TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 VOL. 95 ISS. 11
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.
SEPTA STRIKE, SHUTTLE SERVICES COME TO END Riders said they had to endure long waits and unpredictable stops. By JULIE CHRISTIE News Editor
BRIANNA SPAUSE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Bob Perkins, a host on Temple’s radio station WRTI, in a recording room last week. He has been involved in radio for more than 50 years.
A voice for Philadelphia jazz WRTI’s Bob Perkins was recently inducted into the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame. By PATRICK BILOW For The Temple News
A
fter moving to Detroit in 1964, South Philadelphia native Bob Perkins applied for a job in in-
surance. As he left the building after his interview, he saw a flyer from a radio station, WBTR, which had its
offices two floors above the insurance company. “My father would always listen to his radio, and I would listen with him,” Perkins said. “I was always interested, but never thought I would be as good as a lot of those guys.” He applied for an entry-level job at the radio station and a week later was hired to work the control board. When he returned to the insurance company to decline their job offer, Perkins was asked disheartening questions: “Are you crazy? Do you know how much they are going to pay you?” “I didn’t care though,” Perkins said. “I was following something I’ve always loved.”
Mayor appoints administrator to oversee schools Joyce Wilkerson, a senior adviser to Temple’s president, will chair the city’s School Reform Commission. By GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK Assistant News Editor Mayor Jim Kenney appointed Joyce Wilkerson, senior adviser for community relations and development for President Richard Englert, to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission last week. Wilkerson, who has been the chair of the commission since Nov. 3, will hold her first action meeting on Nov. 15. Wilkerson has worked at Temple for the past two years and led several community-related projects. Most recently, Wilkerson has been advocating to establish the Laborers’ District Council Education and Training/Apprenticeship fund for a Career Technical Education Center at the Temple Sports Complex. The center would provide job training and educational services, provided through Temple. “Education is the most important issue facing our city and I am honored that Mayor Kenney appointed me to serve the children and families of Philadelphia,” Wilkerson said in a statement. “I look forward to using my extensive experience in public service to help strengthen our public education system.” Wilkerson also thanked Temple for its support as she takes on another role, along with her position as senior adviser.
WILKERSON | PAGE 6
SEPTA and Local 234 workers reached a five-year contract agreement Monday morning, ending a seven-day strike of transit workers that operated the bus, subway and trolley systems throughout the city. The university implemented an emergency shuttle service to help students, staff and faculty members commute between Main Campus and the rest of the city during the strike. But now that it’s over, students said they were glad to get back to the public transportation that they were comfortable with.
Mike Hazzard, a sophomore psychology major, said the shuttle service Temple put in place was no help at all because it wasn’t accessible for him. Hazzard, who uses a wheelchair, said he relies on Customized Community Transportation, SEPTA’s specialized bus service for people with disabilities and the elderly. Because of the strike, the buses were overloaded and arrived three hours after his scheduled pickup time on Thursday, forcing him to miss his classes on Friday. “I called [Temple’s] shuttle service to see if they would be handicap accessible,” Hazzard said. “They didn’t really have a lot of info on it, but [the operator] said she’d talk to somebody with it. And they said only would be only some would be [accessible] and the one at my stop wasn’t, so that was very inconvenient.”
SHUTTLES | PAGE 3
About 50 years later, Perkins is still doing what he loves. Perkins is one of Philadelphia’s influential voices in jazz culture as the host of 90.1 WRTI FM’s “Jazz with Bob Perkins” show. On Oct. 19, he was inducted into the Philadelphia Music Walk of Fame, on the Avenue of the Arts, for his lasting impact on Philadelphia jazz. “It’s a true honor to have a plaque among names like John Coltrane,” Perkins said. “Something I never thought I would have.” WRTI, Temple’s all-music public radio station, is a classical and jazz music source housed at the EVAN EASTERLING / THE TEMPLE NEWS Stuart Gethers (right), waits for a shuttle bus to arrive on Broad Street near Polett Walk on Friday.
JAZZ | PAGE 11
FOOTBALL
Temple’s ‘crazy’ and ‘well-rounded’ leader Avery Williams starts on the Owls’ defense and plays the piano in his free time. By EVAN EASTERLING Assistant Sports Editor After his redshirt-freshman season in 2013, Avery Williams was already getting attention in the 2014 NFL Draft. It just wasn’t the kind he wanted. ESPN’s broadcast of the draft kept showing a play from Temple’s game against Central Florida on Nov. 16, 2013. The Knights’ quarterback Blake Bortles, the third overall pick in the 2014 draft, avoided pressure from the Owls’ defense to throw a
30-yard pass to a receiver who made a diving one-handed catch in the end zone to help avoid an upset by the Owls. Williams had a chance to make a sack on the highlight-reel play, but pulled up short. “I got people calling my phone like, ‘Hey bro, you’re on the draft,’” Williams said. “And I’m like, ‘Man, forget y’all. What you mean I’m on the draft? I just got beat.’” He deleted his Instagram and Twitter accounts. All he wanted to focus on was erasing the play from everyone’s memories. Now, in his final season, Williams is one of the leaders on the seventh-best total defense in the Football Bowl Subdivision. He is fourth on the team with 42 tackles and has forced two fumbles. At last Tuesday’s practice, he was giv-
PATRICK CLARK / THE TEMPLE NEWS Redshirt-senior linebacker Avery Williams speaks to Student Assistant Coach Rob Dvoracek on the sidelines at Beaver Stadium in the Owls’ 34-27 loss to Penn State on Sep. 17. Williams has played in 27 straight games, including all 10 this season.
ing pointers to redshirt-freshmen linebackers Jeremiah Atoki and Chapelle Russell. When Russell took his official recruiting visit to Temple around December 2014, Williams challenged him to come to Temple and take his spot because he wanted the team to be as good as possible. Coach Matt Rhule shows the film of Williams’ fourth quarter play against Central Florida as an example for the young linebackers. “Because, you know, in these kids’ heads, they’re playing full speed, just like in 2013, Avery was playing full speed in his own mind. … And you can show the young guys that look, ‘We’re getting on you about every little thing,’” linebackers coach Mike Siravo said. “‘Here’s Avery in this program as a captain now and a starter. Now look where you are and you’re frustrated, but look at what he did in 2013 and look at how far he’s come and how far he’s learned from that.’” Williams was recruited by former head coach Steve Addazio’s staff as a running back. After redshirting in 2012, he said he wasn’t getting many reps in the backfield. Rhule said the coaching staff wanted to move Williams to a position where he could use his physicality more. Williams said he was approached about moving to defense before the team’s 2013 season-opener against the University of Notre Dame. He moved to safety before backing up Tyler Matakevich at linebacker. “I was like, ‘Damn, I’m never going to play,’” Williams said. Eventually, he got his chance. He moved to the Sam linebacker spot in Spring
WILLIAMS | PAGE 19
NEWS | PAGES 2-3, 6
OPINION | PAGES 4-5
FEATURES | PAGES 7-16
SPORTS | PAGES 17-20
TUH is waiting to start a study that could change how first responders treat shooting victims. Read more on Page 2.
Compare the presidential candidates’ policy views on topics that matter to Millennial voters. Read more on Page 5.
The Symphony for a Broken Orchestra displays broken instruments in Temple Contemporary. Read more on Page 7.
Junior forward Obi Enechionyia is working to become more of an all-around scorer this season. Read more on Page 20.
NEWS
PAGE 2
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
TUH delays victim study until public is made aware The hospital elected to spend more time informing potentially affected people before beginning the study. By KELLY BRENNAN Community Beat Reporter Temple University Hospital delayed a study that would test treatment styles on victims of life-threatening gunshot and stab wounds. The hospital is trying to determine if advanced versus basic treatments will increase survival rates. The Philadelphia Immediate Transport for Penetrating Injuries Trial, which was originally scheduled to start in Spring 2016, has been put on pause by TUH with concerns for strict Food and Drug Administration procedures. Researchers delayed the study to ensure people both know about and understand the study before it begins. Doctors at TUH, who are heading the citywide study, said they believe basic care, which focuses on stabilizing the patient before getting to the hospital, is more effective than advanced care, which is used for patients that have to travel farther to get to the hospital. Philadelphia had 236 gun-related homicides in 2015, and the results of the study could help first responders determine the best treatment for shooting and stabbing victims.
COMMUNICATION AND OUTREACH Ensuring community residents feel they are able to make an informed choice is the challenge with this type of study, said Dr. Kathleen Reeves, the director of the Center for Bioethics, Urban Health and Policy at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. “I haven’t heard of it,” said Simone Terrell, 56, who lives on Lehigh Avenue near Broad Street. “But, in this neighborhood, and across all neighborhoods, there are a lot of victims that are shot or stabbed, and whatever you can do to ensure that they live, I’m all for that.” Jason Wood, 30, who lives on North Sydenham Street near West Susquehanna Avenue, disagreed. “The power should be in the hands of the people,” he said. “It should be their right to decide [what treatment they get].” “If I had endless hours in a week, I would personally talk to every single person and explain why this has to be done,” said Dr. Zoe Maher, an assistant professor of surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and a trauma surgeon at TUH. There are three parts to the study’s outreach process. The first part was through television and radio ads, Maher said. The second part will be outreach to communities that are more likely to have people in the study, in areas where there is more gun violence. Maher said TUH administrators will contact high-interest individuals, like community leaders.
THE STUDY Every trauma center in the city will participate in the study, which will take five years. Randomly selected victims will receive either basic emergency treatment, which includes CPR, applying tourniquets and other methods to stabilize the victim, or advanced care, which includes administering intravenous fluids and a breathing tube. Only adults shot or stabbed in the torso or upper arms and legs will be included in the study. PIPT is an exception to standard informed consent procedures, which requires subjects to consent before they participate in a study. Since patients with penetrating injuries cannot consent while they are gravely injured, the study is required to follow specific instructions from the FDA to ensure that it is completely ethical. FDA regulations state that the community affected must be consulted and educated. This applies to everyone living in Philadelphia, including students at Temple and residents of the surrounding community.
“We’re getting together groups of community leaders, pastors and health administrators from across the city to educate them, so they can inform their congregations and community organizations,” Reeves said. She added that informed residents are being paid to educate their neighbors on the study. Word of mouth is highly effective, Maher said. Outreach to Temple students, who could also fall into the study, hasn’t “really been figured out yet,” Reeves said. She added that they will work with Student Affairs to ensure students are informed before the study begins. “I definitely know they’ve done a lot of campaigns to inform the public as best as they can,” said Kevin Pisciella, a senior public health major and the director of Temple University Emergency Medical Services — which is a quick response and basic life-support certified group on Temple’s Main Campus. While TUEMS won’t participate in the study, they provide the basic care that shooting and stabbing victims might receive when the study begins. A WIDER IMPACT In a similar study by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, severely injured gunshot victims who were transported directly to the hospital by police had a similar chance of survival to those brought by ambulance. “Patients that have been shot or stabbed, that have low blood pressure, do much better if they are taken immediately to a trauma center,” said Dr. Amy Goldberg, the overall investigator for the study. Goldberg is also a professor and chair of surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and surgeon-in-chief for Temple University Health System. Maher and Goldberg said they anticipate victims that are taken directly to a trauma center by police or are given basic life support by EMS will be 8 percent more likely to survive. Advanced life support procedures can be detrimental to a victim with penetrating injuries who is bleeding to death, Goldberg said. She added that the study might change not just the practices in Philadelphia, but nationally. “We can’t wait because as we wait, people are dying,” Goldberg said. kelly.brennan@temple.edu
JULIE CHRISTIE | THE TEMPLE NEWS
@_kellybrennan
Student voters left unable to cast ballots on Election Day Some absentee ballots, which many students rely on to send their votes, have not arrived in time for Tuesday’s election. By GILLAN MCGOLDRICK Assistant News Editor
For many students, Tuesday’s presidential election is the first in which they are eligible to vote — but some may not be able to cast their votes because of late-arriving ballots. Despite applying for absentee ballots before their states’ deadlines, several students said they still have not received the necessary documentation to vote before Election Day. Tom Vitanza, a sophomore criminal justice major, said he still hasn’t received his absentee ballot, and he won’t be able to make the trip to his home in northern New Jersey to vote on Tuesday. Vitanza applied for his absentee ballot on Oct. 24, more than a week before New Jersey’s absentee ballot application deadline. “I want to vote because it’s important to have my voice heard,” Vitanza said. “This is the first election I can vote in and I’d love to vote but at the end of the day if [the ballot] doesn’t come in time, I simply won’t be able to vote.” This issue is not exclusive to New Jersey voters. Absentee ballots in Montgomery County have been extended four days after the due date on Nov. 4. Now, absentee ballots can be turned in until the polls close on Election Day. Nearly 17,000 votes in the region could be lost due to a delay in receiving absentee ballots. Junior advertising major Lauren Marks is from Montgomery County and applied for her absentee ballot on Oct. 20, more than two weeks before the absentee ballot deadline of Nov. 1 in Pennsylvania. She never received her ballot. Marks said she will have to skip class on Tuesday to go home — a 45-minute drive — to vote. “This election really matters and people’s voices really matter,” Marks said. “There’s so much desire for everyone to go out and vote and the fact that some people’s votes are not going to be able to count or be made is ridiculous.” “It’s unfortunate if you don’t have
News Desk 215-204-7419 news@temple-news.com
transportation or you can’t skip class that day, you just aren’t going to be able to use your right to vote as an American,” she added. In Pennsylvania, 300,000 people had registered to vote in the three weeks leading up to the state’s deadline, the Inquirer reported. This experience is discouraging Vitanza for his future voting habits, he said. “Just because you go to college, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to vote,” he said.
“The absentee ballot system exists for this reason, but when it fails, and not just for me, for so many other people, that’s just a problem with the system as a whole.” Hannah Katzenmoyer, a freshman biology major, said she applied for her absentee ballot in the second week of October. The Hershey, Pennsylvania native still hasn’t received her ballot and will not be able to vote on Tuesday. “Us being the future of this country, it’s
just super inconvenient that we’re not able to have an affect on it if we’re not able to vote,” Katzenmoyer said. “I don’t know what people were expecting, it’s not the first election ever,” Marks said. “It may be the most significant one, but [commissioners] should have prepared for this.” gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu
Find your local polling place 1.
Duckrey Tanner School White Hall students vote here
2.
Carver School of Engineering and Science
3.
Amos Recreation Center
4.
North Philadelphia 7th Day Adventist Church
5.
Ame Union Methodist Church
6.
Dendy Recreation Center 1300, Temple Towers and Morgan Hall students vote here
7.
Norris Homes 1940 students vote here
8.
Penrose Recreation Center J&H and Peabody students vote here COURTNEY REDMON | THE TEMPLE NEWS
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
NEWS
PAGE 3
TSG
TSG hoping to approve gender-inclusive housing The proposal will be brought to the Board of Trustees in Spring 2017 for approval. By FRANCESCA FUREY TSG Beat Reporter Temple could provide an option for gender-inclusive housing within the next three years, if a proposal to the Board of Trustees from Temple Student Government is approved. “Gender-inclusive housing allows for students to live with other students of different genders than they are,” said Titus Knox, TSG’s director of student affairs and former president of Queer Student Union. “It benefits LGBT students because it allows trans or nonbinary students specifically to live with people who they would feel the most comfortable with.” TSG plans to present this option to the Board in Spring 2017. If approved, Temple would join 207 other colleges and universities across the country that have already instituted gender-neutral and transgender-inclusive housing. The housing would not be confined to a specific building; instead Morgan Hall North, Morgan Hall South, Temple Towers and 1940 Residence Hall would incorporate gender-inclusive housing into their existing suite-style rooms, Knox said. All students would be allowed to apply for the housing option. “There might be four gender-inclusive housing rooms in one building or there might be 20, depending on what the need is,” Knox said. Quinn Heath, vice president of Queer Student Union, said this proposal would be an “important first step to allow people to be more comfortable with their living arrangements.” Heath added that students’ comfort with their living situations often reflects on their academic success. “I think it is definitely a necessary
element for Temple,” Heath said. “Trans students are one of our most underrepresented and under-supported groups on campus.” QSU has wanted gender-inclusive housing on campus for several years, Heath added. Dylan Ponticel, a freshman environmental studies and geography and urban studies double major, is a member of QSU and said the organization has made the housing option part of the group’s conversation. “We all agreed it was a nice option and some of us would have been more comfortable,” he said. He added that his two best friends at Temple are female and he would have “loved” to live with them, instead of his all-male suite in 1940 Residence Hall. Morgan Pivovarnik, a resident assistant in Morgan Hall South and the financial director for QSU, said several of her residents have expressed the want for gender-neutral housing. “As an RA, I’m here to offer resources and having the option of gender-neutral housing, that’s a resource that I would like to give to my residents,” she said. But Knox said he expects pushback from some students. “There’s going to be a lot of fears,” Knox said. “There’s also a lot of tension when it comes to students with different genders interacting with each other, especially when it comes to sexual assault.” He added that parents or guardians might not want their children to live with other students of opposite genders. “Gender-inclusive housing would push Temple closer to the reality of being the ‘diversity university,’” Knox said. “By adding simple things like gender-inclusive housing, you’re able to properly support the goal that you set out to be.” francesca.furey@temple.edu Paige Gross contributed reporting.
Continued from Page 1
SHUTTLES
He added that in the event of another strike, he would like the university to look into shuttle services that are useful for people with disabilities. “Now that the strike is over, I feel relieved,” Hazzard said. “I’m thankful that it lasted as many days as it did and not more.” “It’s a relief that the strike is over, but I kind of miss the free rides that the shuttles gave me, to be honest,” said Brianna Phillips, a junior public health major. “Even though it was very inconvenient, you can’t really blame Temple because they tried as hard as they could to get us to classes.” Because of the strike, Phillips decided to stay with her father in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania near Arcadia University, about a 15-minute walk from the bus stop at Cheltenham Avenue and Ogontz. The first day of the strike, Phillips waited with another student at what they thought was the stop for half an hour when a Temple shuttle drove right past them. “There was no way for them to know we were Temple students,” she said, adding that when they called the shuttle service, the bus stop was actually in the parking lot of a nearby TD Bank. Travis Copenhaver, a sophomore sports and recreation management major, was standing in line at Broad Street and Polett Walk just after 4 p.m. on Friday waiting for a shuttle. He said he budgeted an extra hour to get to work in Center City. “I don’t know how I’m getting home,” he said. “I think the buses end at 9:50 [p.m.] but I usually get out later than that.” Copenhaver said earlier that week, one of his roommates waited more than an hour for a shuttle before finally getting driven to work by another roommate who had a car. “I’ve lived through a transit strike in Manhattan,” said Priscilla Holcomb, an academic adviser in the College of Public Health, who was also waiting for the bus on Friday. “This seems more militant… especially when they were in front of the [Regional Rail] trains the first day. People were yelling [in Manhattan], but it wasn’t so action-oriented.” Holcomb said the first day of the strike was “chaotic” for the shuttle services, but became more organized. Doreen Conway, the assistant director for graduate academic and student affairs in the College of Public Health, said each day the buses were arriving at different times and stopping in different locations.
HANNAH PITTEL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Eastern State Penitentiary shuttle busses are among the bus companies that the city has hired to replace public transportation users during the SEPTA strike.
“I don’t think the university thought of the number of students and faculty that would be using [the shuttles],” Conway said. The bus that arrived to pick up Copenhaver, Holcomb, Conway and the others waiting at the stop was a double-decker Big Bus, which normally provides tours of the city. Temple and Big Bus planned stops two weeks in advance, said Daryl Crosby, a shuttle driver at Big Bus for nine years. He said Big Bus provides shuttles for Amtrak and other companies, like SugarHouse Casino. “A lot of local businesses know us, so when they heard the rumor that SEPTA was going to strike, our concierge got in touch with Temple,” Crosby said, adding that Temple was one of the first universities to “set things up” with Big Bus for the strike. Temple already has a contract with Big Bus to provide shuttles to and from Main and Ambler campuses. “The first day was rough,” Crosby said. “Temple students weren’t aware of the buses, but once they realized how they worked, it’s been fine.” Phillips said that the complaints about the shuttles provided by the university would help Temple better plan for a future strike. “If they know that a lot of people were late and a lot of people couldn’t even make it to class,” Phillips said. “Temple would at least be able to do a little bit better if SEPTA were to strike again.” julie.christie@temple.edu @ChristieJules
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OPINION
PAGE 4
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
ADVISING A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921. Joe Brandt Editor-in-Chief Paige Gross Managing Editor Michaela Winberg Supervising Editor Julie Christie News Editor Jenny Roberts Opinion Editor
The Temple News is an editorially independent weekly publication serving the Temple University community.
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Adjacent commentary is reflective of their authors, not The Temple News.
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Visit us online at temple-news.com. Send submissions to letters@temple-news.com. The Temple News is located at: Student Center, Room 243 1755 N. 13th St. Philadelphia, PA 19122
Unsigned editorial content represents the opinion of The Temple News.
EDITORIALS
Share extra resources The university should donate excess food to organizations in North Philadelphia. Hundreds of people in the city lack access to adequate shelter. Some live in cars or abandoned buildings, and others do not have access to shelter of any kind. Project HOME, an organization that works to aid homeless people, estimates about 650 people live on the streets of Philadelphia at any given time. Recently, freshman biology major AaronRey Ebreo began using his extra meal swipes to help feed homeless people he encountered. Ebreo said he wants to help other students to do the same. The Temple News is inspired to see Ebreo’s altruism and encourages the university to get involved in helping Ebreo implement his vision on a larger scale. Ebreo said he got the idea to use his extra meal swipes
when he saw boxes of food being moved out of a university dining hall. The man moving the food estimated it was worth about $200. The university should make a concerted effort to donate its extra food to homeless shelters or to assist Ebreo in creating a system in which students can proactively use their meal plans to make donations. Creating such a program would allow the university to create a positive influence in North Philadelphia and to cut down on food waste, keeping in line with Temple’s sustainability initiatives. There is no reason the university cannot better put to use excess resources. We hope Ebreo’s outreach serves as an example to the university community to look for ways to give back.
Educate participants Researchers should conduct studies ethically. Temple University Hospital delayed a study that was originally scheduled to start last spring, primarily due to a lack of adequate community outreach, which raised ethical questions. Titled the Philadelphia Immediate Transport for Penetrating Injuries Trial, the study would have tested two different methods for treatment of life-threatening gunshot and stab wounds: basic care and advanced care. The study would randomly assign basic or advanced care to patients at every trauma center in Philadelphia. Then, doctors would collect data about the success rates of each type of care, thus determining best practice for treatment of gunshot and stab wounds. It will be difficult to obtain consent for participation in this study, since all participants will be in the midst of battling life-threatening injuries. We’re relieved TUH isn’t rushing into the study. Al-
though we understand it’s a pressing issue — Philadelphia had 236 gun-related homicides in 2015 — we can already see some ethical gray areas. It would be unfortunate to see such an important study compromised due to a lack of accessible information. It’s unethical to get started with the study until officials at TUH are sure that residents of Philadelphia, including the Temple community, are educated about its effects. “If I had endless hours in a week, I would personally talk to every single person and explain why this has to be done,” said Dr. Zoe Maher, an assistant professor of surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and a trauma surgeon at TUH. We’re grateful for TUH’s commitment to conducting ethical studies. Informing the community is an essential first step to any study conducted in Philadelphia.
CORRECTIONS In a story that ran on Nov. 1 with the headline “Temple music coordinator celebrates 30 years,” Charles Parker’s name was misspelled. The name of the Boyer College of Music and Dance was misstated in the same story. A story that ran on Nov. 1 with the headline “New classes prepare for ‘changing world,’” misstated Dana Dawson’s relationship to the course “Demystifying Technology.” Dawson coordinated the course. In the story that ran on Nov. 1 with the headline “Domestic survivors learn about housing rights,” the number of domestic violence shelters that Women Against Abuse has in the Greater Philadelphia Area was misstated. There are two shelters. Accuracy is our business, so when a mistake is made, we’ll correct it as soon as possible. Anyone with inquiries about content in this newspaper can contact Editor-in-Chief Joe Brandt at editor@temple-news.com or 215-204-6737. letters@temple-news.com
Administration: improve advising The university should make advising more accessible and personalized for students.
A
s students work to schedule their classes for Spring 2017, some are encountering challenges. They can choose to seek help at their respective advising offices, but they may soon realize that booking an advising appointment is not always an easy option, either. Temple currently has separate advising offices for each school and colALISA ISLAM lege. To simplify the process for students and maximize their resources, advising needs to be more streamlined and accessible across the university. The process of scheduling an appointment with an adviser varies from school to school, and oftentimes students have to compete for limited time slots. “You have to get [an appointment] as soon as their schedule is put up, and they only update it weekly,” said Thomas Roman, a junior accounting major, who sees advisers in the Fox School of Business. John Bishop, a sophomore chemistry major, has had trouble seeing an adviser, too. His advising is through the College of Science and Technology. “They are very busy. They don’t have time really,” Bishop said. “I scheduled my appointment not too long ago to schedule my classes, and the next appointment was mid-December. It’s a considerable amount of time.” It seems like many advising offices can’t handle the influx of students around especially hectic times, like class registration and withdrawal periods. This can pose a problem for students whose classes fill up quickly, and set back their graduation date. "I think students have a reasonable expectation of meeting with an adviser," said Chris Wolfgang, the senior advising director for the College of Liberal Arts. “It’s part of what they pay for.” Temple would benefit from extend-
ed hours in advising offices to accommodate the spikes in demand during peak times — like at the beginning of the semester — and hiring more advisers in schools with the most students. The College of Liberal Arts, the school that offers the most majors and has the second largest number of students, currently only has 12 advisers on staff. The Fox School of Business, the largest school in terms of enrollment, only has a few more total advisers on staff with six advisers working with freshmen and sophomores and 11 advisers working with juniors and seniors. Some students also expressed frus-
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Temple needs to streamline advising for students.
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tration that they have to inform an adviser of their academic plan every time they meet, since they don’t have an ongoing relationship with a specific adviser. "I feel like they don't really remember who I am," Roman said. Some universities like the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University have a system in place in some of their schools and colleges so that each student is matched up with an adviser when they enter the university. This allows students to avoid having to explain their whole story every time they go to an advising appointment and also allows for more specialized advising based on the student’s individual situation. Temple could benefit from instituting a similar system. "I'd like to have just one adviser, just so that she would know everything," said Seojeong Meang, a freshman biology major. Having an individual adviser would also help students who have majors or
minors in different schools to find information specific to their studies. The university’s honors advising already helps students in this way because advisers work with students across different schools and colleges. “We like to figure out with the jigsaw puzzle of their life how all these different pieces can fit together in a really wonderful, beautiful pattern,” said Honors Program Director Ruth Ost. “For example if you are an English major but you are considering adding a minor in mathematics we can advise you on that information even before you are able to go and declare that program,” said Musu Davis, a senior academic adviser in the Honors Program. “[This] helps students make more educated decisions on what they want to do next.” Currently, students without this individualized advising have to navigate the various school and college advising offices on their own, collecting and analyzing different semester plans while keeping in mind the requirements for various departments. Gabrielle Marshall, a senior painting major with a psychology minor in CLA. She said dealing with multiple advisers can be difficult. “They tell me I have to meet different advisers for each set of information,” she said. "I have to keep going back and forth. … They’ve told me things that I could do that I couldn’t do and I’ve been behind.” These types of setbacks occur because advising at the university is disjointed. Temple needs to streamline advising for students to see one adviser for the duration of their schooling, so students like Marshall can receive individualized advice. These improvements to advising need to be made to benefit students not only during registration periods but throughout the entirety of their schooling at Temple. I hope the university considers tailoring its advising setup to better meet the needs of students. alisa.sarasarn@temple.edu
THE ESSAYIST
Reshaping the Asian-American mold A student reflects on how her identity impacted people’s expectations for her career. By SAMANTHA WONG
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was in the first grade when my teacher told our class to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew girls wearing fancy dresses and flashy accessories. At the time, I wanted to be a designer. Of course, my aspirations have changed over the years, but I have always known I wanted to do something creative. I tried out painting and playing the piano, but writing is what eventually stuck. I decided I wanted to be a writer, like Junot Díaz or Scott Westerfeld, and publish my own short stories and poetry. But being a writer, or pursuing any type of creative career path, didn’t fit the Asian-American mold I have felt pushed to fill as I’ve grown up. I didn’t realize there were certain expectations specific to my Asian-American identity until I got older and began to think about college and my future. My family would tell me I was expected to strive for excellence academically so I could eventually find a financially stable job. I had to be “successful,” as defined by the standards of the AsianAmerican community. This meant becoming a doctor or a lawyer or something along these lines. My family wouldn’t need to know English to realize these jobs would mean I was doing well for myself. These types of jobs are associated with intelligence and hard work, which are qualities highly regarded in the Asian-American community. I understand this perspective coming from some of my family members. They worked so hard to get to this coun-
try. They imagined a better life for their children, and this didn’t include one of them chasing after a dream that didn’t have many guarantees. My mom, along with her three sisters and two brothers, all came from Hong Kong to Philadelphia at a very early age. They all took on jobs like working as busser at restaurants or chamber
SASHA LASAKOW | THE TEMPLE NEWS
maids in hotels to support their family. And they all earned enough of their own money to pay their way through college and to find jobs — jobs that fit the mold. They became accountants, nurses, marketers, software engineers, financial analysts. Their stories make my passion to write feel more and more like a luxury. But isn’t this luxury part of the better life they envisioned for me? At a family dinner, I once told my uncle I was thinking about becoming a writer. He looked up at me with a smirk on his face. He thought I was kidding. “No, you don’t want to be a writer,” he said. “There are more jobs open if you try to do science. I remember you
said you liked science, right?” Well, not quite. I don’t hate science, but I just don’t care all that much about protons and electrons or chemical reactions or memorizing theories. I’d much rather devote my time to writing poems and creating other worlds through my storytelling. My family members weren’t the only ones forcing the Asian-American mold upon me. I remember how classmates would tease me in school when I didn’t do well in math. “Come on, you’re Asian, you gotta be good at math,” they’d say. And I can recall one of my high school teachers showing a video portraying Asian stereotypes where students would only be doing math and science and their parents would scold them if they received any grade lower than an A. Unfortunately, I am still confronted with similar stereotypes. Sometimes I feel the shame for pursuing something that doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of being Asian-American. But it’s also incredibly encouraging to see some of my other friends in the Asian-American community exploring vocations like acting, screen writing and graphic design. Hopefully, the paths we carve out in these creative fields will help reshape the mold of what it means to be AsianAmerican for others, too. In the meantime, I’ll continue writing and working to make my family proud so they can see success in the stories I’ve yet to tell. samantha.wong@temple.edu
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
OPINION
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
PAGE 5
ELECTION
Presidential platforms
The Temple News hopes students make an informed decision in choosing a presidential candidate. This table lists the policy positions of the four highest-polling presidential candidates on issues that matter to Millennial voters based on information from their websites and public statements.
E D U C AT I O N
M I N I M U M WAG E
R E P RO D U C T I V E RIGHTS
THE ECONOMY
Clinton’s education plan claims it would allow students to graduate from public colleges or universities without any debt. By 2021, students coming from families who make up to $125,000 will be able to attend public schools without any tuition costs.
Clinton supports a $12-an-hour federal minimum wage. She also supports cities and states in raising their own wages above the federal minimum.
Pro-choice: Clinton has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood. “Women’s personal health decisions should be made by a woman, her family, and her faith, with the counsel of her doctor,” Clinton’s website states.
Clinton has proposed a job plan that would invest in “infrastructure, manufacturing, research and technology.” She said she will make corporations and the wealthy pay their “fair share” in taxes by closing loopholes and imposing a surcharge on multi-millionaires and billionaires.
Trump’s website does not mention his stance on the minimum wage. In public appearances he has made “conflicting” statements on the minimum wage, according to POLITICO. Most recently he advocated a $10 federal minimum wage, but also said he would leave decisions on the minimum wage to the states.
Pro-life: Trump has changed his position throughout the years, but has take the position of pro-life in this election. “I’ve evolved on many issues over the years ... And I am pro-life,” Trump said during a Republican primary debate in Aug. 2015.
Trump said he wants to create 25 million new jobs over the next 10 years through growing the U.S.’s gross domestic product. He said his tax plan aims to promote growth by reducing taxes for the working and middle class. He also said he will make the business tax rate more competitive to keep jobs in the U.S.
Johnson does not address his views on higher education on his website. In an interview with ProCon.org, however, he said he would not be in favor of free college tuition at the federal level, but states could make their own choices about whether to make tuition free.
Johnson does not address his views on the minimum wage on his website. In a HuffPost Live interview, however, he said that he doesn’t believe the minimum wage is an issue. He said the marketplace should dictate wages.
Pro-choice: Johnson believes government is not equipped to take a stance on abortion, but he personally holds an “aversion” for abortion. Johnson said on his website that he “recognizes that the right of a woman to choose is the law of the land.” He said the right to have an abortion must be respected.
Johnson’s economic plan focuses on stopping growth of the national debt by creating a balanced budget, considering reductions for all areas of spending, and he wants to restructure the tax system.
Stein advocates for tuition-free education at public colleges and universities. She said she will forgive student loan debt. “We did it for the corporate crooks, why don’t we do it for the young people who are the victims of those corporate crooks,” Stein’s website reads.
Stein supports “living-wage jobs for every American who needs work,” she told CNN. She supports a $15-an-hour minimum wage with indexing to keep up with inflation.
Pro-choice: Stein supports abortion right and believes religion and government should be separate on the matter. She also believes women should have access to “morning after” contraception.
Stein said she would break up banks and democratize the Federal Reserve, while making corporations and the wealthy pay their “fair share” of taxes. She also supports unionization and opposes a “two-tier wage system” for young people.
Trump plans to work with Congress to ensure universities and colleges are are cutting costs and debt on their own. In return, these institutions will receive federal tax breaks and tax dollars. Trump also said he will work to make two-year colleges, vocational school and technical education more affordable.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
CULTURE
Language lost in translation Students should use slang from other cultures respectfully.
A
ABOVE: October 31, 1960: Then-Sen. John Kennedy spoke to almost 4,500 students on Main Campus while campaigning as the Democratic presidential candidate. He ran against the Republican candidate Richard Nixon, who was currently serving as vice president for then-President Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy served as president from 1961 to 1963. Nixon later served as president from 1969 to 1974. BELOW: May 10, 1980: President Jimmy Carter visited McGonigle Hall to hold a town hall meeting with residents. He told the crowd that the economy would soon improve due to dropping interest rates and that he would continue to seek a peaceful rescue of the 53 hostages held in Iran. Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981. Yesterday, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama came to Philadelphia with current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who served from 1993 to 2001.
fter growing up all my life in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, I’m used to seeing bodegas — mini-marts that primarily cater to Spanish-speaking communities. Recently, I heard one of my classmates refer to a bodega as a “papi-store,” and something about it rubbed me the wrong way. They could just be saying papi-store as the “Spanish version” of mom-and-pop store, but to attach “papi” also seemed to conjure up a stereotypical image SIANI COLÓN of what the store and its owners looked like. I wondered if I was overreacting, but this wasn’t the first time I heard a Spanish term exploited and appropriated by a non-Spanish speaker. Of course, languages are constantly evolving and borrowing from each other. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But when people misuse the words they’re borrowing from a different culture, respect is lost in translation. Speakers need to acknowledge and show understanding of the communities from which they borrowing their slang. “When there’s an appropriation, it’s total disregard for the culture that the words come from,” said Aaron X. Smith, an assistant professor of Africology and African American studies. “If you’re just cherry-picking the words out to talk like people and not really appreciating the people as people, then it becomes problematic. You don’t even talk to me but then you’re going to go ahead and talk like me.” Appropriation doesn’t just occur with words from other languages. Even in the English language, words that originated in African-American communities have been integrated into mainstream discourse, and are now widely spoken by non-Black people. I’ve noticed students borrow slang like “bae,” “ratchet,” “lit” and “fleek,” which Smith said originated within African-American communities. Smith said these words are often appropriated to the point where they aren’t even properly used anymore. “I would consider certain slang words authentic until they reach the point of crossing over,” Smith said. “At such a point, they seem to lose their appeal and lose their power, because in that exchange of language, it’s strengthening that we speak a certain way that everyone else isn’t in on the conversation.” Appropriation is based on a power dynamic where those in the dominant position take something from those below them and use it however they want. I’ve noticed this in specific instances of Spanish words being borrowed. Often these words are used in ways that are vulgar or simply grammatically incorrect. They sometimes aim to oversexualize or
make a joke out of the Latino community. I’ve heard non-Spanish speakers sexualize the words “mami” and “papi” to refer to someone who they find attractive, but in actuality Spanish speakers use these terms to refer to their parents. “With the example of Spanish words being incorporated in American English, and in some cases badly mispronounced, the people doing that are most likely not going to be corrected,” said Paul Garrett, an anthropology professor. “Even if they are corrected, they’re going to feel like, ‘Come on, I’m just trying to have a little fun here putting a little Spanish in my English. I’m not really trying to speak Spanish.’ They’re using it in a way where they perceive to be kind of humorous.” Kassandra Nevarez, a junior economics major, said she thinks using “mock-Spanish” is a form of cultural appropriation in that non-native speakers are seen as “trendy and cool, while the natives are seen as others and foreigners.” “Mock-Spanish has been used toward me in what feels like an attempt to dumb me down,” Nevarez said. “It also dumbs down connotations and mixes up definitions and pronunciation.” Orlando Sánchez, a junior Latin American studies major, said he usually sees problematic usage of Spanish more on social media than in person. “Oftentimes I see it on social media, since they are careful to seem respectful in person,” he said. “I once saw a party flyer for ‘Drinko de Mayo’ on Twitter and they blocked everyone who rightly criticized it.” “They only wish to have fun with microaggressions and not be attacked for it,” he added. The imbalance of power among racial groups is apparent when some groups are ridiculed and face discrimination because of the way they speak, but those borrowing their words are seen as cultured or funny. It doesn’t seem fair for communities of color to be ostracized for the way they speak when others borrow their words without the same negative experiences. “If you’re in the position of being able to pick and choose different aspects of the culture or language and you’re not even attentive or aware of the different types of daily discriminations or microaggressions that people of that background deal with, that can cause bad feelings,” Garrett said. While I don’t think students should be discouraged from learning about different languages and cultures, it’s important they understand these terms in more than their borrowed context. They need to understand the communities from which they’re drawing, and the experiences those people have had while using those words. They need to borrow words thoughtfully and respectfully, because words are powerful. scolon@temple.edu
letters@temple-news.com
NEWS
PAGE 6
NEWS BRIEFS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Work-study jobs still available
CRIME
Police believe TU Alerts may be connected Two alerts sent out to students over the weekend may be connected, said Charlie Leone, the executive director of Campus Safety Services. The TU Alerts, one labeled an armed robbery inside a store and the other a shooting, are believed to have been committed by the same man, Leone said. The first alert went out to students around 5:15 Friday evening. Leone said a man entered a store at 2000 Gratz Street and pulled out a revolver, pointed it at a cashier and demanded money. One bystander, a 55-year-old man whose name was not released, grabbed the gunman, and was shot in the right outer thigh. The gunman fled north on Gratz Street with about $200, Leone said. The man who was shot was taken to Temple University Hospital and listed in stable condition. Saturday, at about 7:14 p.m., three blocks from the previous robbery, a man entered a deli at 16th and Fontain streets brandishing a revolver. He went behind the counter, pointing the gun at a 52-year-old man, but the man grabbed the gun, and in the process accidentally discharged it. The gunman then fled south on 16th Street. Leone said Philadelphia Police are examining the gun left behind at the second robbery to identify it. He added that there was footage of the robberies collected by cameras in both stores. - Julie Christie
Student Financial Services hopes to use the full $3 million in federal grants. By GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK Assistant News Editor Every semester, students who received work-study on their financial aid award letter come to Student Financial Services and don’t know where to start. SFS receives $3 million in federal grants every year to fund on- and offcampus work-study programs, Director of Student Financial Services Craig Fennell said. The federal government funds 75 percent of the students’ work, and the employer funds the other 25 percent. “For a school our size, we could use a lot more [funding], but it’s a federally funded, congressionally funded formula that funds the school, and we can’t change that,” Fennell said. Last year, more than 2,000 students participated in a work-study, Fennell said. Confusion often begins when students are applying for on-campus workstudy jobs. Although SFS funds all onand off-campus jobs, SFS only controls the off-campus ones. “We don’t control the jobs for on-
campus [work study] and a lot of people think we do,” said Sandra Mejia, associate director of SFS. Departments and colleges post student work-study jobs on Temple’s career website. From there, if a student is hired to a position, the Human Resources department is made aware that the student has accepted a work-study award and the student can begin to earn money toward their award total. Students might also encounter confusion if they attempt to use their workstudy award too late. “Students will wait a few weeks or a few months, and then they’ll come in and say, ‘Hey I’m ready for my job,’” Fennell said. “But all the jobs are gone.” Off-campus work-study positions are all at nonprofit organizations. Mejia said students could use their work-study grants at organizations like the Salvation Army or the Free Library of Philadelphia. But not all schools and colleges at Temple require students to receive workstudy to work on-campus, Mejia said. “A lot of them will hire a regular student worker and pay them one hundred percent out of their budget,” she said. At the end of October, SFS began retracting unused or unaccepted workstudy awards from students to ensure the grants are being used. This gave students about two months since the beginning of
the semester to find a work-study job. If a student sees this occur and still wants to pursue a work-study job, the student can meet with a SFS representative to have it reinstated, Mejia said. Students receiving work study can only work enough hours to match their aid. For example, if a student receives $500 a semester for work-study and an employer will pay them $10 an hour, the student can only work 50 hours during the semester. Students who are in work-study positions also have the opportunity to ask for an increase once a semester, Mejia said. Several on- and off-campus workstudy jobs are still available on Temple’s career website. “It’s all about educating students about work study,” Mejia said. “They see it on their award, but when the students come in and meet with us and we explain, ‘Hey, this is what you could do,’ ‘Hey, you didn’t find an on-campus position, would you be interested in an off-campus one?’” “We manage the overall program, so we don’t want to leave a lot of unused [work study grants] out there,” Fennell said. “We’re trying to manage it and hit the budget and have as many happy people as possible.” gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick
UNIVERSITY NEWS
Professor named one-year president of spine society Todd Wetzel, a professor of orthopaedic surgery and neurosurgery in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, has been named president of the North American Spine Society for a one-year term. Wetzel said in a release that he plans to advance NASS’s research and advocacy programs during his term and will continue improving services members of the NASS provide. He also plans to maintain NASS’s ethical research and practice. NASS promotes research, advocacy, and education for spine care and has more than 10,000 members from various disciplines. Wetzel has been a 28-year member of the NASS and has made it his primary society. - Amanda Lien
CITY NEWS
Uber, Lyft now legal in Philadelphia Last Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf signed a bill legalizing Uber and Lyft in Philadelphia. Uber and Lyft had continued to operate despite a period of uncertainty after temporary legislation that legalized ride-hailing services expired in late September. Pennsylvania had already legalized ride-sharing services, but due to rules of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, they hadn’t been accepted in the city. The new bill states that Uber, Lyft and other services must have background checks and insurance. The ride-sharing services will also be required to pay taxes to PPA. Some of the tax money will go to the Philadelphia School District. The PPA currently receives taxes from taxis and limousines throughout the city. - Francesca Furey
Obamas, Clintons rally at Independence Hall Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held the final rally of her campaign at Independence Hall Monday night, making her final argument to Pennsylvanians, telling them they should vote for her on Election Day. Clinton was joined by husband and former President Bill Clinton, her daughter Chelsea, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi performed on stage and urged people in the audience to vote on the following day. President Obama, while onstage, called Clinton the most qualified candidate to ever run for president. He also endorsed Democratic United States senatorial candidate, Katie McGinty, urging voters to vote down-ticket at the polls Tuesday. At the rally, Clinton stressed that voters have a choice in the kind of America they want to live in, and pushed that she will be the president for all Americans. - Kelly Brennan
News Desk 215-204-7419 news@temple-news.com
COURTESY CITY OF PHILADELPHIA Joyce Wilkerson, the senior adviser for community relations and development for President Richard Englert, was appointed to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission by Mayor Jim Kenney on Nov. 3.
Continued from Page 1
WILKERSON
The SRC replaced the School District of Philadelphia’s school board in 2001, when Pennsylvania took over the public school system. The SRC is now responsible for preparing operating budgets, along with all other traditional duties of school boards. “In the coming years, it’s important that the SRC continues to build on the District’s recent gains while also preparing for a smooth transition to greater local control,” Kenney said in a statement.
“I am confident that Joyce’s strong fiscal management skills, and experience working in community engagement and for a variety of quasi-governmental organizations will enable her to succeed in this important role.” Wilkerson will be joined by Farah Jimenez, president and CEO of the nonprofit Philadelphia Education Fund; Sylvia Simms, a community liaison in Philadelphia for the Urban Affairs Coalition bringing digital access to underserved communities in the city and William Green, a former Democratic Philadelphia councilman-at-large. “Joyce Wilkerson is brilliant and
deeply knowledgeable about all facets of government,” Council President Darrell Clarke said in a statement. “Joyce is a pro at balancing competing interests in the pursuit of fairness, and it only helps that she also is graceful and caring.” “I look forward to working with her and the SRC as we advocate for the resources our children deserve while transitioning to locally controlled governance to restore the public’s confidence in district operations,” he added. gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
features F E AT U R E S
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
PAGE 7
‘Marat/Sade’ evokes past experiences A musical that is being performed at Temple Theaters is a play within a play. By IAN WALKER Arts Beat Reporter
A
s José Mangual paced around Mitten Hall’s Temple Opera Theater, he pretended to seize an invisible head and snap it towards him. The imagined head was that of his character’s rival, Marquis de Sade. “There are times when [Sade] is challenging me or pitting others against me, that I want to just take his head, and sometimes it’s just a sharp turn like, ‘Look at me!’ but other times I want to complete the motion and snap his neck,” Mangual said. Mangual, a sophomore musical theater major, plays the role of Jean-Paul Marat in Temple Theater’s production of “Marat/Sade.” The play will open Wednesday and run until Nov. 19. “Marat/Sade,” structured as a play within a play, is set in an insane asylum in 1808. The characters are patients who stage a play about the 1793 assassination of French Revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. Guillermo Alonso, a master’s acting student and theater professor, plays Marquis de Sade, the namesake of sadism. Sade is the director of the play and a historical figure imprisoned for publishing pornographic writing. Alonso studied theater as an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame while he completed pre-med coursework. Although Alonso still views organic chemistry as his favorite college class, he said he decided in his junior year to commit to a career in theater. “I realized that if I really wanted to be great at one or the other, I had to pick one and stick to it and devote all my time to that,” Alonso said. For Alonso, studying theater represented a break from the rigidity of his science education. “Now let’s be real, you gotta get good grades, you apply to [medical] school, you get into school, you apply to a residency program,” he said. “It’s a series of steps that you follow and that’s it, and I lived my life that way forever.” “[Acting] kind of put my life back in my own hands,” he added. “As opposed to just following the rules, I can create my own path.” Despite opting out of a career in medicine, Alonso said his scientific
THEATER | PAGE 12
BRIDGET O’HARA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The cast of Temple Theaters’ “Marat/Sade” lifts sophomore musical theater major José Mangual during a rehearsal in Randall Theater on Nov. 3. Mangual plays the titular character of Jean-Paul Marat.
Homeless take ‘next steps’ through running program Temple University Running Club meets Back on My Feet participants twice a week at 5:30 a.m. By KAIT MOORE For The Temple News
instruments will be recorded and sent to David Lang, an Academy Award recipient and Pulitzer Prize winning composer, who will create a composition that nearly 400 musicians from Philadelphia will perform next fall. All of the instruments will then be repaired and returned to the School District of Philadelphia for students’ use by Fall 2018. Temple Contemporary received a $300,000 grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage to fund SFABO’s concert. The Barra Foundation will also
For members of Back on My Feet — a national program that helps reintegrate homeless people into society — the Spring Garden Station on Broad Street is a symbol of progress. BoMF holds group runs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for people living in shelters or recovery houses. Members of the Temple University Running Club meet with BoMF for joint runs twice a week at 5:30 a.m. BoMF participants and TURC meet up at Spring Garden Station where they start the morning with stretches and a prayer huddle. “Everyone running is encouraging each other, which is really neat,” said TURC member Carli Showmaker, a sophomore media studies and production and advertising major. “I know sometimes I will be running [at] a slower pace, but then you have the guys that are even behind you and they are encouraging you.” In honor of National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week, which begins on Saturday and is also known as Sneaker Week, club members will work to raise $1,000 for BoMF from Nov. 14 - 17 with tables at the Bell Tower and the lobby of Alter Hall. They encourage students and faculty members to raise awareness for BoMF by wearing sneakers on Main Campus that week. They will also accept donations — in the form of cash or sneakers — with a chance for donors to win raffle prizes. Ramon Laboy, the program director of BoMF’s Philadelphia
INSTRUMENTS | PAGE 14
RUNNING | PAGE 15
JACOB MCGLEW FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Broken instruments line the walls of Temple Contemporary in the Tyler School of Art, as part of the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra exhibit.
Restoring instruments for ‘next generation’ Symphony for a Broken Orchestra will give 1,000 kids the opportunity to play an instrument. By GRACE SHALLOW Deputy Features Editor The Symphony for a Broken Orchestra began when Robert Blackson, the director of exhibitors and public programs at the Tyler School of Art,
came across a room of abandoned pianos in the now-closed Edward W. Bok Technical High School on 8th Street near Mifflin. “That caused me to ask the question, ‘How many instruments are out there [owned] by the district that are in some state of disrepair that aren’t being used?’” Blackson said. SFABO is a two-year initiative with three phases, starting with the exhibition of more than 800 broken instruments donated by the School District of Philadelphia in Temple Contemporary. Next, sounds made by the broken
ELECTION | PAGE 8
FILM | PAGE 8
MEALS | PAGE 8
PUBLIC ART | PAGE 16
Several students have interned with local politicians and helped prepare for Tuesday’s election.
A film professor’s latest work touches on being an artist in the LGBTQ community.
A freshman biology major is using leftover meal swipes to feed homeless people in the city.
The university’s landscape master plan includes creating a public arts program.
F E AT U R E S
PAGE 8
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Students experience politics firsthand with local candidates Interns for local campaigns urge fellow students to stay informed. By LUCY CRAWFORD For The Temple News When Syed Quadri worked on his first political campaign, he said he didn’t get the “typical” political intern experience. Quadri, a senior strategic communication major, had to find an internship to earn credit for his Campaign Politics Seminar, which he took to fulfill his political science minor. Quadri worked as the main campaign worker for Ross Feinberg, a Republican candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate. Initially, he said he wanted to
work for a presidential campaign like some of his classmates, but his political science professor, Robin Kolodny, changed his mind. Kolodny warned him he could “get lost in the sea of interns” working on a campaign for a higher office. “Working on a smaller campaign has given me the opportunity to go out and canvas, go out and talk to people in person,” he said. “I’m glad that I got to work oneon-one on a smaller scale,” he said. “We can reach out to voters instead of just working on different projects in the office.” David Rivenbark, another student in Campaign Politics Seminar, interned for Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate for attorney general of Pennsylvania. While working for the campaign, Rivenbark said he saw Shapiro on a weekly basis, or sometimes every day. “I didn’t want to be on a cam-
paign that was so big I would never meet anyone,” Rivenbark added. “On a larger campaign, there’s just so many people and you’re so low on the totem pole as an intern that you wouldn’t really have that connection,” he added. Rivenbark, a sophomore philosophy and economics major with a political science minor, said this was his first time working on a campaign. “No matter how much I had read about government and politics, however many facts I could spout out from a book, I really had no idea how it worked [before this],” he said. Michael Crowe, a junior political science major, worked as the director of social media and an assistant researcher for Jim Pio, a Republican candidate for state representative. Before this semester, Crowe said he volunteered and worked on congressional campaigns, and on Tom Corbett’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign team.
“No matter where you are, what politician it is, what party it is, even if you’re not a political science major, they need people, just bodies doing things,” Crowe said. “Even if you don’t know about politics, [campaigns] need people to fill positions.” “A lot of kids don’t realize how important state and local politics is, because the president doesn’t really influence your day-to-day,” he added. “Like the Philly cigarette tax, the president doesn’t touch that, your city and state politicians do, your state politicians control state taxes, so that’s really where the bulk of political influence is on your life.” Rivenbark said that lack of local political knowledge is reflected in voter turnout, especially among college students. “For instance, Temple students got upset when the budget didn’t get passed at first,” he said. “You can’t be that person and also be the person
asking, ‘Who is my state senator, who is my state [representative]?’ If you’re going to care about these issues and put forth your ideas, [which] you should, it’s important to read up on your candidates.” Crowe hopes that college students will take an interest in volunteering for local elections, but more than that, he hopes students vote for national, state and local officials today. “Getting out there and working, or even just researching and knowing who you’re voting for on the down ballot, is really important, and a lot of kids in college don’t do that,” he said. “At some point you’re going to have to grow up and vote,” Quadri added. “Not just in the presidential election, but in the smaller elections as well.” lucinda.crawford@temple.edu
Professor creates film on the ‘genius’ of queer artists Catherine Pancake’s upcoming film follows the lives of five queer artists. By EMILY THOMAS For The Temple News Assistant film professor Catherine Pancake describes herself as “chronically afraid” of asking for help. So, when she needed funding for her upcoming film “Queer Genius,” she turned to the crowdfunding techniques she teaches in her own film classes at Temple and created a Kickstarter. More than $16,000 later, not only did the Kickstarter surpass its goal, the crowdfunding helped circulate her film and caught the attention of officials from Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts, who invited Pancake to a residency to complete the post-production of her film. “I thought that it would be successful,” Pancake said of the fundraiser. “But the amount of energy and good-spiritedness was overwhelming.” The documentary film follows the lives of five avant-garde artists who, despite their unique artistic styles, share the common experience of being queer artists and is tentatively scheduled to be released late in 2017. Each artist profiled uses a different artistic style, ranging from Shannon Funchess’ song “Dark Allies,” which became a pop hit for underground queer audiences, to the visuals of Barbara Hammer, a 76-year-old artist and filmmaker who incorporates performance and digital photography to create her work. Because she grew up as a queer artist, Pancake wanted to document a unique group of people whose stories, in her eyes, are often not told. “The [artists] have definitely chosen to live their life uncompromisingly as themselves,” Pancake said, referring to both the artists’ confidence in their sexuality and commitment to art. Pancake met many of the artists she profiled while she was a member of Vox Populi Gallery, an art collective on 11th Street near Callowhill that promotes the work of experimental and underrepresented artists through monthly showings, performances and lectures. By telling the story of each artist, Pancake said she wants viewers to understand “what it’s like to not accept what’s given to you, but to create your own reality around your vision.” Rasheedah Phillips, a 2008 Beasley School of Law alumna, was featured in the film for her role in Black Quantum Futurism. BQF is an artisfeatures@temple-news.com
tic and literary collaboration between Phillips and Camae Ayewa, a Phillybased artist who performs under the name Moor Mother. The two create multidisciplinary art projects that explore the “intersections of futurism, creative media, DIY-aesthetics and activism in marginalized communities,” according to the group’s website. Along with a diverse cast, the film’s crew is mostly made up of female, queer and transgender cinematographers, writers and musicians. Pancake said she knew many of the cast members because of Temple’s film and media arts department. Women’s presence in the program, Pancake said, made the process of putting together an inclusive film much easier. Carly Milito, a junior drawing and painting major, said the number of female-identifying professors and administration at Tyler creates an environment that “makes you feel like you’re gonna be successful too.” Specifically, she said Interim Dean Hester Stinnett and Assistant Dean Kate Wingert-Playdon are inspiring, and she feels “comforted” by the all female admissions and peer advising staff. “When you see women like you out there doing things and making a splash in the art world, it pushes you back up again and makes you want to keep working,” Milito said. “I feel like the road is already paved for [men’s] work to be seen, and they’re already trusted to have to work,” Milito added. “Whereas women, especially queer women, are so heavily scrutinized and analyzed.” Robert Stroker, dean and vice provost for the arts, awarded Pancake with a grant to help fund research for the film. She also received a grant from the Claire Rosen & Samuel Edes Foundation of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which awards one undergraduate or graduate student or recent alumna with funds to help advance their career. Pancake was also awarded a grant for sound design from the Leeway Foundation, which donates to female and transgender artists promoting social change through their work. Despite the inclusiveness of Temple’s film and media arts program, Pancake said she wants people to be more aware of queer artists’ experiences. She added that she hopes viewers watch “Queer Genius” and gain reassurance about living outside of the mainstream, whether through identity or art. “It doesn’t really matter what your identity is,” Pancake said. “It’s really about saying, ‘Hey, find yourself and embrace your own vision, even if it’s not popular.’” emily.ralsten.thomas@temple.edu
WENDY VAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Freshman biology major AaronRey Ebreo donates cereal cups to homeless individuals in Center City on Nov. 4. Ebreo purchases nonperishables with the extra meal swipes left on his meal plan at the end of each week.
Student feeds Philly homeless with remaining meal swipes A freshman is encouraging students to cut down on food waste and help others. By JULIAN MCCARTHY For The Temple News During AaronRey Ebreo’s first month of college, he noticed several boxes of food being removed from the dining hall in Morgan Hall. The boxes were full of leftover food. The freshman biology major said when he asked a man moving the boxes how much the food was worth, he estimated around $200. The boxes were full of leftover dining hall food that was not sold, and Ebreo thought it could be put to better use. “I remember seeing a few homeless people across the street from my dorm,” Ebreo said. “It was tough to see.” He decided to start using his extra meal swipes to cut down on wasted food and help feed the homeless he encountered every day. Now, he’s trying to turn that gesture into a larger project, Swipes for Philadelphia. Ebreo has a Premium 25 meal plan, which allows him 25 dining
hall meals per week. He wasn’t using all the meals in his plan, so he decided to stop letting them go to waste. “I realized I could use them for someone other than myself,” he said. Now each week, he uses his extra meal swipes to buy packaged cereal, apple cider and water to hand out to homeless people across the city. Freshman finance major Joshua Lacerna, one of Ebreo’s friends, also started using his extra meal swipes to buy food for homeless people. Lacerna and Ebreo make “food runs” together to pick up basic food staples to hand out. “The feeling of putting a smile on someone’s face is greater than any feeling in the world,” Lacerna said. “Also, being a student in a city population, it feels great to help out with different cultures and ultimately lead to better living conditions.” Ebreo said he wants to get more students to use their extra meal swipes productively, rather than wasting them at the end of the week. He posts in the Temple Class of 2020 Facebook group to encourage his classmates to donate their extra meal swipes and help distribute food around the city. Ebreo was involved in community service in high school in Bear,
Delaware. He was the vice president of his high school’s chapter of the Child Health Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to “prevent and treat life-threatening communicable diseases among infants and children in the United States and abroad,” according to its website. Ebreo said the organization “helped kids in need around [his] state.” He raised money at musicthemed charity events and “gave the money back to the community.” Now, Ebreo is working on a website and social media pages to promote Swipes for Philadelphia, he said. Once the website is up and running, Ebreo hopes to identify leaders and form groups of students to distribute food to different parts of the city. “Hopefully it will improve the legitimacy of it, and more people will want to get involved,” he said. Ebreo said even as Swipes for Philadelphia grows, he aims to keep the project genuine.The best part of doing community service is seeing people’s reactions, he added. “[Seeing] happiness wash over the faces of the less fortunate is unlike any other feeling,” he said. julian.mccarthy@temple.edu
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Students, alumni present ‘unnamed’ films at CineMug The Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival hosted a showing of Temple films. By DEVON LAMB For The Temple News In 2009, Samuel Valenti made a New Year’s Resolution to watch one movie every day, and he promised he’d watch two in one day if he missed the day before. Five years later, he decided to pursue his passion for film at Temple. On Nov. 5 at CineMug, the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival screened films directed by students and alumni to “highlight some of the Temple films” that didn’t meet the deadline for their main festival in October, said Alex Gardner, the codirector of PUFF. Gardner and Madeleine Koestner started the festival last year to hold monthly film screenings in Philadelphia. They noticed a lack of film screenings in Philadelphia focused on genres other than drama or comedy, and they wanted to “bring unreleased genre films to Philly and support local filmmakers,” Gardner said. Valenti, a 2016 film and media arts alumnus, had his film “Youth, Go to Waste” screened at the event. Valenti describes the film as an “anti-film-school movie.” He was trying to “break every single rule” he learned while studying film at Temple. “Part of me wants to be like … you don’t need [film school], but at
the same time it was so crucial to my development,” said Valenti. “You gotta know the rules to be able to break the rules.” “Sam had a lot of crazy influences for this film,” said Bri Beltrán, the producer of “Youth, Go to Waste” and a 2016 film and media arts alumnus. “Sam is very eccentric, he’ll have so many different ideas and throw them all at you at once.” Beltrán said her love of writing got her interested in screenwriting and directing films, but she turned to producing after taking a class at Temple. “That class really showed me that what I actually love to do is to take other people’s work and make it better,” Beltrán added. “It’s a collaborative art form and I only like to see it in that way.” Graduate film student Aaron Immediato’s film “D--k Eaters” was also featured in the screening. Immediato said he wanted the title to be “outrageous and pushing the limits,” but said the film itself has no nudity or excessive gore. The film is “a mix of horror and comedy,” so Immediato wanted the title to reflect that and “keep people’s interests.” Aside from creating an entertaining film, Immediato said he wanted to use his work to comment on gender performance. The film stars four Philly-based drag queens who play genderless vampires. “There’s an element of drag that destroys gender or does away with genitals,” Immediato said. “They’re destroying the physical aspect of gender by combining male and female into something different.”
“I like to approach film as an extension of performance art,” he said. “I am more drawn to the performers and capturing human performances and using film to present the performance in a different way that you wouldn’t be able to experience live.” Alex Kinter, a senior directing and copywriting major, showed his film “Doomed” at the screening. Kinter said he had previously written a short film for class that was “a little more avant-garde version of
‘Doomed,’” which is about a nameless character who gets stalked and kidnapped before having his heart cut out. The final product was a film that focused more on a dark tone and feeling instead of any specific storyline, Kinter said. “‘Doomed’ was the byproduct of about four months of depression,” he said. “And yes, the movie is based off an actual breakup.” “I’ve been told the movie is very
me,” he added. “I’m not going around cutting people’s hearts out, but at the particular moment in time … the best way to describe how I’m feeling is literally having [the character’s] heart taken out.” devon.lamb@temple.edu Editor’s note: Alex Kinter is a former photographer for The Temple News. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this article.
LINH THAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Renée Sevier (left), who is pursuing an MFA in film, cinema and video studies, speaks to attendees after a screening at the Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival, held on Saturday at CineMug in South Philadelphia. The screening featured films from Temple students and alumni.
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Katy Perry performs at Mann Center to get out the vote Katy Perry held a free concert at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts on Nov. 5 for her “Love Trumps Hate” tour in support of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Before Perry’s performance, guests of Clinton came on stage to speak, including U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and Cory Booker, actress Debra Messing, television producer Shonda Rhimes, Pennsylvania Senate nominee Katie McGinty and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Speeches focused on the importance of everyone getting out to vote and making America a safer, more accepting country for people of all different backgrounds. Sam Gamberg and Amara Eke, two seniors from Lower Merion High School, supported Sen. Bernie Sanders during the primaries but chose to support Clinton subsequently. “I am going to support [Clinton because] supporting any other candidate would lead to a Trump presidency,” Gamberg said as he discussed current threats against minority groups, specifically transgender Americans. Eke voiced concerns regarding women’s health and equal opportunities for immigrants. ADVERTISEMENT
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JAZZ
Entertainment and Community Education Center on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 15th Street. Now 82 years old, Perkins opens each show with, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is B.P. with the G.M.,” which stands for “Bob Perkins with the good music,” a nickname he developed early in his career. His office is decorated with a collection of classic jazz records, and he keeps a folder of photographs taken over the course of his career. The pictures show two visits to the White House — during one, he met President Jimmy Carter — while others show his interviews with the biggest names in jazz, like Wynton Marsalis, Nancy Wilson and Rufus Harley. Perkins’s older brother taught him about jazz as they grew up during the 1950s, a time when the popularity of jazz was growing, he said. “Everybody loved it and listened to it,” Perkins said. Perkins got his shot at WBTR when the control board he was in charge of broke, forcing him to have to talk on air. He remembered his boss came in after and said, “I didn’t know you could talk like that.” He soon was recognized as better than the hosts who were already on air, Perkins said. “And I’ve been blabbin’ ever since,” he added with a laugh. Shortly after, Perkins left WBTR for a station just around the corner where he was a program director before being called back to his hometown in 1969. He worked for WDASFM in Philadelphia for 19 years before he started at WRTI in 1997. Perkins even covered news and
BRIANNA SPAUSE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Bob Perkins keeps a folder with notable images from his career. In the lower left, Perkins is shown with former President Jimmy Carter.
jazz for a local newspaper when he returned to Philadelphia. He now writes for ICON, a music magazine in the city. “I wanted to do it all,” Perkins said. “I would do one thing and wonder if I could try something else and I kept getting away with it.” Coupled with his soft-spoken voice in the studio was his passion for jazz. “In order to really enjoy jazz,
you’ve got to truly listen,” he said. Perkins said he remembers the days when everyone listened to jazz, when people would just slow down and listen to the music. He also recalled the nights when he could take a date to one of the premiere jazz clubs in Philly and not spend more than $20. “Times have changed,” Perkins said. “It would be great if people could just slow down again and listen
to the music.” “I read about real jazz, Bob lived it,” said Terell Stafford, the director of Jazz Studies at the Boyer College of Music and Dance. Perkins remains actively involved in the jazz community of Philadelphia. He hosts concerts at jazz clubs in Philadelphia and has worked as a microphone controller at jazz festivals in the city. “He is such a soft spoken amaz-
ing guy,” Stafford said. “Without Bob Perkins, there wouldn’t be the jazz culture in Philly that there is today.” Perkins said he was once “just a skinny kid from South Philly.” “Never in my dreams did I think I would say something that people would really care about,” he added. patrick.timothy.bilow@temple.edu
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Alumnus exhibits years of work in New Orleans George Dunbar is known for introducing abstract art to the South. By IAN WALKER Arts Beat Reporter When creating art, George Dunbar occasionally uses a gun. Dunbar, a 1951 painting alumnus, is presenting his first career retrospective, “George Dunbar: Elements of Chance,” at the New Orleans Museum of Art until Feb. 19. The exhibit will represent 12 artistic periods of Dunbar’s career. Sometimes, Dunbar will load up a shotgun with birdshot and fire it at his clay and metal leaf artworks. Dunbar employs this technique, in addition to sandblasting and abrasive brushwork, to dull the shininess of the metal leaf and weather the clay. Before the weathering process, Dunbar uses a centuries-old gilding technique to bind the metal leaf, using rabbit skin as an adhesive, to layers of colored clay. “[It’s] the same type of technique that you see in gilded picture frames from the Renaissance and [Spanish] colonial pieces,” said Lizzie Shelby, one of Dunbar’s studio assistants. “But he has taken that further to distress these surfaces, so he [adds] things like layers of choppedup pieces of fabric and chunks of wood under the surface of his work.” “Elements of Chance” will feature some of Dunbar’s earliest paintings from the 1940s and 1950s, unlike “Dunbar: Mining the Surfaces,” his exhibit at NOMA in 1997. These early artworks include action paintings, characterized by “the application of paint in free sweeping gestures,” according to the online art glossary of the Tate Museum, a public body aiming to increase understanding of Brit-
ish art. Dunbar’s early action paintings were influenced by the abstract expressionists who achieved prominence during his years at Tyler, said Katie Pfohl, NOMA’s curator of modern and contemporary art. “He chose Tyler because he heard it was a really progressive school that was open to a lot of the newest trends and art movements of the ’40s and ’50s, especially action painting by artists like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning,” Pfohl said. Dunbar said Tyler’s location also played a role in his artistic development. “Being as close to New York as I was, I think that was a tremendous influence on what I liked and disliked in art,” he said. Pfohl said she believes Dunbar has distinguished his work from his fellow contemporaries by applying a diverse variety of materials to modern art concepts. “I think he viewed himself to be taking a lot of the ideas of artists in the New York school [of thought], the spontaneous gesture, and the belief in action and movement and capturing those in paint, and trying to bring those into terms that felt very indigenous to the local landscape in Louisiana,” Pfohl said. While the various periods included in the exhibit are named mainly for the purpose of cataloging, Dunbar said some of the period names, like “Marshgrass,” one of the periods in which he used clay and metal leaf, evoke the textural elements of his art. “The marsh…changes texture constantly every month,” Dunbar said. “So it most probably unconsciously has been an influence on my work.” Pfohl said Dunbar continues to produce work in all of the previous ones. He still makes action paintings today, more than six decades after he began the series. Dunbar co-founded the Orleans Gallery, the first contemporary art gallery in New Or-
leans, in 1956. Prior to the establishment of the gallery, New Orleans-based artists only had the option to sell their work in decorative stores, Dunbar said. “We were able to [create] a very sterile, clean space, which really you didn’t have much of in those days,” he said. Dunbar said he and his fellow artists at the Orleans Gallery were not attempting to represent the South, he said, but rather considered their work on par with national and international trends. “I’m not suggesting that the terrain and the colors here haven’t had some influence on my
palette,” Dunbar said. “[But] I really think I’ve been more influenced by … artists such as de Kooning and people like that.” Pfohl said Dunbar had a significant impact in exposing people in the South to new artistic ideas. “[His art] has been embraced by a group of patrons and collectors and supporters and art writers,” she said. “Without his work, I think [they] would not have had that kind of exposure to abstract art.” ian.walker@temple.edu @ian_walker12
COURTESY WILL CROCKER George Dunbar works in his Art Studio in Slidell, Louisiana in 1997. Dunbar, a 1951 painting alumnus, is presenting his first career retrospective, “George Dunbar: Elements of Chance,” at the New Orleans Museum of Art until Feb. 19.
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THEATER
background influences his approach to understanding the reasoning for a character’s actions and language. Alonso added that he has an “analytic sense” when it comes to theater. “Give me a Shakespeare play and I can break it down better than a lot of actors and I haven’t read that much Shakespeare,” Alonso said. “I know how to simplify things because that’s what I had to do. Chemical reactions — you have to find the simplest reaction and then evolve it into something bigger.” “Marat/Sade” also evokes the past experiences of director Donna Snow, head of undergraduate acting for the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, and scenic designer Fred Duer, chair of the theater department. As college students in the late 1960s and early 1970s, both worked on productions of the play — Duer as a set designer, and Snow as Charlotte Corday, Marat’s assassin. At the time, the play’s focus on revolution and class conflict resonated with the movement against the Vietnam War, Snow said. “We [staged the play] right around when the students were killed at Kent State,” Snow said. “I was very active in the anti-war movement, so it had a lot of meaning to me at that time.” Snow said she was prompted to stage the play now because of the United States’ ongoing involvement in the Middle East. “All these wars have been going on since 2001,” she said. “This is 15 years later. It really does take young people wanting to stop them because they’re the people that aren’t paying the mortgages, that don’t have the kids. That’s where all those movements start.” Alonso said he sees the themes of “Marat/ Sade” strongly reflected in national political divisions. “This play deals with revolution and people in power who shouldn’t be in power, the injustices of being middle to lower class, and I would say that’s exactly where the country is today,” Alonso said. “It’s going to resonate strongly with audiences,” he added. “Whether they make the direct correlation or not, it’s gonna ring a bell deep down inside.” ian.walker@temple.edu @ian_walker12 Editor’s Note: An advertisement from the subject of this article is in the paper and online this week. An agreement to run the advertisement was reached separately from the editorial decision to write this article.
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BRIDGET O’HARA FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Top: José Mangual, playing the titular character of Jean-Paul Marat, sits in a bathtub during a rehearsal for Temple Theaters’ upcoming production of Peter Weiss’ “Marat/Sade.” Bottom: The cast rehearses in Randall Theater on Nov. 3.
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Alumna honored for cultural Peru blog Brittany White was one of the eight winners of the Peace Corps’ Blog It Home competition. By ALEXIS ANDERSON For The Temple News Brittany White compared running her blog “Siyah en Perú” to “opening a locked door” to another culture. White, a 2012 African American studies alumna, headed to Turkey to teach English for a year after she graduated. She then spent two years volunteering as a mentor for City Year Philadelphia, a domestic version of the Peace Corps that aims to help grade school students who are at a high risk of dropping out. White is halfway through her 27-month service trip to Peru with the Peace Corps, but she and seven other volunteers returned to the United States from Oct. 24 to Oct. 28 for the Peace Corps’ Top Bloggers Tour. White and the other bloggers were the winners of the Peace Corps’ fourth annual Blog It Home competition, which seeks to highlight volunteers who successfully share a foreign culture with the U.S. through blogging. “I always was super into cross-cultural exchanges, and learning about how people live in other parts of the world,” White said. “And I just always kind of wanted to live in another country or experience another culture.” As a Youth Development volunteer in Bagua, Peru, a region with high rates of HIV transmission and teenage pregnancy, White said she focuses her attention on providing sex education to Peruvian students. “Coming into Peace Corps I thought that I wanted to do a public health route,”
White said. “So I focus a lot around sexual health education and tying that in with things like self-esteem or planning for the future.” The winners were chosen because their blogs best helped spread “crosscultural understanding,” according to the Peace Corps website. White said she writes both serious and light-hearted blog posts about Peruvian culture, history, social and political issues. “I think that a lot of Peace Corps volunteers when they write a blog, they model it on like a journal entry,” White said. “They don’t necessarily hit on what is one of the national dishes of Peru, or what type of dances are in this part of the region. I think me and the other winners have really tapped into that very specific, ‘We’re going to choose to share the culture of our country’ in a very thoughtful way.” One feature White wrote was a series called “Throwback Thursday,” in which she highlighted historical places, people, language and other cultural aspects of Peru that wouldn’t be read in a standard world history textbook, she said. “A lot of people think of Peru and they think about the ancient Incan culture, and they think of Machu Picchu, but...there’s way more archaeological sites than Machu Picchu, there’s way more cultures than just the Incas,” White said. “And for me to highlight that in that series of posts...was really important. Just sharing those aspects of your country that you only really know because you live there.” The Top Bloggers Tour was made up of a series of events in Washington, D.C. Winners were invited to the White House and were asked to engage in intercultural activities. The bloggers spoke to Michelle Obama’s Chief of Staff, Tina Tchen, about feminism in schools and the workplace, hosted a recruitment event at American University. Each blogger brought in arti-
facts, flags and pictures from the country they served in and talked to interested students about their experience serving abroad. At another event, White spoke to sixth-grade Spanish classes about her service in the Peace Corps, the Spanish language and Peruvian culture. She ran a similar blog when she was in Turkey called “Siyah in Turkey,” because “siyah” is the Turkish word for black, and her first blog focused specifically on White’s experience as a Black woman in Turkey. “Siyah en Perú” focuses on her experience as a Black woman in Peru. “I never really saw a lot of blogs that spoke to an African American’s experience in Peace Corps, let alone in South America,” White said. Race wasn’t the only issue that White faced during her service. She wrote on her blog that sexism is far more present in Peru than in the U.S. Women often are denied education, become pregnant at young ages and are victims of domestic violence, she said. “When you spend four months or a year living in another culture, you really get to learn the customs of that culture... [then] you start to see your own culture, and background, and norms from the outside for the first time,” Willever said. White is now considering getting her master’s in public administration to “craft a career into talking about diversity and how that reaches into organizational change.” “I think my Peace Corps experience in general has really checked my own privilege. … I am privileged as an American woman,” White said. “I had just never thought about that, and it’s very humbling to have to think about that and grapple with that.”
By VALERIE MCINTYRE For The Temple News Last year, during a spaghetti fundraiser dinner for his New Jersey high school drama club, freshman marketing major Brian Cook’s friend came up with an idea for a talent show. “My friend was like, ‘Hey guys, what if we did a parody of a cheesy ’90s boy band?’” Cook said. “So I figured, ‘why not?’” Cook and his friends formed the parody boy band, Six On The Beach, which will audition in New York City for NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” in January. The group often covers songs by The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. Six On The Beach — which Cook described as a mash-up of Lonely Island and The Backstreet Boys — is made up of Cook and five of his friends from high school: Steve Piotrowski, Wes Hopkins, Chris Stavalone, Michael Trimble and Nick Hite. “I think what makes us stand out is the fact that we’re making fun of ‘90s boy bands, but at the same time, everyone in it, with the exception of myself, has had years of vocal training and can actually hold their own on stage,” Cook said. Piotrowski, who is a freshman entertainment and film production major at Rowan College at Gloucester County, in South Jersey, came up with the name for the group. “I was in gym class one day writing things and came up with Six On The Beach,” Piotrowski said. Six On The Beach’s first show only had 10 people in the audience at the Drama Club’s fundraiser, Cook said, but the group’s popularity grew when they performed at their school’s talent show and won first place in April. Cook worked as a babysitter over the summer, and said the boy loved “America’s Got Talent” — it was his favorite show. “We were watching some singing acts
and I briefly mentioned that me and my friends did something like that in high school,” Cook said. “And he was like, ‘You guys should submit or something.’” Cook went home after babysitting and started the auditioning process. “It was like a weird process,” Cook said. “You have to submit a video and description on what you do and what you’re about.” On Oct. 18, Cook received an email from a casting producer of “America’s Got Talent” and got the news that Six On The Beach would audition live for the show. “I started flipping out and texted everybody,” Cook said. He forwarded the acceptance email to his mother, Maureen Olson, who said she was surprised her son earned the opportunity to audition. “I even Googled the casting director’s
BRIEFS
Champ’s Diner expands to food truck on campus Champ’s Diner recently took over the Honey truck, a food truck that served burgers and sides. The truck’s name was changed to Champ’s Diner Express and is on the corner of 12th and Norris streets across from the Engineering Building. The diner, on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 16th Street, serves an array of breakfast and lunch items like omelets, sandwiches and waffles. The truck serves the diner’s original menu, as well as new truck-exclusive recipes. Jennifer Paek, the owner of the diner, said Champ’s Diner Express has sold mostly chicken burgers and offers cheaper prices than the diner. Paek added that the location is an advantage for students. “It is better for the students so they don’t have to walk more than five blocks to get to the diner, they can come here,” Paek said. -Ayah Alkhars
alexis.s.anderson@temple.edu
Student to audition for ‘America’s Got Talent’ Brian Cook will audition with his parody boy band, Six On The Beach.
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name just to make sure it was true,” she said. “It’s surreal,” Cook said. “It’s not like an open casting call, it’s appointments.” Olson said that the first time she saw the group perform was at Cook’s high school graduation party in her backyard. “Brian was shy in grade school, and when we saw them perform our mouths just dropped,” she said. “I thought it was cute.” Cook said he’s excited to audition for “America’s Got Talent.” “We never even thought we would win our school’s talent show, so who knows?” he said. “I think if we really put our best foot forward, we’ll have a decent shot at going to California.” valeriemcintyre@temple.edu
BRIANNA SPAUSE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Champ’s Diner, a restaurant on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 16th Street, took over the former Honey truck on 12th Street near Norris.
CLA to host screening of “Princess Mononoke” The College of Liberal Arts will host a film screening of “Princess Mononoke” tonight from 5:15 to 8 p.m. in the Women’s Studies lounge of Anderson Hall. Set in 14th century Japan, the animated film depicts a battle between forest spirits and humans who consume ecological resources. “Princess Mononoke” is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, known for directing films like “My Neighbor Totoro,” “The Wind Rises” and “Spirited Away,” which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003. The “Princess Mononoke” screening is free to attend. -Ian Walker
Afrofuturist artists to visit Main Campus on Saturday The Black Speculative Art Movement, a comics, film and art convention that is holding a year-long, nationwide tour, will hold an event in Gladfelter Hall on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. BsaM features creative artists, designers and graphic illustrators that exhibit Afrofuturism — a term defined as fiction that “addresses African-American concerns in the context of 20th-century technoculture” by cultural critic Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future.” On Friday night, some artists featured in BsaM will hold book signings at Amalgam Comics and Coffeehouse on Frankford Avenue and Huntingdon Street. The coffee shop is owned by Ariell Johnson, a 2005 accounting alumna, and exhibits comic book art with black, female characters. -Grace Shallow
Diamond Marching Band to host annual concert
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Freshman marketing major Brian Cook has a promotional poster for his parody boyband, Six on the Beach, in his Johnson Hall dorm room. Cook and the band are set to audition in New York City for NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” in January.
The Diamond Marching Band is holding an indoor concert this Saturday at Temple Performing Arts Center. The show begins at 4 p.m., and admission is free. The Diamond Marching Band is currently responsible for pre-game shows at Temple football games. They also practice and perform a different show during halftime at each home game. Some of the band’s halftime show videos have gone viral, even sparking a response from Panic! At The Disco on Twitter. -Kimberly Burton
features@temple-news.com
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INSTRUMENTS support the project with a $180,000 grant to fund the repairs of instruments and the distribution of music repair kits to teachers in Philadelphia. Hester Stinnett, the interim dean for the Tyler School of Art, said the broken instruments hanging on the walls of Temple Contemporary are a symbol of loss and missed creative opportunities. “I hope our mission within Tyler and within Temple is to not only serve our community of students and faculty and staff, but also to bring art to a much wider audience,” Stinnett said. “Art is part of the world…so we want our gallery to engage with the community.” Blackson said the instruments in Temple Contemporary came from all over the city, and the musicians that will perform Lang’s composition have backgrounds ranging from Mummers to high school students. He added that the diversity of the project’s participants reflects how music “means a lot of different things for a lot of different people.” “This is about the next generation of Philadelphia musicians,” he said. “Some want to study to be an orchestral musician. … Others want to use it as a community gathering effort and play in their local band. Other people see it as a way to meet new people.” Frank Machos, the executive director of the Office of Music Education for the School District of Philadelphia, said SFABO is an innovative way to call attention to the district’s funding issues. While the district has begun offering students more modern instruments, like guitars or keyboards, Machos said SFABO highlights the traditional roots of the School District of Philadelphia’s music programs by displaying orchestral instruments, like the violin and clarinet. Once the project is completed, Machos said repairs of the instruments will allow about 1,000 more students, who are currently on a waiting list, to play an instrument. “Creativity is certainly something we are trying to express to our students,” Machos said. “We’re really just intending to make the experience for kids’ school community to feel more culturally relevant…and making sure the arts are reflected.” Blackson said art institutions often “have painted themselves into a corner” when creat-
F E AT U R E S ing new projects because they jump from exhibition to exhibition without thinking about art’s long-term impact on the community. “What we’re trying to instill is to teach people how to think,” Blackson said. “This is what it means to be an engaged citizen in the world, that you look at what’s around you and you see what you can try to help. You try the best that you can.” He added that SFABO’s mission is reminiscent of Temple Contemporary straying away from “business as usual” as a gallery. The Advisory Council — a 35-member group that includes high school students, community residents and Temple students with a varying set of interests — helps determine the issues on which Temple Contemporary’s exhibitions and projects will focus. De’Wayne Drummond, a member of the Advisory Council who lives in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia, posed the question, “If the walls of closed public schools could talk, what would they say?” to the group two years ago, which fueled Blackson’s interest in the subject. When he was a second grader at Morton McMichael School in Powelton, Drummond said he played the violin, but the program shut down when he was in third grade. His daughter
De’Anna now plays the violin as a third grader at Samuel Powel Elementary, also in Powelton. Drummond said projects like SFABO ensure his daughter will have music enrichment throughout her education. “Programs like this in music are in place so that [students] can be successful…and be vibrant in whatever they do,” Drummond said. “[Kids] are like flowers. They grow, they blossom, they produce.” At the heart of the project, SFABO shows something broken is something to be reimagined, Blackson said.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 “You can make something beautiful and remarkable out of something that is maybe seen as trash or as a hindrance to creativity,” Blackson said. grace.shallow@temple.edu @grace_shallow Editor’s note: Supervising Editor Michaela Winberg serves on the Temple Contemporary’s Advisory Council. She played no role in the reporting of this article.
JACOB MCGLEW FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, part of a two-year initiative, features more than 800 broken instruments donated by the School District of Philadelphia.
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F E AT U R E S
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Students make outlier votes in presidential election Despite Philadelphia’s democratic dominance in past elections, some voters are supporting Donald Trump this year. By ZACH KOCIS & ZARI TARAZONA For The Temple News Charlie Simcik, a sophomore political science major, plans on voting for Donald Trump today in the 2016 presidential election, despite living in Philadelphia, a largely Democratic city. A Philly.com article published last month reported Democrats outnumber Republicans in Philadelphia nearly eight to one, but some Temple students, like Simcik, still plan to support the Republican presidential candidate at the polls. A study by the 2014 American Political Science Review found that Philadelphia was the 16th most liberal city in the United States. This might dampen support for Trump in Philadelphia, but on Main Campus, Simcik said he finds his views are respected by his peers. “The comments I receive about my political persuasion have been mostly just people wanting to get informed, people who want to understand,” said Simcik, an intern for
Youth for Trump. “It’s encouraging. It’s good for both sides.” Jagger Bollendorf, a freshman biology major and a Youth For Trump intern, said he has also encountered open-minded people on Main Campus, despite their differing political ideologies. Bollendorf said he feels students on campus look and think differently about him when he says he is supporting Trump because they simply don’t understand what Trump is trying to tell voters. “I brought it up in class a couple times, my supporting Donald Trump that is, and you get a couple head turns and looks at you,” Bollendorf said. As a media surrogate in Pennsylvania for the African American community, Calvin Tucker educates people about how Trump could potentially help the African-American community by cutting taxes, allowing for employment and economic growth. Trump has faced criticism for controversial comments and minimal outreach to African American voters during the election. Tucker said some criticize Trump, citing the racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Trump by the U.S. Justice Department in 1973 — but he thinks those issues are in the past. “If African Americans and minorities are to rise out of the conditions that we’re in, we need jobs, we
need opportunity and we need entrepreneurship,” Tucker said. “Those are the things that I think are important to you and I, and if we want a person that understands how to do that, then Donald Trump is the guy to do it.” Kevin Arceneaux, a political science professor, said although some voters disagree with Trump’s words or actions, they still support him be-
cause his platform adheres to conservative values. “Among minority groups that gravitate toward the Republican party, the explanation would be the same explanation that you have for white voters who are Republican,” Arceneaux said. “Some of them are voting for Trump because he is the Republican nominee.”
Simcik said students of all political ideologies are welcome into an open environment at Temple. “I think it’s encouraging to see kids of our generation and college age students being very open to entertaining ideas of all different persuasions,” he added. features@temple-news.com
HOJUN YU FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Freshman biology major Jagger Bollendorf works with the Trump campaign to encourage young people to support the Republican candidate.
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RUNNING
chapter, said the program started more than nine years ago when avid runner Ann Malum was running past Sunday Breakfast, a shelter on 13th Street near Vine that has provided meals and shelter for homeless people since 1878. Malum asked a group of men smoking cigarettes outside the shelter if they wanted to join. Soon, she had an entire group of men running with her on her morning route. Now, BoMF partners with eight shelters and recovery homes in Philadelphia to recruit members and is opening its 12th chapter in San Francisco in two weeks. BoMF focuses on running because the activity “increases endorphins, inspires [people] to achieve new goals and offers us serenity and a sense of accomplishment when we need it most,” according to its website. “There is no better feeling than waking up before the sun,” said Megan Stoner, a senior marketing major and the vice president of TURC. “There’s something about running with others before the day begins and being welcomed with hugs.” From there, they run distance runs and timed miles. TURC got involved when Lexi Cleary, a physical therapy doctorate student and volunteer for BoMF, introduced the two organizations, Stoner said. James Alston, a participant in the program, said he was in “hard situation” before he joined BoMF. “[The program] has been great,” Alston said. “I love the running, I love the support and I love the people.” Runners in the program for 30 days with an attendance rate of at least 90 percent can move on to Next Steps, Laboy said, which helps participants gain employment and housing with resources like financial assistance and job training. As part of the Next Steps phase of the program, BoMF also provides a job-readiness workshop where it hosts mock interviews and sharpens the participants’ resumes. The focus isn’t on giving out jobs, but creating connections, Laboy said. BoMF also partners with AT&T to offer technology workshops to teach participants how to use iPads and computers, making it easier to search for jobs. The program also hosts workshops with Bank of America to educate participants on managing their credit and bank accounts, Laboy said. Statistics for job placement vary from year to year, Laboy said, but so far this year, the group has a 52 percent job placement rate for its 150 members in Philadelphia. The group hopes to reach 65 percent before 2017. “I think one of the things that keeps me here is the long-term change I see in the individuals that participate in the program,” Laboy said. Claire Patterson, a junior risk management and insurance major and TURC member, interned with BoMF in 2014. Shortly after, she started running with the group. Patterson said the determination of BoMF’s participants stands out to her. “I think there is something amazing about starting with a member who is not in the best place in their life, and over the course of six months or a year watching them just transform themselves with just their own hard work,” Patterson said. “It’s incredible to see someone who is just so dedicated turn their life around.” kaitlyn.moore@temple.edu
features@temple-news.com
KAIT MOORE FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Top: Members of Temple Running Club and participants of Back on My Feet congratulate one another as they cross the finish for their timed one-mile run, which they started at 5 a.m. on Nov. 2. Bottom: Two runners rest after the run. Back on My Feet is a national program that organizes runs and connects Temple Running Club members like Annie Reisenwitz (right), with homeless individuals to create community and relationships.
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F E AT U R E S
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
Campus plan to include new public art Verdant Temple proposes a public arts program to incorporate more installations on campus. By EMILY THOMAS For The Temple News
“How has the SEPTA strike affected your commute to school?”
ADELINA FERKO
Sophomore International business
“
I live in the Northeast, so it’s about 30 minutes with Regional Rail ... I guess my timing with the Regional Rail wasn’t during peak hours because the way my classes are scheduled, I would take the train really late at night, like after the rush. But if I were to take [subways, buses or trolleys] it would be like an hour. [It was] better [for class], but as far as voting goes, not really ... I would be near campus and my polling place is obviously in the Northeast, not North Philadelphia.
”
In the next few years, students can expect to see a lot more color on Main Campus. Verdant Temple, Temple’s landscape development plan, aims to not only create more open green space on campus and reflect a more environmentally conscious school, but is also working to incorporate more public art on Main Campus, alongside landscape and architectural changes. The 20-year master design plan includes an outlined strategy for the school’s first public art program, which calls for a dedicated committee that looks for new opportunities and spaces for art installations. “Public art can take many different forms,” said James Templeton, director of architecture for the school’s project delivery group. “It can be a water fountain, it can be a statue or a sculpture or even something carved into a wall.” The proposed program would build off about a dozen existing artworks on Main Campus, like the Bell Tower, the Red Owl marble sculpture at Alumni Circle and the bust of Russell H. Conwell in Founder’s Garden, working to restore and relocate some of the art pieces to more central locations on campus. The master plan envisions an update to Columbia Plaza, the space on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near Broad Street where students and skateboarders congregate, including a refurbished sculpture and the creation of a performance space to showcase the school’s art and music programs. Until an established public arts program comes to fruition on Main Campus that would have a dedicated committee, curator and policy to envi-
sion new projects, Templeton said Verdant Temple is working to incorporate more public art wherever possible as construction renovations continue. “[Public art] would really help enliven a lot of our public spaces,” he said. “It could bring another layer of urban experience that you get in Center City with a lot of the public art, and bring it to the campus to help enliven and make spaces more inspirational.” Senior visual studies major Chris Canan said a public arts program could only be positive for Main Campus. “Whether it’s just a painted square
“
It could bring another layer of urban experience that you get in Center City with a lot of the public art.
”
James Templeton Director of Architecture for Temple’s project delivery group
... or some huge mural, it will cause you to stop and think outside of your normal routine,” he said. “We are so structured, we are so in this routine and to see something out of the ordinary in places where you don’t expect, or places where you do expect...it really serves to break up monotony.” Under the proposed plan, the installation “Hurry,” created by William Dickey King in 1981, will be relocated from its spot on Beury Beach to a green space closer to the Temple University Regional Rail station at 10th and Berks streets. The ceramic tile mural created by Raymond Gallucci, which currently resides in Ritter Hall, will be moved either to Liacouras or Polett Walk, and the now-damaged steel sculpture “Triad” outside of Johnson & Hardwick halls, would be removed altogether.
Templeton said the University of Pennsylvania and its extensive public art collection, which includes 72 pieces on campus, are an inspiration for public art at Temple. Hopefully, Templeton said, Temple can continue this “tradition” of public art in Philadelphia by creating various types of art installations, from small works in courtyards, to temporary installations by Tyler students, to even larger, monumental works that would serve as symbols of the school, he said. Installations will be designed and planned, Templeton said, as each new renovation project gets underway. This includes the anticipated Campus Green, the proposed quad-like green space bounded by Polett Walk and Norris, 12th and 13th streets, which will become one of the largest urban green spaces in the city. “It would really be a wonderful addition to our campus,” Templeton added. “Since it’s so urban and landlocked it would be this nice retreat from the urban grid that we’re always fighting on campus.” Templeton views the addition of art to the campus renovations as bringing a “third layer of intrigue” to the public green spaces on top of the landscape and architecture. As a way of building more connections between Temple and the city, Templeton suggested a collaborative art installation between the school and SEPTA, which would design a work of public art to help integrate the Temple University Regional Rail station. “There’s a lot going on outside our walls,” said Canan, who said he wonders if public art could create more participation between Temple students and community residents. “There’s little communities around that could really get involved around here.” “[Public art] is usually a good way to start a conversation,” he added. “It would be a good avenue to start improving that kind of relationship.” emily.ralsten.thomas@temple.edu
AROOJ KHAN Junior Bioengineering
“
It affected me in a lot of ways because my bike got stolen recently and I started taking the public transportation, but now I couldn’t do that anymore. I go for a run every morning and sometimes I have to get back before my 8 a.m. class, and because of the SEPTA strike, I can’t do that on public transportation. [It was inconvenient for] my life outside of school. I have so many friends who needed to drop off their family members just because of the SEPTA strike, because their mothers work in the city. And even my roommates, they work in the city and they had to take Uber to get to work.
”
COLLIN SHIELDS Senior Kinesiology
“
For me, it’s just kind of been more of an inconvenience. I mean, luckily the weather’s been nice so it hasn’t been too much of a struggle, but with the campaign and if weather starts raining and all, it would be so annoying because I gotta commute to school. [I usually commute from] South Philly, so it’s usually quicker with the subway, but biking’s not too bad. [The bike ride is only] 20 minutes, 15 minutes, but I gotta bike to work too. features@temple-news.com
”
PAIGE GROSS FILE PHOTO James Templeton, director of architecture for the school’s project delivery group, shows a central quad rendering from Verdant Temple, the university’s 20-year master design plan.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016 Continued from Page 20
SOCCER
earn only four points. After another draw, the Owls found themselves in sixth in the conference standings. In order to qualify for The American’s postseason tournament, Temple had to be in the top four teams of the conference. The Owls finished sixth with eight points. “If you take one of the games that we tied, either the Memphis or the Tulsa game, you win one of those games and we’re sitting in a much better position,” MacWilliams said. “We would’ve had two more points, so we’d be sitting in second place with a much better chance of making the playoffs, but you can’t go back.” The Owls tied Tulsa on Oct. 22 to keep their postseason hopes alive. The next Saturday, they beat Central Florida in overtime thanks to a goal from senior midfielder Jorge Gomez Sanchez. A win against South Florida would’ve given Temple 11 points in the conference and put them in third as long as neither Connecticut nor Cincinnati won their final
games, which neither of them did. Saturday was the fourth time the Owls got shutout against an American Athletic Conference opponent. Temple led The American in shots in conference games but was last in scoring. “We’ve been having trouble finding people to score,” said redshirt-junior defender Mark Grasela. “It’s all been Jorge and a couple others.” Temple outshot the Bulls 11-8, but couldn’t capitalize on chances. As time dwindled, the Owls became desperate for a goal, knowing it was the only way to salvage their season. Temple logged four shots in the final 20 minutes, but also racked up six fouls and drew two yellow cards. The Owls hoped to utilize set pieces like corner kicks and free kicks to score, particularly because South Florida’s only conference loss came as a result of converted set pieces by Cincinnati. However, Temple only had two corner kicks during the game. “When games become so tight like this, set pieces become a big part of the game,” MacWilliams said. “They were a small team and we wanted to take advan-
S P O RT S tage of that, but we didn’t get many corner kicks, and when we did, they did a good job clearing them.” For Gomez Sanchez and six other seniors, Saturday was their final game as an Owl. Even though Temple didn’t qualify for the playoffs, the seniors have still had a successful season. This is Temple’s third season in four years with 10 wins. The team won its first American Athletic Conference road game since 2013 and beat Penn State on the road for the first time since 1989. “I think there’s been some ups and downs in our season,” senior defender Matt Mahoney said. “But overall, we have a winning season. It’s bittersweet, being here the past four years. I can’t really imagine not playing anymore, but also, hopefully I’m ready to move on and play professionally somewhere, so it’s good and bad at the same time, but I’m not really trying to think about it too much.”
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SPORTS BRIEFS FIELD HOCKEY
UConn wins Big East tournament at Howarth The Big East Conference hosted its annual postseason tournament this weekend at Howarth Field. Connecticut, Liberty University, Providence College and Temple all competed in the four-team tournament. The event started on Friday when No. 1 UConn defeated No. 4 Temple, 8-1. No. 2 Liberty and No. 3 Providence followed later in the day. Liberty defeated Providence 1-0 to advance to the finals. UConn and Liberty finished out the event with the championship game on Sunday. The Huskies defeated the Flames, 3-2, for their fifth consecutive conference championship. -Owen McCue
maura.razanauskas@temple.edu @CaptainAMAURAca
JULIANA WACLAWSKI FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior forward Katie Foran (left) was one of four Owls who played in their final game in the Owls’ 8-1 loss to Connecticut on Friday.
Two Owls named to AllBig East Conference team Senior midfielder Paige Gross and junior midfielder Rachael Mueller were both named to the All-Big East Conference second team. Mueller led the Owls with 10 goals this season. She scored three game-winning goals, including an overtime score to upset Old Dominion University on Oct. 7. Gross started all 19 of Temple’s games. She finished second on the team with 1,283 minutes played. Gross also added two goals and one assist. The senior scored a goal in Temple’s Big East tournament loss to Connecticut on Friday and was named to the all-tournament team. -Owen McCue
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Owls win weekend preseason scrimmage GENEVA HEFFERNAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Junior forward Obi Enechionyia drives to the basket in last season’s 66-65 loss to St. Joseph’s at the Liacouras Center on Dec. 13, 2015.
Continued from Page 20
ENECHIONYIA Enechionyia averaged 11 points and 3.8 rebounds per game last year. After a strong finish to his freshman season, Enechionyia started last year by spraining his ankle and missing Temple’s season opener against the University of North Carolina. He only missed one game, but the injury persisted throughout the season, hurting his consistency. Enechionyia had games like his 25-point, 13-rebound performance against St. Joseph’s and his career-high 26-point effort against Houston. He also posted a few duds, scoring just two points five times. Enechionyia went 2-of-7 from the field for four points in Temple’s 72-70 overtime loss to the University of Iowa in the NCAA tournament.
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CROSS COUNTRY son to rely on if something doesn’t go right,” Snyder said. “It is really an incentive to have the people that you are going to put on the line ready to go.” Steinsberger will be joined by sophomore Johnathan Condly, freshmen Zach
“Defense, rebounding, scoring, I wasn’t myself,” Enechionyia said. “We don’t talk about it much, but I know we all remember it and we all think about it a lot, so we’re all using it as motivation,” Enechionyia added. “Now that we know what it’s like to get to the tournament, we just want to get back.” Enechionyia went into last year hoping to become “the shooter” for the Owls. He hit a corner 3-point shot to seal the Owls’ 83-79 win against Tulsa and knocked down a long-range shot from the top of the key to tie the game with less than a minute to go in the Houston win. He finished the year second on the team in 3-pointers made and 3-point field goal percentage. This offseason Enechionyia worked on expanding his game. He practiced shooting off the dribble and becoming more comfortable in the low post. Dunphy wants the forward to be a playmaker
wherever he is on the floor. “This is his turn to arrive now,” Dunphy said. “He’s going to have to set our path as a basketball program this year.” On defense, Enechionyia will use his unique blend of skills to guard multiple positions. He’ll defend bigger, stronger players in the post and smaller, quicker players out on the wing. Enechionyia will also be forced into a larger role rebounding the basketball this year with the departure of Jaylen Bond, who led the team in rebounding last year. “I’m definitely going to have to do a lot more,” Enechionyia said. “The last two years I haven’t really haven’t been much of a rebounder. I know without Jaylen, someone has to step up and I’m going to try and make that myself.”
Seiger, Kevin Lapsansky and Donovan Mears. Leisher and freshman Millie Howard are the only members of the women’s team who have officially been named to the roster. “I’m really excited about this race,” Howard said. “I know my strength is in my finish because I have speed. I just tell myself to keep going and stay strong because I know I can have a push at the end.”
For Lapsansky, there is also some personal competition. “A lot of people I know and ran against in high school will be there,” Lapsansky said. “I think it will help motivate me a little bit more. If I’m going throughout the race and I’m struggling and I see someone I used to race, I see that they are doing it, then I’ll tell myself that I can do it.”
owen.mccue@temple.edu @Owen_McCue
teresa.sayers@temple.edu
The Owls defeated the University of the District of Columbia 107-22 in a preseason scrimmage Saturday at McGonigle Hall. The Owls had the lead for all but five seconds and outrebounded the Firebirds 67-17. Six different players scored 10 or more points. Junior guard Alliya Butts led all scorers with 18 points. Junior guard Tanaya Atkinson had 17 points and six rebounds and junior guard Donnaizha Fountain had a double-double with 13 points and 17 rebounds. Senior guard Feyonda Fitzgerald had 12 points and was one assist shy of a doubledouble. The team opens its season on the road Friday against Big 5 rival Saint Joseph’s. Temple’s first home game is on Monday at 5 p.m. against La Salle. -Evan Easterling
VOLLEYBALL
Volleyball player earns regional academic honor Junior setter Kyra Coundourides earned first-team Academic All-District honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America on Thursday. She is just one of six players named to the District 2 team, which includes Washington D.C., Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In order to qualify, a player must be a starter or an important reserve on their team and have a 3.3 or greater GPA. Coundourides has a 4.0 GPA as a kinesiology major and also volunteers as a pen pal for Philadelphia elementary school students. Her 10.58 assists per set is second in the American Athletic Conference. -Evan Easterling sports@temple-news.com
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S P O RT S
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
FIELD HOCKEY
Connecticut ends seniors’ season for the last time Seniors Paige Gross, Ali Meszaros, Katie Foran and Michelle Walsh helped guide a young team this year. By VARUN SIVAKUMAR Field Hockey Beat Reporter Senior midfielder Paige Gross hobbled off the field on crutches, having been injured late in the game. Senior back and midfielder Ali Meszaros and senior forward Katie Foran both cried, devastated by the game that marked the end of their athletic careers at Temple. As the Owls left their bench to salute their fans for one final time in 2016, the dejection on the faces of the players was evident after an 8-1 loss to Connecticut in the Big East Conference tournament. For the fourth consecutive year, the seniors finished their seasons with a tournament loss to the Huskies. Temple had to replace 10 seniors at the start of 2016 and welcomed eight freshmen onto the team. Gross, Meszaros, Foran and senior back and midfielder Michelle Walsh were tasked with bringing the young team together, a difficult responsibility in their final seasons. “We had to be big role models for them,” Walsh said. “There are only four of us, so it was a big responsibility that we had.” “They were very welcoming from the very start,” freshman back Becky Gerhart said. “The seniors just have a lot of experience, and they’ve helped guide me and led me through [the season].” After finishing 14-6 as freshman and 14-7 as sophomores, the group was trying to return to form following an 8-13 record as juniors. The Owls opened the season by losing their first three games and eight of their first nine. While the end of August and September wasn’t kind to the team, Temple won six of its last nine regular season games. The team went 3-2 against Big East opponents in that span to
JAMIE COTTRELL FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior back and midfielder Ali Meszaros gains control of the ball in Friday’s 8-1 Big East semifinal loss to Connecticut at Howarth Field.
ensure a spot in a postseason tournament for the 14th consecutive year. “I think we really progressed over the season from where we started,” Walsh said. “Everybody had key roles in that success.” “Just looking at where we were, how much we’ve grown feels really great,” Foran said. “Everyone put everything out that they could. I’m happy with everything we’ve done this season.” Gross and Meszaros started in every game this season, finishing second and fourth on the
team in minutes, respectively. Foran started 18 of the team’s 19 games, and Walsh played in all 19 games, starting four. All four seniors started on Friday. “[The seniors] have been so versatile for us,” coach Marybeth Freeman said. “We’ll lose them, especially their characters as well, all great young women.” Next season, the Owls will return eight players who started 12 or more games. Meszaros, Gross and redshirt-junior Sarah Keer
were the only Owls’ with more than 12 starts in 2015 heading into this year. Freshman goalkeeper Maddie Lilliock, who led the team in minutes, will be back. So will junior midfielder Rachel Mueller, who led the team in scoring with 10 goals. “Our team can learn a lot from this loss and improve for next season,” Meszaros said. varun.sivakumar@temple.edu @VarunSivakumar
WOMEN’S SOCCER
O’Connor tries to figure out ‘where it went wrong’ in 2016 season The Owls finished 3-16 this year after back-to-back seasons with 10 or more wins. By TOM IGNUDO Women’s Soccer Beat Reporter Coach Seamus O’Connor has tried to shower away the feeling of defeat numerous times since the regular season ended two weeks ago. But he still feels branded by the team’s 3-16 record. He won’t be able to shake it until next season. “I’m trying to look back on the car crash and figure out what the hell happened,” O’Connor said. “It’s the worst when you have a season like that because you just micro-manage everything.” “You’re trying to figure what happened, where it wrong, what can you do differently, why it happened,” he added. “It’s been a lot of long hours.” O’Connor, who has been Temple’s coach since 2013, built his program’s win total in each of his first three seasons. But this season, O’Connor’s team took a different course. The Owls finished the year 3-16, the worst record of O’Connor’s career at Temple and the first time the program has had less than four wins in its 26-year history. O’Connor said after over-analyzing this season, he’s ready to move on. “It’s like all the different stages of mourning,” O’Connor said. “I’ve come to the acceptance stage, I’ve gone through all the bad stages and I’m at the acceptance stage now. Just accept it. It happened. There’s nothing I can do about it but learn from it and move on.” From last weekend to Jan. 3, O’Connor and his coaches will be recruiting every week. O’Connor left for Ireland last Friday night to watch five games and won’t return to the United States until Thursday. He added this weekend he’ll be going to the Junior College Finals in Florida for about four days. In December, O’Connor will also take a trip to England. Associate head coach John Byford will recruit in California, and assistant coach Paula Jurewicz will recruit in Florida and Canada. sports@temple-news.com
BILIN LIN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The Owls shake hands with Connecticut following their 1-0 loss to the Huskies at the Temple Sports Complex on Oct. 22. The team ended the season on a 10-game losing streak.
O’Connor said Temple’s biggest need for next season is a striker. After losing their toptwo goal scorers from a year ago, the Owls couldn’t find a replacement this season. Temple ranked last in the American Athletic Conference this year with 14 goals. Last year, the Owls scored 42 goals, triple this year’s total. In 2003 and 2006, the Owls scored their lowest amount of goals as a team with 12 on the year. Redshirt-junior forward Kayla Cunningham agreed that the offense needs to improve. “Definitely shooting and scoring goals ... just capitalizing on possessing the ball up until the final third and finally being able to finish it,” she said. On top of dealing with about a half-dozen injuries this season, the Owls also had the most freshmen on the team since 2013. Freshman defender Emily Keitel said the speed of the game was the biggest adjustment.
With a mix of injuries and new faces, O’Connor switched his backline a lot this season, forcing a lot of underclassmen to get significant amounts of playing time. Keitel played in 17 games, freshman midfielder Morgan Morocco played in 15 games and freshman forward Jules Blank played in all 19 games. “A lot of them are older and have experience, just their awareness of the game,” Keitel said about the difference of facing the college competition. “They know when the ball is going to played, they know the right time to take a shot, they just know the game so well. Their soccer IQ is so high.” This week, the Owls will start their offseason program with their assistant strength and conditioning coach Sam Whitney. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the Owls will lift and work on conditioning from 6 to 7 a.m. until finals week. During winter break, Whitney will send
the team a winter workout. Once the players return from break, they’ll resume their workouts until the spring. Cunningham said despite their overall record, this season was one of her favorites and they’ll continue to develop as a team through the offseason in order to prepare for next season. “Just knowing each other and playing for each other will help us so much,” Cunningham said. “Our sophomore class and junior class have an apartment on top and underneath each other, so we’re always over there. So just because we don’t have soccer, we all still hang out together.” thomas.ignudo@temple.edu @Ignudo5
temple-news.com @thetemplenews
S P O RT S
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VOLLEYBALL
Continued from Page 1
Owls in mix for conference title again Temple is in second place in The American with upcoming matches against the league’s top teams. By KEVIN SCHAEFFER Volleyball Beat Reporter With six games left, Temple finds itself in a similar situation to last season. The Owls are once again near the top of the conference standings with games remaining against the conference’s other top teams. For the second season in a row, Temple trails Southern Methodist in the standings, but this season Temple doesn’t need help to win the conference. Temple (18-6, 11-3 American Athletic Conference) is currently ranked No. 51 in the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Ratings Percentage Index. “This year, we’ve had a really good opportunity to show the team we really are,” junior middle blocker Janine Simmons said. “I think our tough preseason schedule has helped us in the rankings and shown other teams how good we are.” Temple has played every team in the conference at least once and beaten every team in The American except three. Temple controls its own destiny with games against Southern Methodist and Cincinnati still on the schedule. The Owls are one game behind Southern Methodist in the conference standings and tied with Cincinnati. They’ve already beaten both teams earlier in the season. “We’re just focusing really hard this season, playing every game like it is our last,” said senior outside hitter Tyler Davis. “We really can’t afford to lose any more games, we’re just focusing on achieving our goals for the end of the season. We know we can beat anyone, and we just know we have to play our game and show up.” The Owls implemented a new system this season for a more fast-paced offense, and it has paid off. They currently rank in the top four in the conference in hitting percentage, kills per set, assists and service aces, largely due to the contributions of two players. Junior setter Kyra Coundourides is third in the conference with 971 assists and leads the conference with 21 aces. Junior outside hitter Irem Asci has also been a big producer on the attack. Her 4.45 kills per set and 18 aces both are third in the conference. Asci led the team in kills last year and leads with 409 kills this season. With the addition of more outside hitters on the floor, Temple’s blocks per set has
increased in the 2016 season compared to the 2015 season. This season the Owls are averaging 2.2 blocks per set. Last season they averaged 1.9. While a potential NCAA tournament bid could be on the line, the Owls are focused on every team in The American one game at a time. “We’re not focused on the tournament right now, we’ve been here before,” coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said. “We know how tough this conference is so we’re just playing it one game at a time.”
But for the three seniors, the goal of making it to the tournament is in the back of their minds. They want to extend their final seasons as long as they can. “If we’re done at the end of the season, the seniors are done for good,” Davis said. “We’ve also worked hard for the last four years and we want our goal of making it to the postseason to come true.” kevinschaeffer@temple.edu @_kevinschaeffer
2016 owls in similar spots as 2015 Overall Record Conference Record Road Record Ratings Percentage Index
2016 18-6 11-3 9-0 No. 51
2015 24-8 15-5 6-5 No. 72
WILLIAMS
2014 and won a position battle with Stephaun Marshall. Williams and Marshall split time in the role last season and both start this season. The pair of redshirt-seniors have combined for 93 tackles this year. At practice this week, Williams wore a brace on his left knee and had tape on his right ankle and fingers. Before the team’s game against Cincinnati, Rhule said Williams is “playing with two injuries a lot of guys wouldn’t play through.” Williams has played in 27 straight games, including all 10 this season. “Every time I see him, I think he’s crazy,” Russell said. “Like they try to help him out so much to when he doesn’t have to practice and he’s just always out here every day like, ‘Nah, let me practice.’” Williams said he’d be depressed if he couldn’t play football. He played several sports growing up and traveled for competitions, including a wrestling tournament in Chicago. Williams ran track and wrestled at Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, but football, the sport he has played since he was five years old, was always his favorite. “When I put a helmet on, it’s like, I don’t know, it makes me feel like a different person,” Williams said. “I was always little and skinny, but when I put that helmet on, I could be anybody I wanted.” Williams may not wrestle or run track anymore, but he has kept a different high school passion through his college years: music. The curriculum at Archbishop Curley required students to choose either band or choir. Williams said because he already sang, he chose the band. He played clarinet his first year, then bass clarinet and finally the saxophone. When he got to Temple in 2012, he found out that Marshall knew how to play piano. His mother surprised him with a piano and he taught himself how to play using YouTube videos and by ear. It is now his favorite instrument. “I don’t really like when people know how to do stuff that I can’t,” Williams said. Williams and some of his teammates who live in the Diamond Green Apartments on Diamond Street near 10th have jam sessions with senior criminal justice and spanish major Nahla Ward, who will perform at the Apollo Theater in New York on Wednesday. Marshall and redshirt-junior fullback Nick Sharga play guitar, redshirt-junior offensive lineman Leon Johnson sings and redshirt-senior defensive lineman Avery Ellis plays bass. Williams plays piano and sings a variety of different genres including country, R&B and gospel songs like Fred Hammond’s “No Weapon,” Ward said. Ward said she’s known Williams for about three years. They are both criminal justice majors and took a class together. “I think what makes Avery interesting is that he is so well-rounded that you can have different conversations and it has some value to it,” Ward said.
GENEVA HEFFERNAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Junior setter Kyra Coundourides serves during the third game of the Owls’ 3-2 victory against Memphis on Oct. 28 at McGonigle Hall.
evan.easterling@temple.edu @Evan_Easterling
FOOTBALL
After three years of waiting, Mesday plays in first game The redshirt-sophomore linebacker hadn’t played since high school due to two knee injuries. By OWEN MCCUE Sports Editor Zach Mesday had been waiting three years for the moment. After a redshirt season and two ACL tears, he hadn’t played in a game since November 2013. But when graduate assistant John Loughery yelled, “Mesday, you’re in,” the redshirtsophomore linebacker was confused. “What do you mean?” Mesday responded. “We’re on offense.” Lougherty insisted once again, and Mesday ran onto Lincoln Financial Field for the first time on Oct. 29 against Cincinnati with less than a minute to go in the game. “Logan, what am I doing?” Mesday asked redshirt-freshman quarterback Logan Marchi when he got to the huddle. “Just run left,” Marchi answered. So that’s what Mesday did. Lining up at fullback, he ran left, hit the first person he saw and knocked him over. To some, the result of the play was a meaningless three-yard run late in a game Temple had already wrapped up. For Mesday, it meant much more. “Only 1 percent of high school football
players get to be here,” Mesday said. “To say that I’m part of that 1 percent, and I got to play in a Division I football game, in a conference game this late in the season, and hit somebody, as a walk-on with two knee surgeries is something I could never even think of.” Mesday first tore his right knee as a freshman. He was running on the scout team kick coverage unit, and his right knee gave out as he tried to make a play on the returner. Since he was redshirting already, the injury wasn’t too big of a deal for Mesday. It was supposed to take nine months for him to recover from the injury, but after five months, he was already back. That was the first test of his patience. Then, it happened again. During a practice in the Owls’ bye week last September, one of Mesday’s teammates fell into the same right knee. After an MRI, he was initially told the injury was a meniscus tear. When the doctor went in to fix the meniscus tear, he discovered the ACL was tearing off the bone. This time it would take 18 months before he was back on the football field. “The second time I tore it, there was a moment where I thought, ‘Wow. This could be the end,’” Mesday said. “The second time, sometimes people don’t recover for like a year and a half and by that time I’ll be a senior, I’m going to get on with my life. By that time they’ll probably just move on from me.” He was eventually told that it would only take about a year until he was back on the field. With the ability to return during the 2016 season, Mesday wasn’t ready to give up. Mesday went through the tedious rehabili-
tation process again. This time he worked out at Edberg-Olson Hall with defensive linemen Jullian Taylor and Sharif Finch, who were both recovering from ACL injuries as well. He meticulously followed each routine his physical therapist assigned him. Six months in, Mesday said his knee felt better than it did before the injury. The doctors told him they’d never seen a knee heal as quickly as his did. “This is what he dreamed to do his whole life,” his mother, Sue Mesday, told The Temple News. “If they told him, ‘You can never play football again,’ then that would be somebody else’s decision. He worked too hard and went too far. He had a lot of obstacles along the way, and he was not gonna give up then because he would always think, ‘What could have happened?’” Mesday almost never got the chance to play Division I football. He transferred from Bordentown Regional High School in Bordentown, New Jersey to Nottingham High School in Hamilton, New Jersey before his junior season. He played seven different positions at Nottingham just to get on the field as a junior. He carved out a role at defensive end for Nottingham during his senior season, when he was invited to play in New Jersey’s premier high school football all-star game, the North-South Classic. Mesday played against his future teammates Phillip Walker and Keith Kirkwood in the game. But he didn’t receive any attention for his play at defensive end, so he took a prep year at the Canterbury School in New Milford, Con-
necticut to play linebacker. He received a few offers from Division II schools, but no full rides. He figured that if he was going to have to pay to play football at school, why not do it at the highest level? He ended up at Temple because of the university’s elementary education program and the football team liked the highlight film he sent. “I never really thought I’d be able to play Division I football, but just growing up I knew that I wanted to play at the Division I level it was just a matter of getting the opportunity,” Mesday said. “Once I got the opportunity, I was going to take full advantage of it. I just knew I that I would never give up until my eligibility was over.” Every day Mesday receives a text from his mother that says, “Good luck at practice. Make it your best practice.” It pushes him to continue trying to get back on the field. Sue was in the stands two Saturdays ago against Cincinnati. She’s been there every home game, even the ones her son couldn’t play in. When she saw him get into the game for the first time in his college career, she was overtaken by emotion. “Besides the tears running down my face, I don’t know,” she said of her reaction. “You do good things yourself, but when your kid tries so hard and has to wait to so long. I don’t know if there is even a word to describe it.” owen.mccue@temple.edu @Owen_McCue
sports@temple-news.com
SPORTS
S P O RT S
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2016
MEN’S SOCCER
Season ends after battle with conference’s top team Despite a late-season push, Saturday’s loss kept the Owls out of the conference playoffs. By MAURA RAZANAUSKAS Women’s Soccer Beat Reporter
T
emple had a difficult challenge on Saturday against South Florida. The Owls needed a road win against the best team in the conference to qualify for the American Athletic Conference postseason tournament. The team went undefeated at home this year, but entered the match 2-4 in road games. South Florida scored in the 64th minute, and the rest of the game was an uphill battle for Temple. The Owls could not capitalize on opportunities throughout the game, and their season ended Saturday night with a 1-0 loss to the Bulls. “They were a very good team,” coach David MacWilliams said. “It was a tough game, but we battled. I’m proud of the way the guys played. The effort was there, they worked really hard, they really wanted it, but we just fell a little bit short.” Battling back from a difficult situation was not uncommon for the Owls (10-6-2, 2-3-2 The American) this season. Since the start of conference play, Temple has played in a couple of must-win games. Temple went 1-2-1 to start conference play to JENNY CHOI FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS The Owls’ season came to an end this weekend with a 1-0 loss to South Florida on Saturday, which excluded the team from the American Athletic Conference tournament.
SOCCER | PAGE 17 CROSS COUNTRY
Men’s and women’s teams prep for Mid-Atlantic regional The Owls will face nationally ranked competition at the event on Friday at Penn State. By TESSA SAYERS Cross Country Beat Reporter For two months, Temple’s focus had been on the American Athletic Conference Championship meet. Every race and practice had been in preparation for the conference meet, beginning with the Duquesne Duals on Sept. 3. Neither team finished exactly where it wanted last week — the men’s team finished fifth and the women’s team finished eighth — but Temple now has its sights on an even bigger race.
The men’s and women’s teams will travel to Penn State on Friday to compete at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship. “It’s tough to turn yourself from the emotional high of the conference race and then step back to get ready for the second most important race of the year,” coach James Snyder said. “I’ve been pushing to them that we have to stay on the gas, we have to stay excited.” The men’s and women’s teams each faced one team ranked in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Association’s Top 30 at the conference championships last week. Temple will race against a total of six nationally ranked teams during Friday’s meet. The ranked men’s teams are No. 22 Georgetown University and No. 28 University of Pennsylvania. The women will race against four nationally ranked teams: No. 9 Penn State, No.
21 Villanova, No. 24 Penn and No. 27 West Virginia University. Last season, the men’s team finished 15th out of 25 teams at the regional meet. Temple’s highest finisher was Matt Kacyon in 29th. Snyder is looking to men’s graduate student Marc Steinsberger to finish in the Top 25, and be the second man named to the all-regional team since Snyder joined the program in 2013. Temple’s last man to be named to the all-regional team was Kacyon in 2014. “Mark has an outside shot of qualifying,” Snyder said. “We have talked about expectations and goals. Where Mark is right now, I think he has put himself in that conversation.” Blanca Fernandez won the Mid-Atlantic regional championship for the women and was the first Owl to run at the NCAA Women’s Cross Country Championship last year.
Even with Fernandez’s strong individual outing, Temple finished 23rd out of 30 teams at the 2015 meet. Sophomore Katie Leisher’s name has been in the mix of those who could possibly lead the team and earn an all-regional honor this year. “To be able to get into the top 25 will take a great day,” Snyder said. “It will come down to how bad Katie wants it.” Steinsberger and Leisher are two of the runners that will be making up the seven-man roster for the men’s and women’s teams. The rosters were cut from nine at the conference championship to only seven at the regional championship. “This makes every person that much more valuable because you don’t have that extra per-
CROSS COUNTRY | PAGE 17
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Dunphy on Enechionyia: ‘He’s going to have to set our path’ This offseason, the junior forward worked on adding more weapons to his already versatile game. By OWEN MCCUE Sports Editor
GENEVA HEFFERNAN FOR THE TEMPLE NEWS Junior forward Obi Enechionyia dribbles around the perimeter in last season’s 66-65 loss to St. Joseph’s on Dec. 13, 2015 at the Liacouras Center. Enechionyia dealt with a nagging injury to his ankle all of last season and is now working to become a leader for the Owls.
Obi Enechionyia leaned back in his chair and paused for a moment as he tried to think of someone he models his game after. The junior forward had been asked the question many times before, but he couldn’t think of anyone. After giving himself a moment to consider it again, Enechionyia still didn’t have an answer. “I never really know who to say because there’s no one specific player that I look at,” Enechionyia said at the American Athletic Confer-
ence’s media day. “I try to take skills from a lot of different players.” Enechionyia is a 6-foot-10-inch forward who possesses uncommon abilities for players his size. His jump shot is smooth. He’s spent hours and hours in empty gyms trying to perfect it. Last year, he shot better than 38 percent from 3-point range, which ranked 10th in the American Athletic Conference. “I don’t think I’ve had someone work on their shooting technique more than Obi,” coach Fran Dunphy said. “He’s really put a lot of time and effort into it.” Enechionyia is also very athletic. He has the ability to get out and run and guard out on the perimeter. “Any big man that can shoot the ball and rebound and is athletic enough to get down the court is a problem for any team,” said Houston senior guard Damyean Dotson.
ENECHIONYIA | PAGE 17
SOCCER | PAGE 18
FOOTBALL | PAGE 19
FIELD HOCKEY | PAGE 18
BRIEFS | PAGE 17
After the worst season in the women’s soccer program’s history, coach Seamus O’Connor is trying to look ahead to next year.
Redshirt-sophomore linebacker Zach Mesday took the field for the first time in his college career after sustaining two knee injuries.
The Owls lost to nationally ranked Connecticut in the Big East tournament for the fourth straight year.
Junior setter Kyra Coundourides got an academic honor and Temple hosted the Big East tournament. Other news and notes.