NEWS TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2018
PAGE 2 TSG
TSG to conduct student-wide stadium survey This is the first time students will be surveyed on a large scale about their opinions on the proposed stadium. BY ALYSSA BIEDERMAN TSG Beat Reporter
Temple Student Government developed a survey to collect student opinions about Temple’s proposed on-campus stadium. TSG worked with the university’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment — which collects data that is used for assessment, planning, policy formulation and mandated reporting — and the Provost’s Office for the survey. This will be the first time students are surveyed on a large scale about the proposed on-campus stadium. In Spring 2015, a survey by three advertising students asked students if they would be more likely to attend football games at an on-campus stadium. It received 397 student responses, which was not a large enough sample size for the study to be reliable. There are more than 41,700 students on domestic and international campuses.
The survey was created by Student Body President Tyrell Mann-Barnes and will be sent out on April 9 via email to all undergraduate and graduate students. It can be filled out through April 13. The survey will include open-ended questions, scaled-answer questions from “strongly agree to strongly disagree” and a section for comments. “We’re definitely doing everything we can to get the full range of student perspectives on the stadium,” Mann-Barnes said. Temple has been seriously considering an on-campus facility to host home football games since 2015, but the project has been largely criticized by North Philadelphia residents, faculty and some students. In March, President Richard Englert hosted his first stadium town hall for the public, but it ended early due to disruption from anti-stadium protesters. The data collected from TSG’s survey will be controlled by Institutional Research and Assessment, but Mann-Barnes said TSG and the university’s administration will have access to it. Mann-Barnes said the survey responses
will not affect TSG’s stance on the stadium. Current TSG leaders have consistently said they “oppose a stadium that negatively affects the North Philadelphia community.” Both of the remaining campaigns — IgniteTU and VoiceTU — oppose Temple’s on-campus stadium project. Mann-Barnes said students will be given the option to be contacted for a focus group after taking the survey. “It’s so we can expand the conversation,” he added. “Students’ voices are crucial to any practice that will impact the community.” Mann-Barnes said the team elected to lead TSG for the 2018-19 academic year on Friday will be included in finalizing survey questions before the survey is sent out to students. “We want to keep the incoming administration in the loop,” Mann-Barnes said. “We want to make sure everybody’s on the same page so we can best represent the student body.” Mann-Barnes emphasized the importance of student participation after the 2015 study’s results could not be used because of a lack of participation.
“[Participation] is the only way we’ll be able to quantify how students feel,” he said. Alex Smith, a junior finance major, said he will take the survey when it is sent out. “I’m pro-stadium,” he said. “The liability will go down from renting Lincoln Financial Field every year, and the stadium can be used for other things, not just [Temple] football.” Melissa Resurreccion, a freshman communication studies major, said she is against an on-campus stadium because of its impact on community residents. “There’s more to North Philly than our bubble that is Temple, and we have to make sure we’re all coexisting peacefully,” she said. Resurreccion added that student opinions are necessary. “In the end, they’re making this stadium for us,” she said. “If we show there’s enough opposition, there’s a possibility we don’t even need it.” alyssa.biederman@temple.edu @BiedermanAlyssa
GREEK LIFE
AEPi social privileges suspended due to investigation The fraternity has denied all allegations. BY KELLY BRENNAN & GILLIAN McGOLDRICK For The Temple News
Temple suspended the social privileges for the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity last week. The university and Temple Police are currently investigating the fraternity for “potential violations,” but could not comment on details of its investigation while it is ongoing, university officials said. Alpha Epsilon Pi released a statement on Sunday, stating that the fraternity had “absolutely no knowledge of the actions alleged,” against the chapter, which prompted a university investigation on Thursday. The fraternity’s President Ari Goldstein could not be reached for comment. The fraternity will close their house to non-members for the immediate future and the fraternity will expel members and turn them
over to university and local authorities if the allegations prove to be true, the statement reads. However, the fraternity does not want the Temple community to “jump to any conclusions about these allegations and to allow the investigation to play out,” according to the statement. An email sent by Temple’s Panhellenic Council to presidents of all Panhellenic sororities on campus that was obtained anonymously by The Temple News said the council will no longer associate with the fraternity “in the face of allegations and threats to risk management,” the email reads. “Collectively as a council, we must enact this statement and encourage the women and men affected to file a report to Student Conduct,” the email said. Laura Eckel, the faculty adviser for the Panhellenic Council, confirmed that the council sent an email on Thursday to its members detailing the fraternity’s alleged “social event violations,” but could
not discuss the details of the allegations while the investigation into the fraternity is ongoing. The author of the email and Temple’s Panhellenic Council President Rose McBride could not be reached for comment. Jonathan Pierce, a spokesperson for AEPi’s headquarters, said it is cooperating with the university in its investigation. Pierce said the headquarters has not seen “official allegations,” but received a copy of the email from Temple’s Panhellenic Council. An anonymous student told The Temple News that a female student was allegedly “drugged” at a social event at the fraternity’s house on Wednesday. “The allegations, if they are true, they are deplorable,” Pierce said. “We will take very strong action against them. We also believe in innocent before proven guilty.” Pierce said if the allegations are true, then the members responsible could be expelled from
JAMIE COTTRELL / THE TEMPLE NEWS All social privileges have been suspended at Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, which has a house on Broad Street near Norris.
the fraternity. Students in need of support or with any information about these potential violations are encouraged to contact Campus Safety Services at 215-204-1234 or police@temple.edu; the Dean of Stu-
dents Office at 215-204-7188 or dos@temple.edu; or the Wellness Resource Center at 215-204-8436 or tuheart@temple.edu. news@temple-news.com @TheTempleNews
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RESEARCH
Temple/Wedge Center gets second $500,000 grant This is the second grant of this size from the state to continue its treatment of pregnant women with opioid addiction. BY LINDSAY BOWEN
On-Campus Beat Reporter
Temple University Hospital received its second $500,000 grant from the state to continue its Temple/Wedge Center of Excellence, which treats pregnant women who have opioid use disorder. The center offers mental health services, prenatal care, pain management and substance use disorder treatment. It is one of about 50 in the state that was created last year to address the opioid crisis, and one of the few created specifically for pregnant women. TUH doctors that specialize in highrisk pregnancies and addiction medicine partnered with clinicians from the Wedge Recovery Center, a facility for mental health and drug and alcohol treatment, to create the Temple/Wedge Center in January 2017. At that time, the state gave the center the initial grant. Patients see doctors for evaluation at both Temple Hospital, located at 3401 N. Broad St. and at the Wedge Recovery Center’s multiple locations in North Philadelphia. “We applied for the grant initially because we felt that there was a need for treatment of opioid-dependent women in North Philadelphia,” said Dr. Laura Hart, an obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science
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professor and the center’s medical director. “There really was a lack of resources, especially for pregnant women.” Pregnant women with substance use disorder have been underserved in general, as there aren’t many treatment options available for them, said Mary Morrison, a psychiatry and behavioral science professor and the center’s director of psychiatry. When it first opened, only one to three women came to the center per month, but the number of patients has increased to eight to 10 because of increased referrals from primary care physicians and insurance companies, as well as word of mouth, said Tamara Tatevosian, the project manager for the Temple/Wedge Center. “When it first took off, there were very few women who were coming to the center,” Tatevosian said. “It kind of fluctuates a bit, but it has definitely expanded with a lot of new referrals.” When a pregnant woman first visits the center, she is screened by psychiatrists to assess her mental health needs. Doctors also assess the woman’s general health and the condition of the fetus. Additionally, the woman receives individual and group therapy if she meets certain criteria for depression or trauma. Doctors at the center use buprenorphine, a medication that helps reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms and decrease cravings for opioids by blocking and stimulating opioid receptors in the brain. The center’s buprenorphine treatment
plan helps stabilize its patients physically and emotionally, while also reducing the chance of neonatal abstinence syndrome, which is when a newborn experiences withdrawal after its mother uses opioids during her pregnancy. “While on buprenorphine, [the women] aren’t searching around for heroin and doing whatever they need to do to get it,” Morrison said. “They’re eating better, they’re sleeping better, all of which are better for their fetus and eventual baby.” The Temple/Wedge Center also works with the Maternity Care Coalition, a community outreach program that provides support to mothers and families from neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, infant mortality and health disparities. Each woman is paired with a community advocate from the coalition, who helps them through the treatment process and works with them until 30 days after she gives birth. “They’re really great because if a woman has stopped engaging in treatment, and this has happened a few times, [the advocate] reintegrates the woman back into treatment,” Tatevosian said. “Usually the woman usually comes back to treatment so she can keep getting all of the support she needs.” The community advocates are in daily contact with the women, and they encourage them to come to the center for treatment and care, Hart said. “I think that they’re good at trying to get the women’s lives back together, which is really the primary goal of treatment, and they
make a big difference,” she added. The Temple/Wedge Center recently started working with insurance companies like Keystone First to help identify pregnant women with opioid addiction and refer them to the center, Hart said. It also started working with prisons in the Philadelphia area, like the women’s institution Riverside Correctional Facility. This was in response to a recommendation from the mayor’s task force for the Philadelphia Prison System to provide substance use disorder assessment and treatment to all arrestees and sentenced prisoners. Previously, men and women who entered the prison system were refused treatment for addiction unless they were already enrolled in a treatment program, Hart said. “Now that that’s becoming a standard of care to treat them, we’re working with them to get women into our care after they’re released,” she added. Hart and Morrison agreed that society should provide more access to addiction prevention, treatment and education. “There’s so much more we could be doing,” Morrison said. “What we are doing in Philadelphia is a lot of prevention, and we’re talking to prescribers a lot more in limiting the length of opioid prescriptions, but in terms of getting people into treatment…I think we could be doing a lot more.” lindsay.bowen@temple.edu @lindsay_bow
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