of Temple will also join the rally Tuesday afternoon. FMLA last rallied at O’Connor Plaza on Feb. 19 in an effort to remove Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick O’Connor from the Board and his name from O’Connor Plaza, which was dedicated on Sept. 14. Since October, FMLA representatives have protested outside each Board of Trustees meeting. O’Connor represented former trustee Bill Cosby in a civil suit in 2005 after former university employee Andrea Constand accused him of sexual assault. Tuesday’s rally will be larger than past rallies, with speakers from different organizations around campus, said Elizabeth Olson, a junior political science and environmental studies major and the FMLA member heading the O’Connor campaign. In October, FMLA started an email campaign, sending President Richard Englert repeated messages
SYDNEY SCHAEFER / FILE PHOTO Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance members gather in O’Connor Plaza on Oct. 5, 2017, to protest the dedication of Founder’s Garden and demand Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick O’Connor step down.
expressing their concerns about O’Connor and the plaza. The group has since ended its email effort because Englert has not responded, Olson said. “It makes us want to work harder,” Olson added. “As far as this whole campaign goes, we’re trying to uplift survivors and fight for a better campus overall. The fact that the president doesn’t want to hear us out or try to work it out is kind of a slap in the face.” As part of a larger “O’Connor
Step Down” campaign that FMLA started in September, the student organization has been collecting stories from students anonymously about their experiences with mental health and sexual assault resources at Temple. Students can give their feedback through online. “It’s not just for survivors of sexual assault,” Olson said. “We’re just collecting impressions and experiences, how people have found the resources helpful or not.” In November, FMLA had re-
ceived 17 stories from students. The organization has received more than 40 stories since October, when it began using flyers to promote the website around campus, Olson said. “When we take this information to the university, they want to know that we have students’ voices and we’ve actually been talking to people to see how they feel about [resources],” said Kayla Boone, a senior strategic communication major and FMLA’s public relations
officer. “It’s mainly to show the university that people have things to say about this.” Dean of Students Stephanie Ives has expressed interest in students’ feelings about on-campus resources, Olson said. FMLA last met with Ives and Title IX Coordinator Andrea Seiss in November. The organization is planning to meet with Ives and Seiss in the next few weeks, Olson said. In an email, Ives confirmed the upcoming meeting with FMLA and Seiss. “The dialogue has been helpful, and I trust that the upcoming meeting will be as productive as the previous two meetings have been,” Ives wrote. “They last said they are interested in hearing from us and what we can do, and what our ideas are moving forward,” Boone said. “So that’s really where we’re at, just trying to figure out ways we can combat this issue.” The organization’s main concern now is getting information out to students by circulating flyers, Boone added. “A big part of any campaign is just getting the word out, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Olson said. “We’re trying to get people involved, get people motivated and get people to want to make a change.” lindsay.bowen@temple.edu @lindsay_bow
TSG
Elections codes unchanged for 2018 elections After full alterations by the Elections Committee, TSG’s Senior Leadership Team voted against changes to the codes. BY ALYSSA BIEDERMAN TSG Beat Reporter
Members of Temple Student Government held a preliminary hearing to impeach Elections Commissioner Matthew Diamond on Monday, less than two weeks before the 2018 TSG elections. THE IMPEACHMENT The entire Senior Leadership Team filed to impeach Diamond for various alleged constitutional infractions. The impeachment documents were filed under Chief of Staff Rebecca Gonzalez’s name, but the decision was made by all members of the Senior Leadership Team, which is composed of the current student body president, the two vice presidents, the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and the director of communications. Diamond is accused of subordination after he refused to edit the 2017 election code to include changes proposed by the Senior Leadership Team. In November, Diamond attempted to draft a new 2018 elections code, but it was shot down by the leadership team. The Senior Leadership Team did not comment on the proposed changes it suggested. The team claimed Diamond could not adequately oversee elections because his new election code was “uneducated,” Gonzalez said. Diamond also allegedly violated TSG’s media ethics when he posted a copy of the 2017 elections code on Facebook from his personal account, rather than an official TSG account. The elections code is available to the public on TSG’s website. Diamond declined to comment on his impeachment charges. Morrease Leftwich, TSG’s auditor general who decides the student government’s impeachment cases, said the accusations were “not grounds for impeachment because they had nothing to do with the constitution.” “[The Senior Leadership Team] refuses to compromise,” Leftwich added. “The accusations weren’t worth petitioning, and they made it obvious that they just [wanted to im-
News Desk 215.204.7419 news@temple-news.com
peach him] because they didn’t get what they want.” But Gonzalez said the Senior Leadership Team’s reasons to file to impeach Diamond are valid. “I hope there will be another meeting where we are able to make our cases further,” Gonzalez said. “Even if Morrease doesn’t agree with the other [accusations], the media violation should be enough.” THE PROPOSED CHANGES The Elections Committee — which includes Diamond and four additional members — attempted to change several aspects of the elections codes to “address ways campaigns could cheat the code,” Diamond said in an interview about TSG’s election process on Saturday. For elections code changes to be ratified, they must be passed by the Ethics Board, the Steering Committee of Parliament and the Senior Leadership Team. Per Diamond, the Elections Committee attempted to: • Eliminate the current point-penalty system, which former campaigns said was confusing, and implement a “three strikes, you’re out” policy for campaign violations • Restrict campaign endorsements, which limited the award amount — including money, posters and campaign spaces — one party could contribute to a campaign • Add more spaces for campaigns to post signs and other promotional materials on Main Campus • Digitize some forms which were previously completed on paper All of the proposed changes were rejected by the Senior Leadership Team, despite being passed in all of the other branches. The only change the Elections Committee was able to make — separate from the elections codes changes — was increasing the amount of money that campaigns can spend in elections. The spending cap for Parliament campaigns is now $500, and the cap for executive board campaigns is $1,500. This adds $475 to Parliament campaigns and $500 to Executive Branch campaigns. TSG will refund the campaigns for half of their spending. Candidates and endorsers will be responsible for the other half. “We wanted to make sure that whoever was getting the most votes wasn’t getting
them because they had the most endorsements, but that they were the most qualified,” Diamond added. “We wanted all campaigns and ideas to have a fair shot at winning, even if they didn’t get a lot of exposure.” During the previous academic year, the Ethics Board was the only branch that had to ratify changes to the elections code proposed by the Elections Committee. This year, the Senior Leadership Team changed this process to include itself and the Steering Committee, Diamond said. Senior Leadership Team and Vice President of Services Kayla Martin said she was not aware of this change. She said she believes it is important for the Senior Leadership Team, who have been through the campaign process already, to be involved in creating elections codes. Martin added that she thought the proposed revisions to the elections code were “way worse than last year.” More specifically, the Senior Leadership Team took issue with the restrictions on campaign endorsements. “Some of the things that were proposed just made the process very undemocratic,” Martin added. “We decided to go with the same as last year because our elections commissioner wasn’t willing to change it.” Leftwich said Diamond had made “most of the changes” proposed by the Senior Leadership Team, but not all. LAST YEAR’S ELECTION In the 2017 TSG election, Activate TU — which was the ticket composed of Martin, Student Body President Tyrell Mann-Barnes and Vice President of External Affairs Paige Hill — was suspended for more than an hour on the night that polls closed for allegedly violating canvassing rules. The team was accused of spending more time than was allowed promoting its campaign outside the Bell Tower. Later, the Elections Committee delayed releasing the results of the election to investigate whether Activate TU spent more than the $1,000 limit. The Elections Committee determined the campaign spent about $999 of the $1,000 spending cap. Activate TU won the election by 56 votes. “It’s interesting that the campaign that benefited from a lot of the issues with the code are the ones saying the commissioner is making mistakes,” Leftwich said. Former Elections Commissioner and
junior biochemistry major Noah Goff said he gave Diamond his “two cents” when alterations were being discussed. After the last election, The Temple News obtained a letter of dissent Goff sent to last year’s TSG administration. He was the only one in the committee to dissent and disagreed with Activate TU’s win. “I really think it should have been clarified that if a team breaks a rule, especially one as irreversible as campaign spending, those punishments should be very clearly defined,” Goff said. “There should be no ambiguity over whether a team should be elected or whether they should be able to continue after breaking a serious rule.” Although its allowance is not explicitly stated in the elections code, Goff believes the current administration should not be involved in making decisions for future elections. “I have some serious concerns about the way this election is being organized and run by this administration,” he added. The elections code requires a separation between the current administration and campaigns, including restricting the use of the TSG office for campaigning and not allowing current members of TSG to endorse candidates. Leftwich said he thought this instance was an abuse of power on behalf of the Senior Leadership Team, and it could compromise TSG’s ability to function as a democratic student government. “One person or group isn’t supposed to have all the authority,” he said. “It should be diffused. That’s why we have this separation of power.” Despite the setback, Diamond hopes this year’s election will be fair. “We aren’t going to be able to see the election we wanted to make,” Diamond said. “Having a lesser code is definitely going to impact the elections in some way, but I don’t think that will make it inefficient.” The 2018 campaigns will be announced on March 20. Campaigning will end on April 3, and students will be able to vote for the new TSG leadership team from April 4 through April 5. alyssa.biederman@temple.edu @BiedermanAlyssa
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
NEWS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 3
ON CAMPUS
Negotiations delayed for TUGSA contract The graduate student union is demanding all students are paid equally, regardless of their area of study. BY LINDSAY BOWEN
On-Campus Beat Reporter
The Temple University Graduate Student’s Association’s contract with the university expired on Feb. 15, while negotiations for its 2018-22 contract are still underway. TUGSA is a labor union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, representing graduate students and research and teaching assistants at Temple. TUGSA, officially recognized by the Board of Trustees in 2001, is the only recognized graduate student union in Pennsylvania. TUGSA’S DEMANDS •
•
Equal pay for graduate students, regardless of their discipline. The current contract has three pay tiers, so graduate students in different schools get paid more based off market rates. Continued health care coverage for graduate students’ dependents. The new contract could lessen a subsidy some graduate students used to pay for their dependents.
The deadline for the collective bargaining agreement was Feb. 15, said Ethan AkeLittle, the president of TUGSA and a fourthyear urban education doctoral student. Under Pennsylvania law, any collective bargaining agreement that expires stays in effect until a new agreement is signed. The current 2014-18 contract will remain in place until an agreement is reached for the 2018-22 contract. Ake-Little said the university and TUGSA are two-thirds of the way done negotiating the 2018-22 contract. The university’s negotiation committee
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 CITY COUNCIL businesses, and given historic tensions there, the Council President had expected university officials to seek community approval with sensitivity and care,” Roh wrote. To build the stadium, the proposal will need to be approved by City Council, in addition to several other city departments including the Streets Department. City Council would need to pass legislation to close 15th Street, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission told The Temple News in January. It is the only uninterrupted street running southbound toward Center City between Broad and 26th streets, and the proposed stadium would block 15th Street between Norris and Montgomery Avenue. In Philadelphia, City Council uses an unwritten legislative practice called the “councilmanic prerogative,” which gives individual council members jurisdiction of “nearly all” of the land use decisions within their district, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Council members can exercise their councilmanic prerogative “simply by refusing” to introduce legislation that the council member does not favor, according to the report. If Clarke used his councilmanic prerogative in this instance, he could potentially prevent legislation related to the stadium from being presented to the City Council. But in an email obtained by The Temple News in January from a City Planning Com-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 LAWSUIT Theater on Broad and Oxford streets with his younger brother when the officers entered the building and told everyone to leave “in an aggressive manner, using aggressive words,” according to the complaint. The 17-year-old and others left the theater and waited outside. Lanetti allegedly told those outside to leave or they would be arrested. The minor allegedly told officers he had to wait and find his younger brother. According to the complaint, the four officers “forcefully assaulted” the minor by “twisting and pulling” his left arm behind his back and “throwing him to the ground.” He
is comprised of four people: Director of Human Resources Karin Sullenberger, Director of Labor Relations Monica Washington, Vice Provost of the Graduate School Zebulon Kendrick and the Vice Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Shawn Schurr. Schurr said he was not able to comment because of the ongoing negotiations. For every new contract, TUGSA and Temple’s committee negotiate mandatory bargaining items including wages, stipends and benefits like health care, workload and paid leave for graduate students. Permissive bargaining, which is listed at the end of contracts, pertains to subjects on which neither party is legally required to agree. This includes office space, outside employment and bookstore discounts. Both mandatory and permissive bargaining must occur before a contract is signed, Ake-Little said. Currently, there are three different pay tiers for graduate students. Graduate students in science, technology, engineering and math get paid the most at $18,697 per academic year. Those in education, business, social sciences and health are paid $18,000, and students in arts and humanities are paid $17,308. The three-tier pay scale reflects the differences in market rates among the various disciplines at the university, Washington wrote in an email. “This is the principle upon which the parties have agreed and negotiated the rates since the union’s inception 16 years ago,” Washington wrote. “Schools and colleges can, and in many cases do, pay above these rates when necessary to attract graduate students when market conditions demand.” TUGSA believes this is unfair because it does not follow the concept of equal pay for equal work in labor rights, Ake-Little said. “We’re trying to make it so the university understands that you can’t really divvy up people based what they call ‘market need,’” Ake-Little said. “When you come here and
you’re admitted to the program, you already competed with everybody to get here. There’s no need for another to divide and segregate like that.” Benefits for graduate students are another point of concern, specifically health care. In the current contract, graduate students are able to receive health insurance with a stipend for dependents. The university does not want to cover the students’ dependents in the new contract, Ake-Little said. “It’s not fair that [the university] would pull the rug out from under them halfway through their process,” Ake-Little said. “They may have come here two years ago knowing that they could get those kind of benefits, and for [the university] to just leave them high and dry wouldn’t be fair.” Washington wrote that the university has provided health care coverage for graduate students at no cost, while all other employees pay a portion of the health care premium cost. “The university has never outright covered dependent health care,” Washington wrote. “The graduate student is and was required to pay amounts beyond the subsidy to cover dependents. It is telling that the number of graduate students who actually use the subsidy toward dependent coverage is low, less than 10 percent.” The university’s negotiation team and TUGSA’s negotiation committee will next meet March 23, Ake-Little said. The last meeting between the two groups was on Feb. 14. Evan Kassof, a second-year music composition Ph.D. candidate and a TUGSA contract negotiation team member, said the delay in negotiations is frustrating for the union, but there has been significant progress. “What [TUGSA] thinks is required for a healthy graduate employee body and what the university thinks is required for an employee unit are [different],” Kassof said. “I’m happy with elements of [the new contract].
mission representative to various community organization leaders, the representative said closing 15th Street would require a bill that the Streets Department and City Planning Commission have “veto power over” that City Council could not override. According to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter that outlines the city’s procedures, Mayor Jim Kenney has veto power over any legislation passed by City Council. The council can overrule the mayor’s decision with a two-thirds vote. One of the main suggestions by critics of the stadium is that Temple officials should put pressure on the Eagles for increasing its rental costs at Lincoln Financial Field. The university began its $1.25 million feasibility study for a 35,000-seat, on-campus football stadium in October 2015 in response to the rising rental cost at the Linc for home football games. Clarke would have helped further the negotiations between the Eagles and the university, Roh said. Both a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Eagles and Temple declined to comment on negotiations for a future lease. “If the university asked for his help with the Eagles lease, he would try to do whatever he could,” she said. “They have not, to date.” University spokesperson Brandon Lausch said Temple’s goal is to continue to “engage our neighbors on this and other substantial issues that are important” to North Philadelphia residents. On Monday, Clarke said he “personally”
did not agree with Temple’s current proposal on the Praise 107.9 radio show. Clarke, like many Temple administrators, has been quiet during the heated stadium debate for the past year as the university finalized its feasibility studies and full stadium proposal. Clarke did not attend any of the recent anti-stadium and university town halls this month, despite invitations from community organizations against the stadium. After the university released its stadium proposal in January, Clarke released a statement to The Temple News that said he was in “open communication” with university leaders, and they’re aware of his and his constituents’ concerns. “The announcement made today does not alter my or affected residents’ expectation that there be an inclusive and honest community engagement process as the stadium proposal moves forward,” he said in his January statement. At an anti-stadium town hall hosted by the Stadium Stompers earlier this month, organizers saved a chair for Clarke on the panel. He did not attend. “After more than two years of struggle and this month’s mass meeting against the stadium, we are glad that Council President Clarke has finally been moved to speak against Temple’s disastrous plan,” said Jared Dobkin, a Stadium Stompers leader and a 2017 political science and geography and urban studies alumnus. “Stadium Stompers and our allies will continue our resistance to
was taken to Temple University Hospital following the alleged assault. During the assault. the 17-year-old fractured his elbow, which required he have surgery and pins placed in his arm. Following the arrest, the 17-year-old allegedly suffered from post-traumatic anxiety, limitation of motion, severe headaches and emotional distress, which are “believed to be permanent.” These injuries allegedly forced the family to seek expensive medical care, like medication and surgery. Sherman resigned from Temple Police in June 2016, and Chugtai later resigned in December. DeCoatsworth and Lanetti are both still Temple Police officers. Because the officers were employed by
the university at the time of the arrest, the family is claiming the university is liable for the alleged “negligence and carelessness” of the four officers. The Temple News requested the incident report of the April 2016 arrest from Temple Police, but was denied. Gallagher said Temple Police’s incident report does not “jive” with the allegations in the complaint. “Everybody has a different story,” he added. Leone said he could not comment on the April 2016 arrest due to pending litigation. This type of lawsuit will go through Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Trial Division Civil section’s Major Jury Pro-
... Other areas, I think we’ve discovered that the university is reluctant.” “There are students here who have dependents, they’re married, they have lives,” Kassof added. “We’re not only transitioning out of student life, but we’re transitioning into adult life.” Christian Ward, a fifth-year electrical engineering Ph.D. student, served as copresident for TUGSA in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years. When Ward served as president, the 2014-18 contract had just been signed. As a STEM graduate student, Ward gets paid more than students in other fields of study. Ward voted to lower his pay so all graduate students have equal pay, but not all STEM graduate students agreed to take lower pay. Destinee Grove, a first-year kinesiology student, is the department representative for kinesiology in TUGSA and is on its outreach committee. Grove isn’t surprised by the negotiation delays because TUGSA’s Feb. 15 deadline was ambitious, she said. During a break from negotiations due to scheduling conflicts, TUGSA will host a rally on Wednesday at the Bell Tower in hopes of gaining visibility with undergraduate students and to send the university a message, Ake-Little added. TUGSA will be reaching out to undergraduate students for support by selling “I love my TA” buttons, stickers and T-shirts. “Undergraduates have a lot more power than they often think that they do, and coming together and fighting for voices of equity, whether it’s something like the stadium or issues of race and diversity, don’t discount yourself,” Ake-Little said. “When [undergraduates] talk, whether or not people like it, they have to listen.” lindsay.bowen@temple.edu @lindsay_bowen
VIA / PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT DARRELL CLARKE’S WEBSITE City Council President Darrell Clarke opposes the university’s current proposal for an on-campus stadium.
the stadium. … Clarke must shut down any City Council legislation that would support Temple’s bid for legal approval to build the stadium.” gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick
gram, which handles cases seeking at least a $50,000 settlement amount. Temple has not filed any court documents since Gallagher’s initial complaint filing last month. Gallagher said the minor’s injuries warrant this settlement amount. “It appears that one or more officers crossed the line here,” he added. Depending on how this lawsuit is classified, the trial could last anywhere from 13 to 25 months. kelly.brennan@temple.edu @_kellybrennan The Temple News withheld the name of the plaintiff because he is a minor.
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OPINION TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 4 COMMUNITY A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921. Michaela Winberg Editor-in-Chief Grace Shallow Managing Editor Jenny Roberts Supervising Editor Julie Christie Enterprise Editor Gillian McGoldrick News Editor Jayna Schaffer Opinion Editor
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EDITORIALS
TSG disappoints again The most recent impeachment effort on behalf of some Temple Student Government members seems like an abuse of power. Temple Student Government has disappointed us again. On Monday, TSG held a pre-impeachment hearing for Elections Commissioner Matthew Diamond. The entire Senior Leadership Team filed for his impeachment after Diamond refused to edit the 2017 elections code to include the changes it proposed. The team includes the current student body president, the two vice presidents, the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and the director of communications. It is also calling for Diamond’s impeachment because he posted a copy of the 2017 elections code — which is publicly available on TSG’s website — to his personal Facebook account, not an official TSG account. We question if this is a substantial claim for his removal. When three students resigned from Parliament, TSG’s legislative branch, during winter break, we argued that it should stop infighting, which is a waste of time. But the recent events are worse — they look like an abuse of power. The Senior Leadership
Team not only retaliated against a team member who did not comply with its suggestions, but blocked other proposed changes to the elections code that could have prevented what lead to last year’s conflictfilled 2017 election. These rejected alterations proposed restricting campaign endorsements and adding more on-campus locations to post campaign materials. We want to believe TSG can put aside internal disputes and get to work. We want to believe the Ethics Board that Activate TU implemented ensures Parliament’s and the Executive Branch’s accountability. But this behavior, two weeks before the 2018 election, gives us little faith. We appreciate the programs TSG implemented to work with the North Philadelphia community and engage nontraditional students, like its peer mentorship program. But at this point, we’ve gotten tired of this administration’s fingerpointing and petty fighting. To the soon-to-be-announced TSG candidates, The Temple News has a recommendation: don’t model this behavior.
Responding to racism
The university’s response to racially charged incidents has been appropriate, but it should also engage in prevention efforts. Last week, Temple Police began investigating the fourth bias-related incident involving a Temple student this academic year. On March 6, messages containing racial slurs and an expletive were sent from junior finance major Brett Rhodeside’s Snapchat account to Entienne Williams, a student at the Community College of Philadelphia who is Black. Other incidents included slurs being sent to the student organization Queer People of Color and posted in and near residence halls. Any racially charged incident is unacceptable, but to have four separate episodes occur within two semesters is chilling. The Temple News applauds the university for responding with a proper investigation each time — but we are ashamed that some of our peers harbor these prejudices. Temple prides itself on its diversity, and Main Campus is located within blocks of a historic Black community. Students walk the same streets that civil rights activists like Cecil B. Moore protested on in
the 1960s, making these incidents even more demoralizing. Those who spread such hate must face the consequences of their actions. And though the university has taken the necessary steps by investigating each of these incidents, perhaps administrators should consider doing more. The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership and the Black Student Union held a forum to discuss bias-related incidents last month after multiple fliers with racial slurs were found on Main Campus in December. We encourage the university to hold similar events regularly — not just in response to unfortunate episodes. Perhaps it could also institute a mandatory diversity training, similar to the online Think About It sessions that educate students about alcohol and sexual harassment. There is no cure-all for racism. But Temple should act further to uphold its commitment to provide a campuswide safe space. And we can stand for nothing less.
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 Michaela Winberg at editor@temple-news.com or 215-204-6737.
letters@temple-news.com
PASCEP re-entry programs can benefit the community Temple’s Pan-African Studies Community Education Program is helping formerly incarcerated people get jobs.
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ccording to a report from CLASP, a non-profit that provides aid to low-income people, nearly twothirds of people who were incarcerated are arrested again within three years of their release. With citizens constantly cycling through the criminal justice system, re-entry workshops and courses are critical in decreasing recidivism rates. Re-entry programs offer assistance to citizens looking to reinteMONICA MELLON grate into society LEAD COLUMNIST following incarceration. Temple’s Pan-African Studies Community Education Program offers several programs that educate and assist re-entry citizens, like the “Orange is the New Black: Inside Reentry” course. This program brings people who were formerly incarcerated and criminal justice system officials together to discuss issues like mass incarceration. After spending time in prison, often for years at a time, it’s difficult for citizens to readjust to society. There’s difficulty in gaining access to jobs, homes, clothing and transportation. Re-entry workshops and courses provide citizens an outlet to find and discuss finding these resources and taking advantage of them. According to The National Resource Council, previously incarcerated citizens likely face a lower
chance of getting a job, as many companies will not hire employees with a criminal background. And if they are hired, their wages are significantly lower. Re-entry resources generate important discussions and lessons that may not have been had while serving. I’m relieved to see our university doing its part because Philadelphia has the largest incarceration rate per capita of the top 10 largest American cities, according to a report from Billy Penn. “[The course provides] resources, conversation, opportunity for re-entry citizens to also connect with those in the judicial system,” said Ulicia Lawrence-Oladeinde, the director of PASCEP. “There’s parole officers that come to the classes, so that they can talk about the things that affect them staying out and being productive citizens.” The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Despite this staggering statistic, not all states offer re-entry workshop opportunities, despite the tremendous differences they could be making to the lives of re-entry citizens. At PASCEP, 20 of the 50 people who Jeffrey Abramowitz, the course’s instructor, has worked with in the past month found jobs. Abramowitz served a five-year prison sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Canaan — a high-security federal prison in Waymart, Pennsylvania — and was released in 2015. Courses like Abramowitz’s provide re-entry citizens with a basic understanding of certain skills, like eye contact, a strong handshake and posture — which are also known as soft skills. These are important for
any job and aren’t always taught in the criminal justice system. “We’re going to start teaching some of the soft skills,” LawrenceOladeinde said. “One of the things I’m big on is emotional intelligence and critical thinking. If you’re not exposed to it, how will you know that you need it?” “Many people that come home from prison, or go through the criminal justice system, a lot of times don’t have the skills necessary in order to really be proficient at what they do or to succeed at the jobs they take,” Abramowitz said. “That soft skill development doesn’t happen when you’re in the criminal justice system. It needs to happen outside of it.” For this reason, it’s incredibly important to promote re-entry programs, like PASCEP’s Orange is the New Black course. By offering re-entry citizens a method for navigating through the criminal justice system while also providing the resources to find jobs, the transition becomes much easier. “There’s so much that can be done from the grassroots, from students to community leaders to parole officers, everyone has an obligation to try and improve the system,” Abramowitz said. Having access to these resources and services is something that needs to be celebrated, and I commend PASCEP for its efforts. We need to continue to make these courses available for re-entry citizens to ensure they are given the opportunity to flourish in society. monica.mellon@temple.edu @MonicaMellon
SUSTAINABILITY
Go green with reusable coffee cups Using reusable containers when buying coffee is an easy way to avoid waste.
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ike most college students, I need a coffee from Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts to start my day. But I can’t ignore the twinge of guilt I feel every time my order is called out, and I grab my paper or styrofoam cup from the counter — knowing it will be thrown away as soon as I’m finished guzzling down the coffee. People in the United States drink 400 million cups of coffee per day, making it the world leader in coffee consumption. And because most people don’t opt for a reusable cup, we throw CHRISTINA away 25 billion MITCHELL styrofoam coffee cups every year. If you buy just one coffee or tea in a disposable cup every day, you’ll end up creating about 23 pounds of waste in one year. Styrofoam is convenient for packaging and insulation, but its environmental hazards outweigh its benefits. Many materials used to make styrofoam are toxic, and the emissions released from its factories cause air pollution, according to the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, research by the Cleveland State University states that styrofoam is non-biodegradable, non-sustainable and the waste often reaches the ocean, polluting the seabed and killing animals who swallow it. I know my current habits are contributing to this environmen-
tal damage. But I plan on changing that with a solution I think is easy enough for everyone to try: investing in reusable cups. I always carry my reusable water bottle around with me so I don’t have to buy one in between classes. But the only reusable coffee cup I have is for Wawa, which saves me money every time I go there to refill. To be honest, these reusable containers were simply a cost-cutting method before I realized the bigger picture: they’re good for the environment, too. Now that I know most of the styrofoam thrown away today will still be present in landfills 500 years from now, I believe it’s time to carry around my reusable cup more often. Dunkin’ Donuts offers an annual promotion in the summer that allows you to buy a reusable plastic cup and receive a discount on your medium iced coffee or tea each time you bring it back for a refill. And your Starbucks beverage costs 10 cents less when you bring your own cup. Coffee drinkers should consider taking advantage of these savings, while helping our planet through their actions. Patrick Kenney, a freshman neuroscience major who routinely carries a reusable cup, agrees it’s not only a money-saving habit, but a green one. “I think it is cheaper...and it is more eco-friendly,” Kenney said. “I do it myself because it helps me save money, and it helps me prevent the use of plastic and paper cups, which are bad for the environment.” Some students may argue that recycling their paper Starbucks cups makes up for their short-lived
use, but that’s not the case. According to a CNN report, the plastic lining within the cup that keeps it from getting soggy adds nearly 20 years to the decomposition process. Bridget Fisher, a junior marketing major and the president of Students for Environmental Action, works at Saxbys. She said it is “disheartening” to see how many students come in each day who seem unaware of the environmental hazards caused by their coffee cups. “What’s even worse is most of these cups are just being thrown away, which goes to a landfill,” Fisher said. “Our country is so dependent on disposable products, it often isn’t thought about.” Fisher made the commitment to avoid using plastic-lined cups years ago. She said she hasn’t found it inconvenient at all. “You don’t even need to spend money on a thermos,” Fisher said. “Most of the stuff I use to carry around water or coffee is a marinara sauce jar or other household item.” Fisher’s makeshift thermoses prove that we have no excuse to ignore the downfalls of using paper and styrofoam coffee cups. Switching to using a reusable cup or container is a simple, cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to buying and disposing of plastic or styrofoam cups. This small change can have a huge ripple effect on the environment. I know my actions now will ultimately affect the future, so I will put forth my best effort to be conscious of how wasteful I am — you should try it out, too. christina.mitchell@temple.edu
GRAPHICS BY JEN WELLS / THE TEMPLE NEWS
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
OPINION TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 5
POLITICS
A prompt for selfexploration and awareness A student reflects on coming out to his classmates and how it positively impacted his confidence. BY TYLER PEREZ
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y college application essay tasked me with the assignment of discussing my identity — something I didn’t even fully understand at the time. I felt like I was writing a paper for a philosophy class I never signed up for, trying to express deep truths about myself that I hadn’t quite unearthed yet. The confusion this essay gave me was only a fraction of the daily horror I faced growing up as a closeted bisexual man in a conservative, religious family. Less than two years before college application season, I came out to my closest friends, and I progressively began telling more people over time. But as I became more open about my sexuality with others, I found that plenty of people held views that were incompatible with my sexuality. Some friends distanced themselves from me, others called it a phase and a few even decided it was best to end our friendship. The intense hostility and discomfort that I experienced every day grew. Over time, I felt less confident in my own skin and less willing to be open about my sexuality with others. And that is why the Common Application essay prompt about my identity was so puzzling and terrifying. When I initially chose that prompt, I quickly decided I should inch away from the topic of my sexuality, looking for topics about my career goals or obstacles I’ve faced in school instead — topics that wouldn’t require me to come out to a stranger reading my essay in an admissions office. But that all changed one late night in November. It was around this time that I began writing poetry, which became my primary method of emotional expression. I finally discovered a creative way to voice my innermost thoughts and comprehend my sexuality.
That night I wrote a poem called “The Mirror,” in which I defined my struggle with accepting myself and my sexuality. The poem was private and deep, and I never intended to share it with anyone or have it exist beyond my own notebook. But I must’ve had a change of heart overnight, because I brought the poem into my English class for a college essay review session the very next day. It was a huge step for me, having this incredibly intimate, free-verse poem in the hands of my classmates for critiquing. It was the physical manifestation of my worst nightmare: examining a guarded part of myself, writing it down on a piece of paper and giving it to others for judgment. Yet the reactions I got from my peers were unexpectedly reassuring. In fact, they were life-changing. I watched as one of my best friends burst into tears reading my poem. She then told me I was brave. Even classmates I barely knew were telling me how much they loved my essay. Looking back on it now, I have no clue how I found the courage to come out to all my classmates through an essay. But it was a noteworthy moment in my life. And after submitting the poem as my college application essay and receiving several acceptance letters in response, my confidence grew; I became noticeably happier and healthier. After that, coming out to people grew easier each day. I was no longer plagued with concern for how others would perceive me. I was proud of my sexuality. I constantly reread the words I spontaneously wrote down that one emotional night. But I can never be sure if it was my writing or the students in my English class who were so accepting that helped me become happier. I know now that the confidence I exuded after that day was actually there the whole time, but I guess it took a free verse poem and 40 minutes of English class for me to learn that. tyler.perez@temple.edu @perezodent
October 13, 2009: Two Temple students, sophomore journalism major Nicholas Deroose and fifth-year graphic design and photography major Douglas Cooper, were honored for their leadership by the Bread and Roses Community Fund. The fund selected applicants based on academic achievement and activism within the LGBTQ community. This week, a student wrote about his experience coming out to his high school classmates as bisexual.
POLL
SHOULD TEMPLE REVOKE BILL COSBY’S HONORARY DEGREE?
69% YES
31% NO
Out of 556 votes since Feb. 9
Guns: not welcome in the classroom Arming teachers will exacerbate problems in the education system, like a lack of resources.
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ast September I started working at my former high school, Collingswood High School in New Jersey, as a mentor for students in a special education vocational program. Before that, I hadn’t been to the school since I graduated in 2014, but not much has changed since then. But my high school and thousands across the country could look a lot different soon, considering Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 7026 into law on Friday, allowing some teachers in his state to be armed. President Donald Trump is also BASIA WILSON establishing a Federal Commission on School Safety that will explore new gun policies, like arming teachers. The push for this type of legislation follows the mass shooting that took 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month in Parkland, Florida. Allowing teachers to carry weapons in school is an outrageous idea. I’d certainly be alarmed if I came into work and some of my former teachers had access to weapons. Edward Albert, an adjunct education instructor, said arming teachers would make their jobs more demanding than they already are. “We take [students] home when their parents don’t pick them up,” said Albert, who was the superintendent of the Tulpehocken Area School District in Berks County for six years before retiring in 2015. “We lend them money. We’re referees. Kids come to school with their parents all bent out of shape, and then we become counselors. Now we’re going to be police officers?” In addition to the existing demand of the job, there is a widespread lack of resources in the public education system. The Atlantic reported that the average Philadelphia public school only had 27 percent of the required books in the 201213 school year, and at least 10 schools had no books at all. Funding this legislation could take away from opportunities to improve those drained resources. Albert also raised questions about arming teachers and accountability. “What if the teacher accidentally shoots another kid?” Albert said. “What if the gun is stolen at night when the teacher locks it up, and someone gets the lock where the gun is housed and the gun is used to kill somebody?” These are valid questions, and teachers shouldn’t have to be worried about answering them. They’re trained to be teachers, not soldiers, and fostering a conducive learning environment should be their top priority. Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a criminal justice professor, said even teachers who are already gun owners or know how to shoot may still be at a disadvantage during a mass shooting. “It is a very different environment when...in a position where a possible shooter or active shooter has militarized weapons,” Gonzalez Van Cleve said. “By the time you get the weapon out of the holster, you actually might be killed automatically.” It’s hard to say whether a teacher with a handgun, for instance, would’ve been able to stop TNEY COUR
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basia.serafina.wilson@temple.edu
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Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in Parkland, Florida, since he carried a semiautomatic weapon. “If schools are mandated to be gun free zones, violence and danger are given an open invitation to enter,” according to a tweet posted by Trump on Monday. Adversely, armed personnel in schools could increase the chance of a gunman attacking. The Washington Post reported that many gunmen who commit mass shootings are suicidal, so the presence of armed people can encourage them because a potential shootout could be fatal. In other words, arming teachers is not guaranteed to eliminate danger, as Trump believes. And in some cases, it could potentially create danger for students, even when no shooter is present. For example, children of color — Black children specifically — already have to be cautious about encountering armed law enforcement officers. Many parents have “the talk” with Black children about how to interact with police in order to avoid harm or death, even when they’ve done nothing wrong. Nearly 200 people have already been shot and killed by the police in 2018, according to The Washington Post — 16 percent of these people were Black. Black children and other kids of color shouldn’t have to be concerned about such a tragedy when going to school. But arming teachers — especially when 82 percent of the ones in public schools across the country are white, according to a 2016 report by the United States Department of Education — may make this talk a necessity. A Florida middle school teacher was recently fired for allegedly running a white supremacist podcast and Twitter account where she expressed hateful attitudes toward Jewish and Muslim people, and implied opposition to fighting racism in the classroom. “Whether it’s calculated racism or the racism that’s part of implicit bias...when you arm teachers, that bias manifests itself,” Gonzalez Van Cleve said. Because of deeply embedded racism, armed teachers may be compelled to act on threats that don’t even exist. Students of color face enough hardship and discrimination at school. Keeping guns out of the hands of teachers could help prevent this harassment from becoming fatal. Racism aside, no student should have to attend school worrying whether today will be the day their teacher shoots someone. Gonzalez Van Cleve said arming teachers “is the most poorly thought out solution to solve the gun problem with more guns.” I couldn’t agree more. It has far too many drawbacks and would do more harm than good for students and teachers. Rather than encouraging teachers to carry weapons in preparation for the next mass shooting, we should be stopping these shootings from happening in the first place. It is irresponsible to expect teachers to defend the nation’s schoolchildren against a problem that is totally beyond their duties as educators.
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NEWS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 6 COMMUNITY
Philly Police, orgs increase gun violence prevention efforts Philadelphia Police’s 22nd District hosted its first gun buyback of the year and collected nearly 100 guns. BY WILL BLEIER Copy Editor
North Philadelphia community advocacy groups and the Philadelphia Police Department are reinvigorating their anti-gun violence efforts, while the city is in the midst of one of the deadliest years for gun violence and national pressure builds to regulate the use of firearms. A majority of Main Campus sits in the 22nd Police District, which has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the city. To combat the presence of weapons in the community, PPD regularly holds gun buyback events that give residents the opportunity to safely and anonymously turn in unwanted firearms in exchange for payment. On March 2, PPD held its first buyback of 2018 at its station on 17th Street near Montgomery Avenue. “People can come in anonymously and turn in their guns,” said Officer Joseph Walsh, who assisted at the event. “Hopefully it makes the city safer.” Residents who turned in their guns received a $75 gift card to the clothing store Official Unlimited on Broad and York streets. The
store’s owner, Yoni Nadav, sponsored the event. The buyback collected more than 48 weapons, including 36 handguns and 12 long guns — a rate that is less than average for events like this, Walsh said. He added that this might be due to inclement weather. After the event, the weapons’ serial numbers are checked to see if they were earlier reported stolen. Even if they were, there are no repercussions for the people turning in the weapons, Then, the weapons can be reunited with their owners. Walsh said he thinks mass shootings — which are occurring at a higher rate in the United States each year, with 60 incidents so far this year where four or more people are shot within one shooting spree, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker — increase the number of people willing to participate in these type of events. Several community organizations that focus on the educational aspects of gun control are seeing increased interest in their programming. Program Director Jeff Dempsey of CeaseFirePA, an advocacy group combating gun violence in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania as a whole, is doing just that. Some initiatives in which advocates are involved include lobbying the state legislature in Harrisburg and teaching students activism tech-
niques, like calling their elected officials and asking to make their local communities safer. “We are seeing students really tackle this issue head on in a way that is unprecedented,” Dempsey said. “Certainly, there is a quest for information. A lot of time when these things happen, people want to know how this individual was able to get a firearm.” Dempsey added that gun buyback programs are not the only answer to the gun problem in North Philadelphia. “We see people are turning in antique rifles, or whatever they find in the attic,” Dempsey said. “Gun violence is a multi-faceted problem, and it’s going to require multi-faceted solutions. Getting guns out of people’s homes can be an important step, but we also need better laws.” Scott Charles, the trauma outreach coordinator at Temple University Hospital, has given out “thousands” of gunlocks to the North Philadelphia community in the past year. He said there may be some benefits to handing in weapons that are laying around the house. “There is some credence to this idea that you’re not getting guns back from criminals, because criminals aren’t giving up their guns,” Charles said. “It’s about the aunt who hasn’t even looked at her gun in years, but it’s in a closet
WILL BLEIER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Guns are piled at the 22nd Police District’s gun buyback event on March 2.
somewhere, and some kids comes across it. Then that gun makes its way onto the street, and it ultimately comes into the possession of a criminal. The fact that the gun can be turned in, that is one less opportunity for a criminal to get his or her hands on a gun.” According to a study from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, more than 1.7 million children live in homes with unlocked, loaded guns. In 2014, more than 4,300 people in the U.S. between the ages of 10 and 24 were victims of gun-related homicide. In Pennsylvania, almost half the state’s firearm fatalities occurred in Philadel-
phia. Charles said the focus of gun outreach should not only be based around removing weapons from the community, but also tending to economic factors. “If you want to address the issue of gun violence, look at poverty, because therein lies the problem and the answer,” Charles said. “If we really want to address firearm violence, than we really have to address economic inequality. In short of that, we are simply putting a Band-Aid on the issue.” william.bleier@temple.edu @Will_Bleier
CRIME
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Student investigated for sending racist messages This is the latest reported racial incident this academic year. BY KELLY BRENNAN Assistant News Editor
Temple Police is currently investigating messages sent from a Temple student’s Snapchat account that contain racial slurs. The messages were sent from junior finance major Brett Rhodeside’s Snapchat account to Entienne Williams on March 6. Rhodeside told The Temple News he did not send the messages to Williams, but that his friends did using his account. “Any student identified in the investigation would face appropriate intervention,” wrote Brandon Lausch, a university spokesperson, in an email to The Temple News. In the Student Conduct Code, the first student responsibility outlined is that all students should foster an environment “free from unlawful harassment by other members of the community.” In a statement to The Temple News, Dean of Students Stephanie Ives declined to comment on Rhodeside’s case, but said the language was offensive. “I can say with certainty that Temple is proud of its inclusive and respectful community,” she wrote. “And although the Student Conduct Code doesn’t have a prohibition against such clearly offensive and hateful speech, a situation of this nature would be addressed appropriately through university intervention.” Williams, who is a sophomore health care studies major at the Community College of Philadelphia and Black, posted screenshots of the messages from Rhodeside’s account on Twitter last week. Rhodeside allegedly called Williams several racial slurs after she posted a video of herself on her Snapchat story. “I was just pretty shocked,” Williams said. “Anything that we do, coming from an African-American woman, anything we do is a threat. It’s not fair at all.” Williams said Rhodeside allegedly blocked her on Snapchat and other social media apps after she took screenshots of the conversation. Temple Police has not been able to contact Williams, but has obtained the screenshots she posted on social media, said Charlie Leone, the director of Campus Safety Services.
News Desk 215.204.7419 news@temple-news.com
This is the fourth bias-related incident Temple Police and the university have investigated this academic year. Last month, the Queer People of Color received an anonymous letter containing racial and homophobic slurs. In December, fliers with racial slurs were posted around campus and at a university residence hall. Temple Police was unable to identify the person responsible for hanging the posters. In September, bananas were placed on the door of an all-Black students’ room in Morgan Hall North. The student who placed the banana on the door was later identified. Williams’s post, which mentioned Temple’s Twitter account, received nearly 850 retweets and more than 1,000 likes. Many people, including Temple students, responded to Williams’s post on Twitter and criticized Rhodeside’s actions. Williams said she doesn’t want Rhodeside to continue studying at Temple. “He didn’t represent Temple at all,” she added. “He just showed that it is not very diverse at that school.” Rhodeside, who has since deleted his social media accounts, said he was with three friends, who are not Temple students, the night the messages were sent. He said he left his phone with his friends after Williams posted the video, and his two friends sent the offensive messages to Williams. “I would never say that to anybody,” Rhodeside said. He added that he attempted to apologize to Williams and explain that he did not send the offensive messages. Williams posted a screenshot of a message from an Instagram account that allegedly belongs to Rhodeside, in which Rhodeside apologized and said that his friends sent Williams the messages on Snapchat. “I’m racist at all, and I didn’t mean for those hurtful things to be said,” he wrote. “I would never mean something like that. I was stupid to let my friend write to you.” He told The Temple News no one will “take my side on it.” Williams has not filed a police report with Philadelphia Police, but plans to. She said she will pursue other legal action if the university does not discipline Rhodeside for his alleged actions. kelly.brennan@temple.edu @_kellybrennan
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 7
PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Alumna uses airport art to show ‘the city’s message’
Program addresses Ph.D. diversity issue A 1961 accounting alumnus started a mentorship program for minority Ph.D. candidates at United States universities. BY IAN WALKER
Assistant Features Editor
As a professor at Howard University, a historically Black university, Johnny Graham knows that representation is important. “When you’re talking about academia or any other field, people are drawn to places where they see themselves represented,” said Graham, a 2016 marketing Ph.D. alumnus. “When people have similar culture of lifestyle backgrounds...it provides a sense of enlightenment and hope that is necessary.” During his time at Temple, Graham participated in programming through The PhD Project, a mentorship program for AfricanAmerican, Hispanic and Native American Ph.D. candidates at universities in the United States. The organization was founded by Bernie Milano, a 1961 accounting alumnus, in 1994. It’s run by the KPMG Foundation, a nonprofit that supports accounting education. Nearly 300 universities participate in The PhD Project. Since the program’s inception, the number of people of color with business Ph.D. degrees in the U.S. has grown from 294 to more than 1,300 today. Milano began working for KPMG after his graduation in the early 1960s. By the mid1970s, he became KPMG’s national partner for university recruiting. Through that role, Milano began to recognize that very few students of color attended business schools. Even fewer students of color studied accounting or finance, he said, which were the fields he targeted as a recruiter. Milano hypothesized that business schools lacked a racially diverse student body because of a similar lack in faculty of color. Two decades later in the 1990s, he acted on this idea by founding The PhD Project to encourage minority business professionals to earn Ph.D.s and become professors. “Our program is about recruiting people of color who are already in corporate careers who might have...wondered what a career as a professor would be like,” Milano said. “The road to becoming a professor, the road to entering a
ACADEMIA | PAGE 8
JAMIE COTTRELL / THE TEMPLE NEWS Leah Douglas, a 1985 metals/jewelry/CAD-CAM alumna, sits in front of a pop-up theater exhibition in the Philadelphia International Airport on Monday. Douglas is the airport’s founding director of exhibitions and has curated more than 275 exhibits.
For 20 years, alumna Leah Douglas has directed the Philadelphia International Airport’s exhibitions program. BY KYLEE READER
For The Temple News
T
he exhibits Leah Douglas curates are seen by as many as 80,000 people each day. But she doesn’t work for a
museum. Douglas, a 1985 metals/jewelry/ CAD-CAM alumna, is the founding director of exhibitions at the Philadelphia International Airport and has organized more than 275 exhibits across the airport since her start in 1998. “It’s hard to stop passengers,” Douglas said. “But I need to be able to stop them in their tracks and make them look, whether that is done by adding more col-
or or bold pieces.” This year marks the 20th anniversary of the exhibitions program, which Douglas has directed since the program was founded. To celebrate the anniversary, Douglas curated the collaborative exhibit “It’s a Wrap: 20 for 20,” which is currently on display and features the work of 20 artists. Each artist created work that incorporated the existing architecture in the airport’s walkways, like adding materials to walls, columns and ceiling tiles. In all of her exhibits, Douglas said she tries to represent the history of Philadelphia and the diversity of the city’s art scene. “It’s not about me and my likes and dislikes,” Douglas said. “It’s trying to represent the city and the region in the best way I can and asking, ‘What is the city’s message?’”
After graduating from the Tyler School of Art, Douglas worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts for several years. When the director of the Philadelphia International Airport announced the launch of a new exhibitions program, she jumped at the opportunity. “I was really super excited about it because it seemed like a perfect mix of what I wanted to do, which was to showcase art to the general public in a nongallery showcase,” Douglas said. The airport now has more than 20 rotating galleries by Philadelphia and regional artists for ticketed passengers to view. Every six months, new artwork goes up in each gallery. Each of the 20 artists chosen for the anniversary project were assigned pieces to create and then install individually at
EXHIBIT | PAGE 12
PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Alumnus stars as George Washington in ‘Hamilton’ Bryan Terrell Clark, a 2003 theater alumnus, auditioned seven times before landing the Broadway role. BY CLAIRE WOLTERS For The Temple News
COURTESY / JOAN MARCUS Bryan Terrell Clark (center), a 2003 theater alumnus, stars in the Broadway musical “Hamilton” as George Washington. He took over the role in January 2017.
When Bryan Terrell Clark first performed the solo number “One Last Time” as George Washington in the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” he took the stage at the same time former President Barack Obama was delivering his final speech as president in Chicago. To sing “One Last Time” — a song about Washington’s decision not to run for re-election — in conjunction with the farewell address of America’s first and long-awaited Black president made the experience that much more powerful for Clark. “I’m a Black man playing George Washington, and I was extremely aware in the middle of the song that I was singing what essentially George Washington created as a tradition among presidents,” said Clark, a 2003 theater alumnus. “That when they’re
stepping down, they do a speech.” “I was aware that President Obama, who was our first Black president, was in Chicago at the very same moment doing his ‘one last time’ speech,” Clark added. “Hamilton,” an award-winning Broadway musical, tells the story of Founding Father and the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton through song and rap. Clark has played the role of Washington since January 2017. He and his co-stars play the Founding Fathers as people of color. He said Washington and Hamilton had a father-and-son-like relationship because Hamilton grew up as an orphan. Clark wanted to make sure this relationship was strongly conveyed. “Physically, as men of color, that was one of the storylines that was really important to me when I watched it,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that when I was portraying it that that part of their relationship was highlighted.” While on stage as Washington,
BROADWAY | PAGE 12
MUSIC | PAGE 8
HISTORY | PAGE 9
LIVE IN PHILLY | PAGE 10
EVENTS | PAGE 12
Local radio station 88.5 WXPN is producing a year-long project about the influence of gospel and soul music on contemporary genres.
An alumna helps document the stories of people who have survived atrocities, like the Holocaust, through the Shoah Foundation.
The Rock School for Dance Education hosted an open house for families on Saturday in South Philadelphia.
Paley Library will host its third annual event that focuses on updating Wikipedia pages related to gender this week.
FEATURES TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 8 MUSIC
Radio project examines the ‘overlooked’ impact of gospel Alumnus Bruce Warren is one of the project’s program producers at WXPN. BY AYOOLUWA ARIYO For The Temple News
When Bruce Warren thinks about the influence of gospel music on contemporary genres, he thinks of the song “Gold Digger” by Kanye West. The single hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 2005 and sampled the song “I Got a Woman” by rhythm and blues artist Ray Charles. Charles’ song was originally inspired by “It Must Be Jesus,” a gospel song by The Southern Tones. “A lot of Black gospel is very funky and soulful, the call and response, the rhythmic element...the choirs, those musical elements have had an influence on contemporary music,” said Warren, the assistant general manager for programming at 88.5 WXPN, a public radio station based out of the University of Pennsylvania. Warren, a 1979 education alumnus, is one of the program producers for “Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul,” a multi-platform music project by WXPN. The project is an ongoing series, funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, that explores the connection between gospel and contemporary music. The program is also trying to revive gospel music’s popularity. The project was launched in February and will run through early 2019. “Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul” has an interactive website that preserves popular gospel and gospel-inspired secular music through articles written by music experts like David Byrne and interviews of contemporary gospel artists, talking about their connections to the genre’s history. The website also has more than two dozen Spotify playlists categorized as either gospel or rock and soul. Another section showcases a video curation of gospel, rock and soul performances from artists like John Legend. “It’s [about] the musical element and the inspirational texts and feeling and soulfulness that contemporary musicians have drawn from gospel music over the years,” Warren said. The project will include free events and concerts in Philadelphia. The Fisk Jubilee Singers will perform historic songs of faith at World Cafe Live on March 29. Resources from Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection are also being used for research in the project.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 ACADEMIA Ph.D. program is a mystery to most people.” Because business Ph.D. programs tend to be smaller than other Ph.D. programs, Milano said there is less information available about how to prepare for them. The PhD Project strategically uses advertising and sends representatives to conferences with high percentages of non-white attendees to drive interest in the program. “It’s such a big decision to leave a job [for a Ph.D. program],” Milano said. “Perhaps you have a mortgage, perhaps you have children in school. It’s not something people decide on lightly.” Every November, about 700 to 800 people attend The PhD Project’s annual conference in Chicago to learn about business Ph.D. programs, Milano said. More than 100 universities send representatives to the conference. “At that conference they learn a lot about, ‘What is a doctoral program really like? What is a career as a professor really like? What do doctoral programs look for in an applicant?’” Milano said. Lisa Fitch, Fox School of Business’ senior associate director for doctoral programs, said Temple alumni who participated in The PhD Project often attend the con-
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RHIANNON RIVAS / THE TEMPLE NEWS WXPN’s Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul project hosted a concert at the First Unitarian Church on Chestnut Street near 22nd in Center City on Thursday. The concert included performances by the choirs of the First Unitarian Church and the Mother Bethel AME Church in Center City.
Warren said Philadelphia is the perfect location for the project. Popular musicians like Marion Williams, Clara Ward, The Dixie Hummingbirds and Edna Gallmon Cooke were either from Philadelphia or lived in the city while they made music. He said there’s a lack of discussion about gospel’s influence on contemporary music. “There’s a lot being written about gospel music, and about rock and soul, but the influence piece is usually relegated to a chapter or paragraph in a handful of books,” Warren said. “We couldn’t help but notice that so much of early rock ’n’ roll and soul music really had a lot of gospel feel, very spiritual, very uplifting.” “There’s musical elements from gospel that R&B and rock ’n’ roll performers took on and we wanted to kind of give it a deeper voice,” Warren added. Ann Powers, NPR Music’s critic and correspondent, helped conceptualize and narrow the focus of the project. She’s helping produce the website and will serve as a liaison to explore aspects of gospel music and interview artists outside Philadelphia.
ference to talk to prospective applicants about their experiences in the program. “I think the impact is good for our current students because we allow our students to represent during recruiting events and also give encouragement to the prospects,” Fitch said. The PhD Project candidates who are accepted into doctoral programs join one of five student associations organized by The PhD Project. The associations — accounting, finance, information systems, management and marketing — serve as support groups for students of color who often enroll in programs with very few nonwhite students. “If an African-American enters a [finance] doctoral program at a university...they might be the only African-American in the doctoral program, they might be the only African-American including all the finance faculty at the university,” Milano said. “That’s a very difficult, isolated, uncomfortable environment to be in. So we don’t let that happen.” The PhD Project has also recently added programs to help current faculty members of color at universities across the country. One program, Milano said, focuses on elevating tenured professors of color to positions as department heads and deans of business
“Gospel is acknowledged as a source for secular music, but usually it’s acknowledged in a kind of a casual way, or a very narrow way,” Powers said. “But the intricacies of gospel’s influence on secular music remains fairly unacknowledged by most writers and historians of music.” Powers grew up singing the spiritual song “Kumbaya” in the Catholic church during Mass, but she later discovered the song originates from enslaved communities in the south. She said it made her realize that African-American music is often at the root of American popular music. She added that Sister Rosetta Tharpe, an African-American, mid-20th century gospel musician, was one of the first major electric guitarists. Her music has influenced other music makers, like Aretha Franklin and Chuck Berry. “All of those connections are often overlooked, and that’s what I think we need to bring out into the open again,” Powers said. “Gospel music evolves from very old traditions to connect with the popular music of the 20th century, and it became the hybrid
forum that had room for jazz and pop elements, but also carried elements that were 200 and 300 years old.” “I love the mix and the depths of those connections and that’s what I hope we’re going to make,” she added. To wrap up the project in 2019, there will be a documentary about “Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul.” While the documentary is still in the planning stages, the overall theme is the influence that gospel music has on popular secular music and tensions or relationships that music fosters among faithbased and secular music listeners, or people of different races. “I think it’s important to know that a lot of the music that we’re listening to today started some place and with some musician and instrumentation,” Warren said. “So it’s important to not only preserve it, but to highlight it with respect to the musicians that created it in the first place, and also for younger generations to know exactly where it came from.” ayooluwa.ariyo@temple.edu
COURTESY / SHEILA CORRIVEAU (From left to right) Melvin Stith, Quiester Craig, Bernie Milano, John Elliot and Andy Policano were all inducted into the The PhD Project’s Hall of Fame. Milano founded the PhD Project, which supports minority Ph.D. candidates, in 1994.
schools. Fox’s Dean Moshe Porat is Israeli, but the majority of deans at Temple are white. In the coming months, Milano said they plan to start a training program for senior faculty members of color looking to become corporate board members.
Today, Milano said he sees many universities working to increase the diversity of their faculty. But unlike the work of The PhD Project, he said these efforts focus mostly on their specific institution, instead of on a national level. “We represent the only national program that is aimed at doing a
serious job at diversifying business school faculty,” Milano said. ian.walker@temple.edu @ian_walker12 Emily Scott and Morgan Slutzky contributed reporting.
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FEATURES TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 9
PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
‘The stories of victims should not die with them’ A 1985 radio, television and film alumna helps document the stories of people who lived through atrocities. BY PATRICK BILOW Copy Editor
Ulrika Citron’s father, who lived in Amsterdam in the 1940s, never spoke much about how his parents were killed by German Nazis during World War II. He never told her what it was like to be a “hidden child” who lost his family in the Holocaust, but she could tell he felt trauma. She vowed to never let his or similar stories be forgotten. “It’s hard to imagine what people like my father have gone through,” said Citron, a 1985 radio, television and film alumna. “It’s hard to imagine why people would want to murder and exterminate others because of the way they look or pray, but the stories of the victims should not die with them.” Citron is the co-chair of the Next Generation Council, which serves as an advisory group and donor for the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California. The foundation documents testimonies of victims of the Holocaust and other genocides. Since its founding in 1994, the Shoah Foundation has documented the stories of 55,000 victims. The Shoah Foundation was founded after movie director and producer Steven Spielberg visited Poland in the early 1990s to create “Schindler’s List,” a movie about the persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust. Citron said countless Holocaust survivors came to the set to tell Spielberg their stories. He felt like their experiences needed to be documented, so he approached USC to start the Shoah Foundation. Shoah in Hebrew means “catastrophe,” and is used as another term for the Holocaust. But Citron said the organization has branched out to cover other atrocities. With thousands of contributors all over the globe, the Shoah Foundation has documented testimonies from survivors of
China’s Nanjing Massacre of 1937 and 1938, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the ongoing genocide in Myanmar, in which the Rohingya ethnic minority are being killed by the national military. “All of these stories are incredible, and each is unique,” Citron said. “Every person is different, but I think the people we have interviewed really wanted to share their story. Their experiences are just breathtaking.” Margot Schlesinger is a Holocaust survivor who gave her testimony to the Shoah Foundation in 1995. She spoke about growing up in Berlin and having her innocence stripped from her as she was thrown into a ghetto and later, the Plaszow concentration camp, where she worked for Oskar Schindler, the namesake of “Schindler’s List.” Schindler, who used his membership with the Nazi party to spy on their military operations, was credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jewish people during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. Schlesinger was accidently shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp in a cattle car, but when Schindler begged for her and other women to be returned, she was sent back to Plaszow. “We were the only Jews who ever left Auschwitz alive,” Schlesinger later told the Shoah Foundation. “There is a shock factor to many of these stories,” said Kim Simon, the managing director of the Shoah Foundation. “Some stories contain material that is traumatic, that is difficult and very painful, but our goal is not to shock people, but to bring knowledge and emotion together in a way that is sustaining.” Simon hopes audiences will wonder how the testimonies con-
nect to their own lives. She said the foundation wants to change the narrative that surrounds atrocities. The foundation is integrating the testimonies into curricula and research around the world, while continuously developing ways to make them relevant for years to come. Many of the testimonies on its website are told through documentary-style videos. There are also 360-degree videos on the website, like one that tells the story of Lala, a dog who brightened the lives of a family interned in a ghetto in Poland during WWII. The foundation produces room-scale virtual reality experiences at museums, like The Last Goodbye. This exhibit allows viewers to follow Pinchas Gutter, a Holocaust survivor, on his recent visit to Majdanek Concentration Camp in Poland, where his parents and sister were murdered in World War II. Simon added that in a time when there has been a rise in hate crimes, it’s important to listen to these stories because it helps people understand where hatred stems from and what it has done to people. She said that understanding the past can help the future. “There is a lot to be learned from these stories, like resilience,” Citron said. “So many are shocked by these testimonies. This work never ends, unfortunately, but I hope as we continue to tell these stories and to educate students, that people are inspired to fight hatred and discrimination, and to stop stereotyping and bigotry.” patrick.bilow@temple.edu @patrick_bilow
“HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MEN’S BASKETBALL MAKING THE NIT?”
MATT SHEERIN Freshman Undeclared in Fox
[They have] the chance to bring home some more hardware like the football team did with the bowl game. That’s exciting. … Definitely all over the place in terms of the grand season, but the high points were the exciting points and I thought they were worth it. … I think they definitely have a shot [to win the tournament.]
MONTY PIERCE Freshman Undeclared in CLA
Some stories contain material that is traumatic, that is difficult and very painful, but our goal is not to shock people, but to bring knowledge and emotion together in a way that is sustaining. KIM SIMON
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE SHOAH FOUNDATION
[I’m] super proud that they made it and that they’re going. And there is going to be a bus that’s going for the Cherry Crusade to go to Penn State and watch them, so it’s gonna be litty. … I definitely think they have a chance [to win], but I’m most excited to heckle the other team.
YANUARA RAMIREZ Junior Journalism
I’ll probably be there Wednesday [at the Penn State game with the Diamond Band.] … It’ll be cool to watch one last game because I thought we were done for the season. … I’m always rooting for them, and I always believe in them when nobody else does. … I don’t know if we’re as strong as other teams, but I love watching the guys play. COURTESY / ULRIKA CITRON Ulrika Citron (right), a 1985 radio, television and film alumna, walks during the commemoration of the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 and 1938 in Nanjing, China in December 2016. She is the co-chair of the Next Generation Council, which serves as an advisory group and donor for the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California.
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FEATURES TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 10
Professional dance studio hosts open house for youth and adult beginner classes
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MAGGIE LOESCH / THE TEMPLE NEWS The Rock School for Dance Education hosted a community open house for families on Saturday. The school is on Broad Street near Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia and was founded by Milton Rock, an alumnus and honorary life trustee who died in January. The school has a reputation for training professional dancers. With this event, the school hoped to encourage enrollment in its beginner youth and adult classes. Families were invited to participate in pre-kindergarten hip-hop sample classes, arts and crafts, dance-alongs and to watch a special performance by advanced students at the school. There were also opportunities to register for classes and purchase merchandise. The school hosts open houses four times a year, said Brian McCole, the school’s production and technical manager. About 100 people attended the event. “I think it’s great,” said South Philadelphia resident Katy Otto, who went with her 2-year-old son David. “We live pretty close to here. I thought it would be fun for him to go to, and it’s free. I think it’s really neat for the little ones to see things they can do.” The event closed with ballet routines by pre-professional students at the Rock School.
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University event celebrates the ‘pride’ of graduation At GradFest, seniors can fill out last-minute orders for commencement caps and gowns. BY LAURA SMYTHE For The Temple News
With graduation approaching, many seniors are experiencing the stress and excitement of life after their undergraduate degree. Mike Salzarulo, a senior electrical engineering major, said his college experience has been hectic with lots of ups and downs. He said a lot is up in the air in terms of what comes next in his life, but he’s excited to pursue a professional engineering career. “It feels good to be graduating soon,” Salzarulo said. “I’m excited to pursue a real job, make big-boy money and have some more free time.” For students like Salzarulo, the university created GradFest, an annual celebration for graduating seniors marking 50 days until university commencement. GradFest 2018 will be held on March 21 in Mitten Hall. The event will run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. and will offer students a place to celebrate their undergraduate achievements and look forward to future professional accomplishments. The event is hosted by the Office of Alumni Relations, which works to connect Temple students and graduates in the Temple University Alumni Association to provide networking opportunities. Students attending GradFest will get to participate in a champagne toast and enjoy a cake made by Baker Dave. Baker Dave, whose real name is Dave Okapal, is the Temple pastry chef known for his intricate cakes, like the one-ton sheet cake in the shape of the Temple “T” he baked in 2012. At GradFest, seniors can also fill out last-minute orders for commencement caps and gowns and pick up a limited edition Class of 2018 T-shirt available exclusively at GradFest. A DJ will play at the event and students can play games like cornhole and life-size Jenga. Representatives from the university’s Career Center plan to set up a table at GradFest, where students can receive a comprehensive review of their LinkedIn profiles. Experts will ensure students’ photos, resumes and skills put them in the best position for employment while applying for jobs. Karen Demmler, a career coach in the Career Center, said that LinkedIn profiles are an important factor in hiring. “Nine out of 10 employers look at your LinkedIn profile as a factor of whether they’re going to interview you or not,” Demmler said. “Make sure yours looks great.” Michael Minetti, the director of student and young alumni engagement, said the opportunity to talk to students about their careers is exciting for Temple alumni. They
COURTESY / JOSEPH LABOLITO
Seniors get their GradFest passport stamped at the Senior Glass Gift table at last year’s GradFest in Mitten Hall.
enjoy providing professional resources to students, like the chance to spend a day job shadowing in an office. Minetti added that he thinks alumni are grateful for their own Temple experiences and aim to pay it forward. TUAA has an alumni network of more than 300,000 people across all 50 states and in 143 countries. TUAA is made up of 23 chapters, with 17 located in cities in the United States, like New York City and Washington D.C. There are also six international chapters in cities like Beijing and Tokyo. Minetti said GradFest is a culminating point of the undergraduate experience. It marks the point of transition from being a student to becoming a member of the university’s alumni. “Seniors can come and feel that sense of pride where they’re like, ‘Wow, I’m 50 days away from something I’ve worked hard on for three-and-a-half years,’” Minetti said. “The goal of graduating college is also something people have been thinking about their whole lives.” “Students come [to Temple] and it takes four years to become a nurse or a journalist or learn engineering,” he added. “It also takes a while for you to learn to become a good alumni. It’s not something people just automatically understand and know what
to do.” Minetti said successful Temple alumni are involved with events happening on campus and continue to interact with the university through social media. He added a key part of the alumni experience is participating in the Office of Alumni Relations’s larger initiatives like Global Days of Service, Alumni Weekend and Homecoming. Global Days of Service, which will be held at the end of April, consists of students, alumni, staff and faculty dedicating a week to volunteer opportunities addressing global health, the environment and hunger initiatives. Volunteers can work in soup kitchens, food banks, city gardens and other locations across the U.S. and internationally. Students attending GradFest will have access to special $20 tickets for Alumni Weekend, which takes place in May. Alumni Weekend tickets are available at this discounted price exclusively at GradFest. The usual price is $45. Students attending GradFest can learn more about these initiatives and how to get involved from Office of Alumni Relations staff at the event. Minetti said Temple’s extensive alumni network shows the university’s collective aspiration to transforming lives. He said the power of TUAA lies in its willingness to
help students jumpstart their careers. “It’s not just about coming here and growing, learning and making yourself better,” Minetti said. “Part of Temple’s mission is making sure we always look back and connect that attitude to help others.” “I always ask the hypothetical question, ‘Did an alumni help you get your first internship as a student?’” Minetti said. “If they did, you should pay that back to a student. If they didn’t, when you’re five or 10 years down in your career and you can do that for someone, shouldn’t you do that because someone didn’t do that for you?” He added that outreach and support from alumni can make a huge difference to students. Salzarulo said he’d be interested in connecting with future Temple students down the road as an alumni because of the welcoming environment he experienced at school. “Everyone at Temple was really inviting and welcoming,” he said. “Temple professors are very welcoming and really eager to help.” Seniors can register online now for GradFest 2018. laura.smythe@temple.edu @lcs_smythe
WHAT WILL BE AT GRADFEST? • LIMITED EDITION CLASS OF 2018 T-SHIRT
• TICKETS FOR ALUMNI WEEKEND
• CHAMPAGNE TOAST
• LAST-MINUTE CAP AND GOWN ORDERS
• CAKE BY BAKER DAVE
• CAREER CENTER LINKEDIN REVIEW
COURTESY / JOSEPH LABOLITO Left: A 2017 senior has her LinkedIn profile reviewed by the Temple University Career Center at last year’s GradFest. Right: GradFest has many free treats. This year, there will be a cake made in the shape of a graduation cap.
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FEATURES TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 12 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 BROADWAY
Paley Library hosts feminist Wikipedia workshop On Tuesday in Paley Library’s Ground Floor Lecture Hall, Temple University Libraries will host “Curation and Community in the Age of Art and Feminism: Panel and Wikipedia Edit-a-thon.” This is its third annual lecture and workshop focused on updating Wikipedia entries on subjects related to gender, art and feminism. The panel will begin at 11 a.m. and the editing workshop will run from 1:30 to 4 p.m. The panelists will include Institute of Contemporary Art Associate Curator Kate Kraczon, Indianapolis Museum of Art Associate Curator Kelli Morgan and Mechella Yezernitskaya, an art history Ph.D. candidate at Bryn Mawr College. Tutorials and reference materials for beginner Wikipedia editors will be provided during the workshop. -Veronica Thomas
Fellow leads workshop on Twitter research Alex Wermer-Colan, a fellow with the Council on Library and Information Resources, will lead “Investigating Twitter,” a workshop focused on learning how to use Twitter for social science research. It will be held in the Digital Scholarship Center at Paley Library on Wednesday at noon. The workshop is geared toward students studying journalism, political science and media studies. One of the sessions during the workshop will focus on how to identify automated tweets, which are more commonly known as “bots.” -Emily Scott
College of Liberal Arts to screen Brazilian film The College of Liberal Arts will present a screening of the film “Central do Brasil” on Wednesday from 3 to 5 p.m. in Room 307AB of Tuttleman Learning Center. The film follows a retired school teacher who has to care for a homeless 9-year-old boy as they travel around Brazil in search of his father. The screening, which will have English subtitles, is free and open to the public. Raffle tickets will be distributed at the event for a prize given out at the end of the semester. -Emily Trinh
Tyler to host panel on Black masculinity The Tyler School of Art will host the panel “Fashioning Black Masculinity: Dandies, Photography and Curatorial Process” on Thursday at 6 p.m. in Room B-04 of Tyler. The panel, which will be moderated by mixed-media artist and designer Joy O. Ude, will include artist Devin N. Morris, curator Shantrelle P. Lewis and attorney and designer Walé Oyéjidé. In Lewis’s 2017 book, “Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style,” she examines the history and contemporary rise of “Black Dandyism,” a trend of Black men’s fashion that embraces bold colors and patterns. This year, clothing produced by Jones’s fashion brand Ikiré Jones was featured in the blockbuster Marvel film “Black Panther.” -Valerie Dowret
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Clark said he thinks he brings a stronger human quality to the role than what is conveyed in history books. He presents Washington to the audience as not just a great leader, but also a hardworking man. “I think that the thing that people don’t realize about George Washington is that he was a farmer who became a general who became a president who became a farmer again,” Clark said. “[People have] this idea of George Washington walking in this heavy space, but I wanted you to see the man behind all that. He’s not someone who built a country before. He’s a citizen learning how to be a leader.” Breaking down racial barriers is something Clark has prioritized since the start of his acting career. He said during his time at Temple, he struggled to find meaning in classes because many of them lacked diversity. According to the Fall 2016 Student Profile, 62.4 percent of students in the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts were white. 12.1 percent were Black. “I didn’t feel when I was there that the faculty and staff who were running the program had a real grasp on what was happening in the industry at the moment,” Clark said. He said at the time, there was only one professor of color in the theater
department, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, who still teaches theater studies and playwriting at the university. During his time at Temple, Clark befriended Amina Robinson, a 2003 master’s of acting alumna, who is now an acting and musical theater professor in the department. She acted with Clark in Temple’s performance of August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” which follows the lives of seven AfricanAmericans in 1948. All of the students involved in this production were people of color. “Bryan was always so driven and motivated and highly talented,” Robinson said. “He actually got the lead role in the show, usually reserved for a grad student.” But when Clark left Temple’s theater program, he learned much more about the difficulties of the acting industry. He said Broadway auditions often include multiple steps that begin with a pre-screening and end with a final audition in front of producers. He said finding an audition typically begins with his agent submitting him for a role or being requested to audition. For “Hamilton,” Clark auditioned upon request. Clark was called in to audition when producers thought actor Christopher Jackson was leaving his role as Washington. When Jackson decided to stay, Clark was no longer needed.
A year later, this happened again, and then again. “I auditioned seven times,” Clark said. “By round five or six, I definitely wanted to give up. I told my agent, ‘Why am I going back into this show? I’m tired of putting my heart on the line to hear no, or to hear wait.’” But Clark kept going back. And when he booked the role after his seventh audition, he said he was ecstatic. In early February, Clark talked about his experience with Temple theater students enrolled in the course Production Practicum. Salvatore Mirando, a senior musical theater major in the class, said Clark discussed the importance of having passion for performances and how an actor can bring their individual personality into a role. “It was inspirational to have him talk about how to never give up the fight,” Mirando said. Clark added that patience and coping with rejection were essential to locking his role as Washington. “As an actor, the things you can’t control are the how and the when,” Clark said. “I don’t think so much that you can’t be successful because it takes a bunch of luck to have opportunity. I think most people aren’t patient enough.” clairewolters@temple.edu
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 EXHIBIT the airport. Rhonda Cooper is a street artist who specializes in “yarnbombing,” which includes covering objects or structures in public spaces with crocheted material. Cooper was tasked with decorating a rocking chair and half of a cement column for the project. She plans to begin installing her pieces in July along with the other artists. Cooper, whose artist’s name is Marbufs, also has an individual exhibit, “Marbufs Crocheted Interventions,” currently on display at the airport. It includes several objects, like a column and children’s bicycles, which were crocheted with vibrantly-colored yarn. “It’s a Wrap” will be Cooper’s first experience in a group exhibit. “It’s just great working with 19 other amazing artists and working with some of the greatest artists in the city,” Cooper said. “I may never get another opportunity like this in my lifetime.” Another artist, Conrad Benner is highlighting the Philadelphia art scene through his exhibit in one of the airport’s rotating galleries. Benner is the creator of the Philadelphia art blog Streets Dept, which has gained about 139,000 followers on Instagram and been covered by outlets like The Guardian. His work, “Discovering Philly Street Art,” features photos of Philadelphia street art, and will be displayed through October in Terminal D. The gallery is a reflection of his seven-year-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 FILM For young filmmakers, Appel said festival appearances are crucial for people to see their work. “Unfortunately the life of a film, unlike most artwork, really depends on external validation because you have to get into a festival for people to be able to see your work,” Appel said. “And that’s a lot of the times when a film is realized, so it is good to give a platform to students.” Jillian Hartman, a junior film and media arts major, will present her film “#womencrushwednesday” in the festival. The film follows an outcast character named Cindy who stalks a woman after obsessively following her on social media. Through her film, Hartman said she wanted to criticize the way women tend to use social media to view other people’s lives. The idea for the film’s plot stems from the popular saying, “I would kill to look like you.”
EMILY SCOTT / THE TEMPLE NEWS A passenger at the Philadelphia International Airport looks at Conrad Benner’s exhibit, “Discovering Philly Street Art,” on March 7.
old blog, which showcases public art like murals and sculptures in the city. “[The exhibit is] really cool,” Benner said. “I feel like I have a decent Instagram following and that my audience is pretty decent, but this is a whole new world. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to show my art.” Along with his current exhibit, Benner will also host a discussion on social media and photography during the airport’s “Arts in the Airport” workshop in October. Organized by the American Association of Airport Executives, the workshop will feature presentations on
“I really enjoy analyzing our use of technology because it is so vast right now,” Hartman said. “It is criticizing our use of social media and the way that women look at one another in general.” Wednesday will be the first time one of Hartman’s films is featured at a festival. “It’s the first thing that I have ever been recognized for, I didn’t expect anything to come from it,” Hartman said. “I am excited that I have an amazing team who worked on the film with me, and to see what other amazing works the female filmmakers at Temple have made.” With the rise of the Time’s Up movement, which advocates against sexual harassment in Hollywood, Hartman said she sees signs of inclusion growing in the filmmaking industry. “I believe these categories are going to become more equally diverse in the future because of these movements,” Hartman said. “I can’t wait to see what women sweep the Oscar categories
how to implement art in airports nationwide. After spending two decades at the airport, Douglas said the project will showcase the scope of the program’s achievements. “For me, this is a celebration of the long-lasting power that this program has infused over the airport’s culture,” Douglas said. “Philadelphia is known for its art and now it has become part of the airport’s image and what it represents.” kylee.reader@temple.edu
next year because Time’s Up is making a difference and people are listening.” At the 90th annual Academy Awards on March 4, women won the least number of Oscars since 2012. Only six women took home awards out of the 39 total honorees. Udaybabu also said she believes the filmmaking industry lacks space for women. By providing a platform specifically for female filmmakers at Temple, she hopes the festival will inspire other women to showcase their talents. “I think that the canon of cinema we are exposed to in film school is male-dominated and male-oriented,” Udaybabu said. “It becomes difficult as a woman to find a place in the art form when we are not represented. ... A festival like this that encourages us to express ourselves is a good platform to build our confidence in our own voice.” emma.padner@temple.edu
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SPORTS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16 IBRAHIM other fencers. Coach Nikki Franke said Safa Ibrahim leads by example and her teammates can count on her to work hard. “There is no one like Safa,”
PAGE 13
Luke said. “Everything she does has a purpose, but she does a good job keeping things fun. It could be the hardest drill or easiest drill, but I trust Safa will help make it fun for all of us.” “Safa is not only one of the best fencers I have coached, but one of the best people,” Franke
said. “She gets along so well with others. She’s so kind, so genuine, so focused.” Ibrahim isn’t one to be the center of attention, but because she is the team captain and the only graduating senior, sometimes she has no choice. During Franke’s closing
JOCELYN BURNS / THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior epee Safa Ibrahim (left) and junior epee Ally Micek rest during practice on March 1 at the Student Pavilion.
remarks to the team after the Temple Invitational and Senior Day on Feb. 24 at McGonigle Hall, Ibrahim’s teammates broke out into a “Safa” chant. “My teammates make me feel really good,” Ibrahim said. “It makes me really happy to know how much they care about me. It puts a smile on my face.” Ibrahim said it will be hard to leave the team once she graduates, and she will miss the friends she has made. But just because she is graduating doesn’t mean she will never return. “I still want to be around this program,” Ibrahim said. “I know how they treat alumni in this program. I will have opportunities to come back and visit. And I look forward to those times already.” Ibrahim plans to visit the annual Temple Open and Temple Invitational and stay in touch with Franke and her teammates. “My team means so much to me,” Ibrahim said. “I learned so much during my time at Temple. I don’t like to think about me leaving, but when I eventually have to leave, I’ll always carry what Temple and this program has taught me.” michael.zingrone@temple.edu @mjzingrone
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16 BIG EAST 25, freshman midfielder Jen Rodzewich and senior attacker Toni Yuko made their first starts of the season. Yuko and Rodzewich each started the next three games. Yuko had four goals in that span, and Rodzewich had six goals and four assists. Rodzewich made the conference’s Weekly Honor Roll after her five-goal outing against Lafayette. Injuries and the departure of senior attacker Nicole Barretta after the fourth game of the season affected lineup changes. Senior attacker Kira Gensler scored two goals in the Owls’ win against East Carolina on March 6, when she returned from an injury that kept her sidelined for two weeks. Instead of preparing for conference opponents weeks in advance, Temple will focus on self-improvement and take a game-by-game approach, Rosen said. “Sometimes when you focus too much on opponents, you forget about yourself,” assistant coach Devon Schneider said. Rosen said the team needs to work on having more consistent success, rather than bursts of good play. She was impressed with her team’s effort in the second half of the game against East Carolina. The Owls scored nine straight goals and kept the Pirates from scoring until there were 11 minutes, 30 seconds remaining
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Group calls for athletic department to fire Fran Dunphy Through a website called firefrandunphy.com, a group of alumni and boosters are calling for the athletic department to fire coach Fran Dunphy. The group is concerned that the program has “stagnated” under Dunphy. Temple (17-15, 8-10 American Athletic Conference) missed the NCAA Tournament this season for the fourth time in the past five years. The Owls will play in the National Invitation Tournament against Penn State on Wednesday. Dunphy, who took over for Hall of Fame coach John Chaney before the 2006-07 season, led Temple to six consecutive NCAA Tournaments from 200713 after posting a 12-18 record in his first season. In an interview with OwlsDaily on Saturday, Athletic Director Pat Kraft responded to a question about Dunphy’s contract by saying, “He’s our basketball coach now,” and declined to give how many years remain on Dunphy’s deal. Former athletic director Bill Bradshaw gave Dunphy an eight-year extension in May 2010. The Inquirer reported on Saturday that three years remain on Dunphy’s deal. Dunphy has a 3-16 all-time record in the NCAA Tournament over his 29 seasons coaching at Penn and Temple. During his Temple career, he has a 2-7 record in NCAA Tournament games. Since joining The American for the 2013-14 season, Temple has an 89-76 record with two postseason appearances. The Owls advanced to the semifinals of the NIT as a No. 1 seed in 2015 and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to the University of Iowa in overtime on March 18, 2016. Dunphy, who will turn 70 years old in October, has a 557-314 career record, a 247-151 record with the Owls. He won back-to-back American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year awards in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. -Evan Easterling
FENCING
Fencers earn national distinction
SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Coach Bonnie Rosen led her team to an 8-4 win against La Salle on Monday at Howarth Field in Temple’s final nonconference game.
in the game. Specific areas where she wants to see improvement include draw controls, defense and one-on-one play. The team worked on defensive coverage during spring break, Rosen added. Temple will enter conference play coming off Monday’s 8-4 win against La Salle at Howarth Field. The Owls will face three teams — No. 25 Georgetown University, No. 22 Denver and No. 6 University of Florida — currently ranked in the IWLCA
poll during conference play. Big East schools Vanderbilt University, Florida, Marquette University and Cincinnati all rank in the top 30 of Division I in goals per game. Last year, Temple made the conference tournament as the No. 4 seed and had to face Florida in the first round. The Gators, who were No. 2 in the IWLCA poll, beat Temple, 219, to advance to the championship. Seeding is not a focus for the Owls. Being a No. 2 seed com-
pared to a No. 3 seed doesn’t necessarily guarantee an improved chance at postseason success, Rosen said. Ultimately, Rosen simply wants her team to make the tournament. “Our goal is to put ourselves in a position to get to the conference championship,” Rosen added. “In order to do that, we need to finish top four in the conference.” jay.neemeyer@temple.edu
The National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association announced its awards on Wednesday. Temple won its 22nd straight NIWFA title on March 3. Seven Owls received All-NIWFA distinction. Sophomore sabre Malia Hee made the All-NIWFA First Team for her third-place finish. Senior epee Safa Ibrahim and junior epee Fiona Fong each made the first team. Ibrahim won the individual title, and Fong placed third. Freshman foil Kari Weiner and junior foil Auset Muhammad each made the first team. They finished second and third, respectively. Temple competed at the NCAA MidAtlantic/South Regional on Saturday in Easton, Pennsylvania, where it had six finalists. Selections for the NCAA Championships on March 22 and 23 will be made on Tuesday. -Evan Easterling
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SPORTS PAGE 14
TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
TEMPLE’S PAST FIVE NIT APPEARANCES OPENING ROUND
FIRST ROUND
SECOND ROUND
QUARTER FINALS
TENNIS
SEMIFINALS
FINALS
Players self-officiate matches
2002-03
With several matches happening simultaneously, players call their own lines.
2003-04 2004-05
BY ALEX McGINLEY For The Temple News
2005-06 2014-15* *After 2005-06 season, the NIT downsized from 40 teams to 32, removing the Opening Round.
COURTNEY REDMON / THE TEMPLE NEWS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 NIT for this year’s NIT in hopes of providing data for the committees governing the rules, competition and oversight as it considers future changes for all of Division I. Among the changes, games will be broken into four 10-minute quarters — just like Division I women’s basketball — instead of two 20-minute halves. There won’t be one-and-one free-throw opportunities. Instead, each team will shoot two free throws starting with the fifth foul of each quarter. In addition, the free-throw lane will be widened from 12 feet to 16 feet, which is the width used by the NBA. A change that will affect both Penn State and Temple because of their styles of play is the decision to move the 3-point line back approximately 20 inches to the distance used by the International Basketball Federation in competitions like the Olympics. The Nittany Lions’ 38.4 3-point percentage ranks 42nd in Division I. Temple leads The American in 3-point attempts. Senior forward Obi Enechionyia, Temple’s third-leading scorer, takes 56.6 percent of his field-goal attempts from 3-point range. “We have pro lines at our court at McGonigle Hall, so they shoot pro 3-pointers often enough but this is just another further shot,” Dunphy said. “But it also affects how you’re going to prepare defensively as well.” This will be Temple’s 19th NIT appearance overall and its second in the past four seasons. The Owls won NIT titles in 1938 and 1969. The last time the Owls played in the NIT, they were snubbed from the 2015 NCAA Tournament. Despite having eight wins against top-100 Ratings Percentage Index teams and a No. 34 RPI, Temple missed the NCAA Tournament as the first team left out
of the field. The Owls continued their season as a No. 1 seed in the NIT. By virtue of being one of the top four seeds, they got to host every NIT game until their semifinal loss to the University of Miami at Madison Square Garden. This year, because Temple is a No. 5 seed, it will start the tournament on the road. The Owls didn’t win their first road game until Jan. 10 against Southern Methodist and finished the season with a 4-9 record in away games. Penn State had a 14-4 record at home this season, including wins against NCAA Tournament teams Ohio State University and the University of Montana. The Nittany Lions beat Ohio State, which is the No. 17 team in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, three times, once at home. For the teams’ most recent matchup, Penn State lost to Temple at the 2011 NCAA Tournament. Penn State will make its second postseason appearance in coach Pat Chambers’ seven-year tenure. The Nittany Lions have seven players who went to high school in Southeastern Pennsylvania, many of whom Temple recruited, Dunphy said. Three of Penn State’s four leading scorers are graduates of Roman Catholic High School at Broad and Vine streets. Sophomore guard Tony Carr, who is projected to be a late first-round or early second-round 2018 NBA Draft pick by Sports Illustrated, leads the Nittany Lions with 19.9 points per game. Sophomore forward Lamar Stevens averages 14.9 points per game. “I really like their team,” Dunphy said. “They have some good wins this year. It’s a great challenge for us, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Most collegiate sports require an officiating crew, but tennis allows players to make their own calls. Coach Steve Mauro believes players should be allowed to make their own calls, but they have to be honest. “We’re on the honor system in tennis,” Mauro said. “People are supposed to be fair. If for some reason they aren’t fair, that’s why the official steps in.” Division I players can make their own judgments on whether the ball is inside the lines on the court. Senior Thomas Sevel said players have to make their own calls because there are only two officials going around during each competition, which has several matches happening at once. Mauro said the only exception to players self-officiating matches is if there is a call in question or disagreement between the players. In that case, the official has the ability to overrule the call. “We’re never going to be able to always have a referee,” Sevel said. “When there’s competition or something in play, they’re going to find people
who are doing so badly that they’re going to cheat. [Referees] have to know how to handle it.” Sevel is used to making his own calls. He said tournaments in his native France had five or six matches happening simultaneously, but there was only one official at the tournament. When Sevel came to the United States to play at Augusta University, a Division II school in Georgia, the officiating situation was the same. Now at Temple, sometimes there is an official present at each court, especially when the Owls travel to play against bigger schools. For example, when Temple (8-4, 0-1 American Athletic Conference) lost to Penn State, 7-0, on Feb. 3, there was an official at each court, Sevel said. Junior Alberto Caceres Casas believes officials should be observing each match in order to make a decision on calls in question. Like Sevel, Caceres Casas made his own calls in his native Spain and at his previous school, Armstrong State University, a Division II school in Savannah, Georgia. According to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rulebook, when an official has only one match under his or her jurisdiction, the official must sit in a chair near the court in order to get a better view of the match.
“If the umpire makes [the call], he has to be near the court,” Caceres Casas said. “He cannot be walking around the courts. He should sit down on a chair, or we make our own calls.” Though she has had to call her own lines for her entire tennis career, junior Alice Patch believes officials should make the calls as long as they are observing the match. “Some people are not overly fair,” Patch said. “If there was a referee, it would make the game more fair. You have to be mature about it and sportsmanlike.” Sevel said Division I officials have made better calls than Division II officials in his experience. “I’ve never had big issues here,” Sevel said. “Sometimes when I played in Division II, I had some tough matches where the referee wasn’t very precise on the rules.” Because his players have been calling their own lines for their whole careers, Mauro trusts his players to be fair. “We really haven’t had too many problems with our players or opposing players calling lines,” Mauro said. “It’s just a part of tennis. It’s something they’ve done since they were 10 years old.” alex.mcginley@temple.edu
evan.easterling@temple.edu @Evan_Easterling
SCORING AVERAGE LEADERS IN PAST FIVE NITS 2002-03
David Hawkins
2003-04
2004-05
Mardy Collins
2005-06
Mark Tyndale
2014-15
Will Cummings 0
5
10
15
20
25
COURTNEY REDMON / THE TEMPLE NEWS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16 FUTURE It had an average scoring margin of 14.4 points in the final seven regular-season games. Both stretches include losses to UConn, the No. 1 team in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll. The Owls had one of their best offensive performances of the season in the first round of the conference tournament against Wichita State. They shot 47.3 percent from the field, their best mark in conference play, to beat the Shockers, 7259, on March 3. Then Temple matched its season-high free-throw percentage against Central Florida. “When we first started out in
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conference play, we were getting blown out by just about everybody,” Cardoza told reporters after the Central Florida game. “There were no games that we were in, but we kept coming to practice and kept grinding. ... It took a little longer because we are younger, but the hard work started to pay off.” For most of the season, three of the four starters alongside Atkinson were freshmen. Guard Emani Mayo and forward Breanna Perry started 27 games, and forward Mia Davis started all 31. Freshman guard Desiree Oliver started nine of the last 10 regular-season games after missing time recovering from surgery on a bone in her hand.
GENEVA HEFFERNAN / THE TEMPLE NEWS Junior Alice Patch practices at the Legacy Tennis Center in East Falls on Feb. 13.
Oliver averaged 5.6 points per game during her nine starts, which included a 12-point game in a loss on Feb. 21 to fourth-place Cincinnati. “I think in my position as a point guard, just being able to handle the pace of the game I have improved on that a little bit,” Oliver said. “I know we like to play up-tempo here, and I just want to always be pushing the ball up.” The freshmen’s emergence and progression has Cardoza optimistic for the future despite the team’s rough spells. Davis, who was one of two players unanimously selected for The American’s All-Freshman Team, was the Owls’ second-lead-
ing scorer and rebounder with 11.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. Mayo was also named to The American’s All-Freshman Team. She played the second-most minutes behind Atkinson, despite starting four fewer games. Mayo finished third on the team in scoring with 9.7 points per game and fourth with 2.2 assists per game. ”I have seen a lot of growth from them,” Cardoza said. “I think Breanna can be a double-digit scorer when she figures out how to turn her consistent energy into scoring. Emani was a real bright spot all season. She always pays attention and is always learning.” A byproduct of the Owls’ inexperience was turnovers. They
ranked 265th out of 349 Division I teams in turnover margin and turned the ball over 23 times against Central Florida. “Again, our youth hurt us a little bit [against Central Florida] because we allowed the pressure to get to us, but our future is bright,” Cardoza said. “We are going to miss the seniors of course, but to watch our younger players compete over the last few days, I know next year we will not be sitting here in the same position.” kevinschaeffer@temple.edu @_kevinschaeffer
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SPORTS TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 15
FOOTBALL
Collins’ second spring camp at Temple begins Temple is coming off its first bowl win since 2011 in December. BY EVAN EASTERLING Sports Editor
Temple will start its second spring football camp under coach Geoff Collins Tuesday at Chodoff Field at 10th and Diamond streets. The Owls will have 14 spring practices before their annual Cherry and White Game on April 14 at the Temple Sports Complex. Temple finished last season with a 7-6 record and a victory against Florida International University in the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl in December. After they ended the 2014 season with a 6-6 record and missed out on earning an invitation to a bowl game, the Owls have now ended the past three seasons with records above .500. The last time Temple had three consecutive winning seasons was from 2009-11 when it played in the Mid-American Conference under former coaches Al Golden and Steve Addazio. The 2011 season ended with a win in the New Mexico Bowl, which marked the Owls’ first bowl victory since 1979 and stood as their most recent bowl win until they won the Gasparilla Bowl. Temple will enter the season looking for its fourth straight bowl appearance, something it has never done in program history. The Owls will also try to have a winning record for the fourth year in a row, which they haven’t done since they had five straight winning seasons under College Football Hall of Fame coach Wayne Hardin from 1971-75.
Quarterback Frank Nutile will return for his redshirt-senior season. Nutile had a 4-2 record in his six starts and threw 12 touchdowns to his six interceptions. Three other quarterbacks — redshirt sophomore Anthony Russo, redshirt freshman Todd Centeio and freshman Trad Beatty — will be in spring training camp. The Owls could have potentially had five quarterbacks, but Logan Marchi transferred to East Tennessee State University in January. Last season, Marchi emerged as the winner of the preseason competition for the starting role and started the first seven games of the season. Russo and Centeio each competed for the starting job in 2017. Russo didn’t take any offensive snaps, but he played two games as the holder for field-goal attempts and extra-point tries. Centeio played in two games and completed two passes in a 2921 win against UMass on Sept. 15. Beatty is a left-handed early enrollee from South Carolina. Rivals. com rated Beatty as a three-star recruit. Adonis Jennings and Keith Kirkwood, Temple’s two 2017 leaders in receiving touchdowns, have graduated. The Owls’ leader in receptions, junior wideout Isaiah Wright, will return this season. In the backfield, senior Ryquell Armstead and redshirt senior David Hood, who combined for 10 rushing touchdowns and 1,242 yards rushing last season, return for their final years of eligibility. Redshirt-junior running back Jager Gardner will make his return from a season-ending injury he
HOJUN YU / FILE PHOTO Army West Point senior defensive back Max Regan (left) makes a diving tackle attempt at senior running back Ryquell Armstead in the Black Knights’ 31-28 overtime win on Oct. 21 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.
suffered on Sept. 21 against South Florida. Gardner played three games last season. In 2016, he had 29 carries for 111 yards and two touchdowns in 11 games. Some of Temple’s key departures include safety Sean Chandler, who competed in defensive back workouts at the NFL Scouting Combine on March 5 in Indianapolis. Temple’s starting offensive tackles, Leon Johnson and Cole Boozer, also graduated after the 2017 season. Three players who had 10 or more tackles for loss — Sharif Finch, Jacob Martin and Jullian Taylor — played their final seasons.
Collins retained most of his staff during the offseason. Andrew Thacker, who was the linebackers coach last season, will be the defensive coordinator after Taver Johnson left the role to become the cornerbacks coach and special teams coordinator at Ohio State University. In addition to serving as the defensive coordinator last season, Johnson worked as the safeties coach. Collins hired Nathan Burton, a former North Carolina State University assistant, to coach the defensive backs this season. Collins also promoted Larry Knight to a full-time role as the
outside linebackers coach and defensive recruiting coordinator. He promoted former graduate assistant Reggie Garrett to defensive analyst and promoted former offensive quality control coach Adam DiMichele to a full-time assistant role. Temple will begin its regular season with three of its first four games at home, starting on Sept. 1 against Villanova. Temple will face nine teams that it faced in 2017. The Owls had a 5-4 record against those teams. evan.easterling@temple.edu @Evan_Easterling
MEN’S GYMNASTICS
Using other clubs as a model for future growth Coach Jesse Kitzen-Abelson and former coach Fred Turoff are building a long-term plan for the club. BY GRAHAM FOLEY For The Temple News
Jesse Kitzen-Abelson was living just outside Durban, South Africa, when Temple announced its plans to cut the varsity gymnastics program in December 2013. Kitzen-Abelson, who competed for Temple from 2007-11, was
in his second year working as a coach at the Pinetown Gymnastics Club — a job he found through the connections of his former Temple coach, Fred Turoff. “When I first heard about it, it didn’t seem real,” Kitzen-Abelson said. Temple’s decision to cut the program motivated him to return to the United States and coach the club men’s gymnastics team. This is Kitzen-Abelson’s first full season coaching the team. He is responsible for taking over
for Turoff, who coached the varsity program from 1976-2014 and coached the club team until deciding to step down in Fall 2017. Turoff is still involved with the club, helping Kitzen-Abelson create a direction for its future. Kitzen-Abelson is now tasked with creating a program that is sustainable for the long term. “I came in last year and went, ‘OK, what’s the plan?’” he said. “‘How are we going to reformat it? Teams have done it before, why can’t we do it? There’s a gym right
JAMIE COTTRELL / THE TEMPLE NEWS Coach Jesse Kitzen-Abelson watches his team practice for an upcoming meet in McGonigle Hall on March 2.
here, I want to help with it and there’s a little bit of money in the budget. So let’s see what we can do.’” Few college-level teams have gone from varsity to club status. So Kitzen-Abelson started by contacting coaches at the few schools that have had this experience. He reached out to coaches like Jim Holt at the University of Washington, who led the team as a club after the varsity program was cut in 1980, and Scott Barclay, who headed Arizona State University’s program when it became a club in 1993. “I talk to them all the time,” Kitzen-Abelson said. “I call them up and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s happening, how do I handle this?’ It’s a very complicated process. The possibilities are endless for sure, but I’ve got to figure out how can we survive this year and how I can bring more guys in.” To assist with recruiting, Turoff said he gave Kitzen-Abelson all of his recruiting materials and his lists of gymnasts to watch, but he has remained mostly hands-off. Kitzen-Abelson said he also uses information from databases given to coaches at the Junior Olympic National Championships to contact coaches and tell them that his program can take high school gymnasts. While Kitzen-Abelson said recruiting without scholarships is difficult, sophomore gymnast Evan Salters said Temple is a good choice for gymnasts in a landscape with shrinking opportunities to compete in college. “There’s not much point in going back to varsity,” Salters said. “There are only 16 programs left at
the varsity level. At this point, most guys are lucky enough to get on a good club program like Temple, [Arizona State] or Washington.” But to sustain Temple’s club team, fundraising is key. The majority of the team’s revenue comes from alumni donors and the rest comes from fundraising events, Turoff said. “We don’t have enough money to bring it up to the varsity level that we had before,” Turoff added. “I’m always looking for donors, from $5 to $500,000.” Turoff also assists with everyday tasks, like setting up mats before meets and lending supplies from his own gymnastics club in Germantown. Turoff, who competed for Temple from 1966-69, amassed more than 400 coaching victories and was inducted into the Temple Hall of Fame in 1984. He said the transitional period was a perfect time for him to step down and hand the reins to Kitzen-Abelson. “You go anywhere around the world, people know Fred Turoff,” Kitzen-Abelson said. “Filling in those shoes, there’s not much bigger than that. It’s really crucial that Fred stuck around to help with the transition of this team.” And Turoff said he plans to help for however long he is needed. “Certainly, it’s a big change,” Turoff said. “It’s very difficult because we have to raise a lot of money, and the club is student-driven not coach-driven, so we can’t tell them what to do. I just have to offer my services. It’s quite a challenge, and it’s such a different time.” graham.foley@temple.edu @graham_foley3
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TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
PAGE 16
FENCING
LACROSSE
Team celebrates its all-time wins leader Senior epee Safa Ibrahim will graduate this semester after breaking a school record with 221 career wins. BY MICHAEL ZINGRONE Fencing Beat Reporter
fter the National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association Championships concluded on March 3, Temple’s fencers sat down in a circle and each took turns saying what they appreciate about Safa Ibrahim. Ibrahim, a senior epee, ranks as Temple’s all-time winningest fencer with a 221-103 record. She won the epee title and earned All-NIWFA First-Team honors at the NIWFA Championships. She showed her teammates the hard work it takes to have success and how to have fun while doing it, freshman epee Marielle Luke said. “Everyone has their own ups and downs living every day,” Ibrahim said. “I like to focus on the moment at hand and try to make the best of it. There will be bad days, but if you stay with it, you’ll eventually have your good days. You just have to trust what you are doing and go for it.”
A
Ibrahim said fencing has helped her prepare for her career. As the only senior on the team this year, she gained valuable leadership experience, she said. The sociology major hopes to conduct international research into social issues, like drug use and environmental sustainability, after she graduates. It would be a career path similar to her brother’s. Ayyub Ibrahim, who graduated from Penn in 2016, does research for the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies, a non-governmental organization that advocates for democracy and human rights improvements in the Middle East and North Africa, Safa Ibrahim said. “Doing research, one second you could be collaborating with a group, then the next you are by yourself doing your individual job,” Safa Ibrahim said. “Fencing is the same way.” Becoming a leader was a process Safa Ibrahim started during her freshman year in 2014-15, she said. She focused on becoming a good teammate so she could build trust with the
IBRAHIM | PAGE 13
SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior attacker Kira Gensler (left) pivots away from La Salle graduate midfielder and defender Abbey Meehan during the Owls’ 8-4 win on Monday at Howarth Field.
Final Big East season awaits Temple, which will join the American Athletic Conference in 2019, starts conference play on Sunday. BY JAY NEEMEYER
Lacrosse Beat Reporter
JOCELYN BURNS / THE TEMPLE NEWS Junior epee Ally Micek (left) and senior epee Safa Ibrahim practice at the Student Pavilion on March 1.
Temple and five other schools will join the American Athletic Conference for the 2019 lacrosse season. Since the 2013-14 academic year, Temple has been an affiliate member of the Big East because the newly formed American Athletic Conference didn’t have enough schools sponsoring lacrosse to form a league. Prior to that, Temple belonged to the Atlantic 10 Conference. With East Carolina’s newly added lacrosse program this season, there will finally be enough teams for Temple to begin play in The American. But first the Owls need
to get through this season. On Sunday, the Owls (5-3) will start their final matchups in the Big East with a home game against the University of Denver, the No. 22 team in the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association poll. As Temple enters the ninegame conference season, coach Bonnie Rosen doesn’t want her team to lose focus on the most immediate game. “[Denver will] be the only ones on our mind,” Rosen said. “They have a pretty powerful offense and play an aggressive defense.” Denver scores an average of 11.7 goals per game and has caused 62 turnovers this season. The Pioneers’ (4-2) losses are both to ranked teams, No. 1 Stony Brook University and then-No. 24 Virginia Tech. The preseason coaches’ poll predicted both Denver and Temple
to finish in the top four of the league and reach the Big East tournament. If Temple qualifies, it would reach its third straight Big East tournament. “The reality of our conference is that if I prepare for a conference opponent that we’re going to see three weeks from now, they’re going to look different,” Rosen said. Temple also will likely look different as it makes lineup adjustments and adapts to each opponent. The Owls used the same starting lineup in their first three games of the season. They made their first change in their 18-11 loss to St. Joseph’s on Feb. 21 when sophomore midfielder Meghan Hoffman had her first career start. Since then, Hoffman hasn’t come out of the starting lineup. In the next game, an 18-15 road win against Lafayette College on Feb.
BIG EAST | PAGE 13
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
AAC tournament outing has Cardoza optimistic Temple, which only won three regular-season conference games, advanced to the quarterfinal round. BY KEVIN SCHAEFFER
Women’s Basketball Beat Reporter
After finishing the last game of her Temple career, Tanaya Atkinson walked off the court at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut and cried. “I went into the locker room and told my teammates encouraging things, that they have to take this feeling into the offseason,” Atkinson told reporters after Temple’s 77-70 loss to Central Florida in the American Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinals on March 4. “They have to get into the gym, and they have to want to kill every offseason workout. I am definitely going to miss this program.” In her senior season, Atkinson moved into second place in Temple history for both scoring and rebounding, ending her career with 1,890
points and 1,053 rebounds. She finished her career carrying the Owls’ offensive load, averaging 21.1 points per game. No other player averaged more than 11.2 points per game. Atkinson’s milestones were some of the lone bright spots for the Owls’ season. After starting with an 8-3 record, the Owls only won four more games. They finished 12-19 overall and 3-13 in The American. During conference play, Temple allowed 79 points per game, which ranked last in The American. The Owls also allowed the highest opponent field-goal and 3-point percentages in The American and had the lowest rebounding margin. Temple had a seven-game losing streak from Jan. 10 to Feb. 3, until it beat Tulsa, 76-75. During that streak, the Owls had an average scoring margin of negative 19.9 points. Temple played more competitive games later in the season.
FUTURE | PAGE 14
JENNY KERRIGAN / THE TEMPLE NEWS Coach Tonya Cardoza watches the Owls play during their 83-78 overtime loss to Memphis on Feb. 26 at McGonigle Hall.
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BRIEFS | PAGE 13
Temple will start its spring practices on Tuesday. Coach Geoff Collins, who led Temple to its first bowl win since 2011 last season, retained most of his staff.
Jesse Kitzen-Abelson, a 2011 alumnus and former gymnastics coach in South Africa, is helping create a long-term plan for the men’s gymnastics club.
In college tennis, players have to self-officiate their matches and are “on the honor system” as they decide whether balls are in play, coach Steve Mauro said.
A group of alumni and boosters are calling for men’s basketball coach Fran Dunphy to be fired after 12 seasons, other news and notes.
