Vol. 96, Iss. 10

VOL. 96 ISSUE 10

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

CRIME

MEN’S GYMNASTICS

‘BIG SHOES TO FILL’

Sexual assault offender still unidentified Temple Police sent an email about the sexual assault, which happened on Sunday, and asked for tips.

BY GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK News Editor

T

emple Police and Philadelphia Special Victims Unit are reviewing security camera footage from 15th Street between Oxford and Jefferson streets, where a female student was sexually assaulted around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, police said.

There was no forced entry or break-in into the private residence where the student was sexually assaulted, Charlie Leone, the executive director of Campus Safety Services, wrote in an email. He can’t add more details because police are still investigating the incident, he wrote.

Police are also following up on tips received by Temple Police and Temple’s Title IX anonymous reporting database, Leone added.

“I cannot thank those enough who have submitted tips,” Leone wrote. “We are encouraging anyone with information to please continue letting us know.”

A notice was sent to the Temple community via email on Sunday, stating that the student was sexually assaulted around 2 a.m. Sunday

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Mike Dellapena, a men’s gymnast from 1985-90 and assistant coach to Fred Turoff from 1990-92, drapes Turoff in the Temple gymnastics flag that hung in Pearson Gym 143 for decades after it was auctioned off for $2,100 on Saturday night.

After a 41-year stretch as head coach, Fred Turoff will assist Jesse KitzenAbelson this season.

ASSAULT PAG E 2

HALLOWEEN

Ph.D. alumna studies spirit photography Sarah Iepson discussed the role of spiritualism in artwork at the Tyler School of Art on Friday.

BY EVAN EASTERLING Sports Editor Jim Van de Zilver, like many of the former gymnasts who attended Saturday night’s dinner to honor Fred Turoff, wore a nametag on his shirt.

Under each person’s name on the sticker, an empty line offered a space to write a one-word description of Turoff.

Van de Zilver wrote “life-changer.”

Turoff gave him an opportunity, despite not having the best grades in high school, to compete on the team from 1988-93. Van de Zilver, a Temple Athletics Hall of Famer, helped Temple win four straight Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League titles. He earned a criminal justice degree and became a police officer and sergeant in Lakewood, New Jersey,

before he retired in 2009.

“Being on that team and having a place to go actually saved my life,” said Ron Perry, who grew up in Sharswood, Philadelphia, and joined Temple as a walk-on as a freshman in 1979 without any formal training.

More than 70 former Temple gymnasts and Turoff’s family and friends gathered at the Hilton Hotel on City Avenue for a celebration of his career. After 41 years as the head coach, including 38 at the Division I level from 1976-2014 before the sport’s demotion to club status, Turoff, 70, will assistant coach this year to help Jesse Kitzen-Abelson transition to taking over the club.

He’ll help Kitzen-Abelson, who was on the team from 2007-11, learn how to schedule meets, book hotels and complete other necessary tasks. Kitzen-Abelson coached in South Africa for five years and returned to Temple in September 2016 as an assistant.

“Right now, the plan is just this year, but we’ll see,” Turoff said. “I won’t be a

stranger. I’ll pop in once in a while for sure next year, but let’s see how Jesse develops and how the team develops. Let’s see how my wife let’s me out of the house once in awhile.”

I won’t be a stranger. I’ll pop in once in a while for sure next year.

FRED TUROFF

MEN’S GYMNASTICS COACH

As attendees walked into the Garden Ballroom, got drinks and reminisced, a slideshow played with underwater photos from Turoff’s scuba diving trips, something he discovered as a passion about 30 years ago. He’ll spend two weeks in Indonesia on a diving trip in January.

Turoff has taken diving trips with gymnasts he has coached and former opponents from his days competing at Temple from 1966-69. Norman Vexler,

T UROF F PAG E 15

COMMUNITY

BY LAURA SMYTHE For The Temple News When Sarah Iepson visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York while researching her dissertation on the portrayal of children in 19th-century art, she was struck by Ambrose Andrews’ painting, “The Children of Nathan Starr.”

The work shows five siblings playing a game with rackets, but the youngest sibling, a little boy in a dress, is deceased. His racket lays on the floor, unused.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird,’” said Iepson, a 2013 art history Ph.D. alumna and head of the Community College of Philadelphia’s art department. “That got me down the path of posthumous imagery, and it snowballed into a dissertation on that.”

Just in time for Halloween, Iepson gave a talk at the Tyler School of Art on Friday about the role of spiritualism — an ideology that claims humans have spirits within them that become evolved entities upon death — in art-

SPI R I TS PAG E 8

Yorktown organization ‘denied’ permanent office space in View II The Yorktown Community Organization will continue to negotiate with the Goldenberg Group, owner and developer of the View II.

BY KELLY BRENNAN Assistant News Editor

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Construction on the View II student housing complex on 12th Street between Montgomery and Cecil B. Moore avenues began earlier this month.

The Yorktown Community Organization requested a permanent office space in the View II, but the Goldenberg Group, the owner and developer of the building, allegedly denied the request in August, an organization official said.

Construction on the $199 million student housing complex on

12th Street between Montgomery and Cecil B. Moore avenues began earlier this month. Kevin Trapper, the senior vice president and development director for the Goldenberg Group, said the building will have a designated community space, but the programming for the space has not yet been determined.

Robert McMichael, the president of the Yorktown Community Organization, said a representative from the Goldenberg Group told the organization it could use the community space for its meetings.

But the organization wants a written offer from the Goldenberg Group to ensure it comes to fruition.

V I EW I I PAG E 6

NEWS | PAGES 2-3, 6

OPINION | PAGES 4-5

FEATURES | PAGES 7-12

SPORTS | PAGES 13-16

More than 1,000 children will trick-or-treat in a “Halloween Safety Zone” on Tuesday. Read more on Page 2.

Two lead columnists debate the possibility of Amazon coming to Philadelphia. Read more on Page 5.

The Urban Archives at the Special Collections Research Center celebrated its 50th anniversary this month. Read more on Page 7.

Delvon Randall leads the Owls with three interceptions. He has taken pride in causing turnovers since high school.

Read more on Page 16.

NEWS PAGE 2

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

Temple Police, Athletics partner for Avenue of Treats More than 1,000 children are expected to attend the event along Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

BY GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK News Editor Beech Community Services will host its 11th annual Avenue of Treats with Temple Police, Temple Athletics and local businesses on Tuesday between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Children can trick-or-treat between 17th and Broad streets along Cecil B. Moore Avenue as a part of a “Halloween Safety Zone.” The event will also feature a haunted house and zombie laser tag.

The Avenue of Treats is one of several safety zones in North Philadelphia where parents can ensure safe trick-or-treating.

Beech Community Services hosts the event every year because each Halloween, twice as many children are killed while walking around compared to any other day of the year, according to a release.

This year, 11 Temple Athletic teams will participate, said Larry Dougherty, a senior associate athletic director for men’s basketball and golf.

There will be 140 student-athletes participating in the event, many of whom will walk children across Cecil B. Moore Avenue safely, said Eileen Bradley, the captain of special services and the community liaison

for Temple Police.

More than one in nine parents report allowing their children 5 years old or younger to trick-or-treat alone each year, according to Safe Kids Worldwide — a nonprofit that works to prevent childhood injuries.

Beech Community Services and its community partners want to ensure children’s safety during the holiday by providing a safe location for children to trick-or-treat.

“This is the only place for kids where they’re actually able to trick-or-treat,” said Monica Hankins-Padilla, the external relations coordinator at Campus Safety Services. “From observations, it’s definitely safer.”

Many homes will not be open to trickor-treaters in the area, or may not be in safe or well-lit areas, Hankins-Padilla added.

Temple Police has opened a haunted house with student volunteers for several years, but this is the first time zombie laser tag will be available. The laser tag will be set up in the Beech Interplex building on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 15th Street.

“We’re excited, we’re upping the game this year,” Bradley added.

In its 11 years of existence, Bradley said she’s seen the event grow from a few hundred kids to more than a thousand who go from store to store collecting candy. Temple Police spent about $1,000 this year on the professional haunted house and candy for attendees, she added.

Student volunteers from Temple Athletics and other student organizations will also help Temple Police in its haunted house and

SASHA LASAKOW / THE TEMPLE NEWS

other events on Tuesday.

Families from Tanner Duckrey Elementary School on Diamond Street near 15th and Paul Dunbar Elementary School on 12th Street near Cecil B. Moore Avenue are also invited to partake in the Halloween festivities.

Quintin Rose, a sophomore guard on the men’s basketball team, volunteered at the Avenue of Treats last year.

“It was pretty fun giving candy to the kids,” Rose said. “Seeing them smile, making

them happy, it was cool.”

Rose will participate again this year with other members of his team, instead of trick-or-treating with his younger brother in Rochester, New York.

“It’s a good feeling, being able to give back to the community,” he added. “They support us in what we do, so the least we can do is support them and give back to them.”

@gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick

SUSTAINABILITY

Aramark ramps up sustainability Aramark has implemented several policies to help Temple reach its goal to be carbon free by 2050.

BY SABRINA WALLACE For The Temple News Aramark has added several sustainability initiatives to Temple’s dining services since beginning its 15-year contract this May. Aramark added its sustainability platform called Green Thread, which is a fourtier approach to sustainability. This guides Aramark’s efforts for becoming 100 percent sustainable by 2020 in some areas.

Green Thread focuses on responsible food sourcing, waste minimization, efficient operations and transportation management to lessen waste.

“That platform represents [Aramark’s] ongoing commitment to reduce our impact on the environment through practices that enrich and support the natural environment,” said Endri Baduni, Aramark’s resident district manager.

As part of this platform, Baduni said Aramark sources food within a 50-mile radius whenever possible. The waste minimization tier is largely focused on pre-consumer waste, like reducing water and fuel consumption while sourcing and transporting food,

which is why Aramark aims to source food locally.

Currently, 100 percent of fryer oil used in dining services is recycled. Aramark wants to serve 100 percent cage-free eggs by 2018 in an effort to support animal welfare. By 2020, Aramark also plans to serve 100 percent sustainable seafood, Banduni said.

At an operational level, Aramark monitors waste on a daily basis by weighing food waste at the end of the night, Banduni said.

Aramark also participates in composting programs in the Student Center, Johnson & Hardwick cafeteria and in Morgan Hall’s dining hall and food court.

Aramark’s sustainability efforts are a part of a university-wide trend, said Michael Scales, the associate vice president of business services.

“The majority of the companies that the university selects to do business with do have a sustainability focus or commitment,” he added.

Representatives from Aramark, Business Services and the Office of Sustainability meet monthly to discuss areas of sustainability in food services.

“Through conversation and awareness, we can come to a level of mutual agreement or at least standards that we both can live with,” Scales said.

Temple’s Climate Action Plan, which

outlines the university’s sustainability goals, will be revised by June 2018, and Aramark will play a part in it, Banduni said. Temple made a commitment to be a carbon-free university by 2050 last year.

“Our aim is to be as compliant as we possibly can be, recognizing that sometimes there may be challenges that could present some roadblocks,” Scales said. “If there is a one-off item, we’ll discuss that and come up with a mutual agreement.”

Aramark is working with Temple Student Government and its Director of Grounds and Sustainability Sarah Kuchan.

The first meeting of the student-led food service committee will be set up soon, Banduni said. This committee will provide a platform for student feedback and suggestions for Aramark’s services, including its sustainability initiatives.

Kuchan has not spoken with Aramark since she was appointed to her position earlier this month, but she will “hopefully” meet with them this week, she said.

Kathleen Grady, the director of the Office of Sustainability, declined to comment on the work between Temple and Aramark.

@sabrina.wallace@temple.edu Amanda Lien contributed reporting.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

ASSAULT morning and asking for any information about the offender.

Temple Police sent out the email notice about the sexual assault to students because TUPD has not yet been able to identify the suspect, officials told The Temple News.

It is not common practice for Temple Police to send out emails about sexual assaults.

“In other incidents this semester, police were able to identify the offender early on,” university spokesman Brandon Lausch wrote in an email. “In this instance, the message was sent because police are seeking any additional information to help identify the subject.”

The email described the offender as a Black male in his mid-20s between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall. He had a dark, full beard, short hair and wore a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans.

Temple’s Title IX Coordinator Andrea Seiss wrote in an email that she cannot discuss specific cases of sexual assault complaints, but her office supports survivors by offering Temple’s resources.

“We encourage survivors, friends and/or witnesses to report incidents of sexual misconduct in whatever way that they are most comfortable, including through the use of the new online anonymous reporting system,” Seiss wrote. “We ask the public’s assistance in sharing any information that could help in identifying the suspect in this incident.”

Anyone who has information is encouraged to call Temple Police at 215-204-1234 or Philadelphia Police at 215-686-8477. Individuals can also report information anonymously to Temple’s Title IX Coordinator Andrea Seiss through the Temple University Public Portal for Incident Reporting.

gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu @gill_mcgoldrick Julie Christie contributed reporting.

RACHEL SILVERMAN / THE TEMPLE NEWS The Valaida S. Walker Food Court in the Student Center is one of several locations on Main Campus where food is composted by Aramark.

News Desk 215.204.7419 news@temple-news.com

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

NEWS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 3

RESEARCH

Adolescent anxiety is increasing, clinic finds The Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic in Weiss Hall has treated thousands of young people with anxiety disorders.

BY JULIA BOYD For The Temple News When psychology professor Dr. Philip Kendall created the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic in the late 1980s, he said about 10 percent of the population had been diagnosed with anxiety disorders.

The percentage of children and adolescents has doubled since Kendall created the clinic, he said.

“The clinic began as a way to study anxiety in kids because they need to be treated, but it’s grown over time because anxiety has grown,” Kendall said.

The clinic in Weiss Hall has treated thousands of youths since its inception.

Treatment options are constrained by the number of people on staff, and though the number of patients they see annually has not risen, the numbers of those in need are continually rising, Kendall said.

The clinic focuses on techniques to help children with anxiety disorders cope with their fear. Anxiety at a young age tends to be a gateway for deeper problems later in life, and the clinic aims to prevent this with therapy and medication, Kendall said.

Children and adolescents ages 7 to 17 who have anxiety that interferes with their social or academic activities will get a full psychological assessment at the clinic, and then participate in projects that are evaluated for their treatment.

Most recently, the clinic has been working on ways to increase the ways parents can help their children and develop “emotional understanding,” which teaches children proper ways to express emotion, Kendall

added.

“Anxiety as a problem affects about 20 percent of children, but anxiety as an emotion affects everyone,” Kendall said. “Everyone has had a time in their life where they have felt extremely anxious for a good reason. These people who suffer with an anxiety disorder feel this way more often [without] a legitimate reason for it.”

The most effective treatment the clinic administers is the Coping Cat program, that combines medication with exercises to help the patient “grow from a scaredy-cat to a coping-cat” and to understand and live with anxiety, Kendall said. At least 60 percent of participants experienced positive changes with their anxiety.

The biggest triggers for anxiety in young people are social judgement by peers and performance-related anxiety, like when speaking to a group or presenting an assignment in class, Kendall added.

Sophomore social work major Mikayla Ferrell was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder when she sought counseling from Tuttleman Counseling Services her freshman year.

“For as long as I can remember, I grew up having anxiety,” Ferrell said. “But I didn’t know that it was a thing or what it was until I was a teenager. I thought it was normal to feel anxious all the time.”

Ferrell’s anxiety is often provoked by the feeling of “not doing enough,” simple tasks or people raising their voices at her, she said.

These things can also trigger panic attacks, which Ferrell said began as a teenager.

“Anxiety makes me feel like I need to be busy doing something at all times,” she added. “It basically affects every part of my life in some way or another.”

Ferrell said she thinks diagnosing children with anxiety disorders at an early age will decrease the number of people who go untreated for the “invisible” illness and hopes that treatment will lessen the negative

KAM GRAY / THE TEMPLE NEWS Jordan Davis (left) and Erika Crawford are graduate students who work at the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic in Weiss Hall. The clinic treats children with different anxiety disorders using cognitive-behavioral practices.

impact mental illnesses can have on children as they grow.

Junior media studies and production major Katherine Gardner suffers from five different eye diseases that impact her ability to walk around campus because she is visually impaired.

Her anxiety stems from the fear of walking into unobservant students who are on their phones or wearing headphones. Students tend to trip her or break her cane because they are not paying attention, she said.

“I had anxiety issues as a kid because of mental abuse and physical neglect from my mother,” Gardner said. “Those issues led me to be fearful of others.”

Gardner added that she was never treat-

ed for anxiety as a child but thinks it would have helped.

Kendall said he hopes the clinic will help to diagnose the disorder early in a child’s development.

“It’s an early-identifiable problem that leads to deeper problems down the road, so it’s important that we catch it early before it gets worse,” Kendall said. “It’s been very motivating to work with kids who are tightly wound, because when you loosen them up it’s very rewarding.”

julia.boyd@temple.edu @JuliaKBoyd

RESEARCH

Public health dean part of $150 million NIH study Laura Siminoff and her team studied the ethics of tissue donation in a $150 million international study.

BY AMANDA TREIBLE For The Temple News For the past three years, Dean of the College of Public Health Laura Siminoff has been a part of a global network of researchers collecting tissue samples.

The Genotype-Tissue Expres-

sion Project, or GTEx, began in 2010 and was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The seven-year study cost $150 million.

Siminoff studied the ethics of families consenting to tissue donation for their deceased family member.

The network included researchers from different institutions around the world, like Harvard University and the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and organizations, like the National Disease Research Interchange and the

Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Every cell carries genes, which are made up of DNA and proteins.

There are between 20,000 and 25,000 genes in the human body.

Certain genes can be linked to diseases like breast and ovarian cancer, Siminoff said. But not every person who has these genes will develop these diseases.

The study gathered tissue samples from nearly 1,000 donors to create a database of tissue samples for future research. It was completed this summer.

COURTESY / HENRY RANDOLPH For the past three years, Dean of the College of Public Health Laura Siminoff was a part of a global network of researchers collecting tissue samples for a database.

Researchers asked families to donate their deceased relatives’ tissue samples shortly after the person had died.

Siminoff contacted the families after they consented to donating and asked questions about their experience and understanding of consenting. She used their responses to determine the ethics of asking families after a relative’s death to donate their tissues.

“People are being asked to donate at a very difficult time,” Siminoff said. “Somebody has died, a loved one, usually it is a reasonably unexpected death, and then they were asked to donate tissues or organs for transplantation and then right on top of that they are asked to donate to this genetic, genomic project.”

Siminoff’s portion of the trial ended last year and was funded by the National Disease Research Interchange in Philadelphia.

Typically when a person dies, a local Organ Procurement Organization representative travels to the hospital, and if the person is not registered as an organ donor, they will go to the next of kin to get consent for donation.

The representative typically spends a lot of time with the family, building a relationship in person and in the hospital, Siminoff said.

Siminoff added asking for tissue donation is “a more difficult conversation” than asking for organ donations because it’s not discussed publicly as often.

Siminoff and her team also researched what caused families to agree to donate their loved one’s tissue for the study.

She found that people who did not donate a family member’s tissue were concerned with their identity remaining confidential.

“It’s complicated information,” she said. “And it’s information that is unfamiliar to most people and it’s being done in a setting of emotional distress.”

Many times a person’s memory is “fogged” after a tragic event, Siminoff said, and families often don’t remember much about consenting. Her team found that families remembered more information about the trial when given a pamphlet about the study.

Jeffrey Thomas, the Life Sciences program director for LifeNet Health, conducted molecular analysis of the tissue. LifeNet Health is a tissue bank, which is a facility where tissue is kept for future implantation, that provides surgeons with the tissues they need to serve their patients.

He worked with the National Disease Research Interchange in Philadelphia, which was given approximately $3.5 million to conduct its part in the study.

“Dr. Siminoff led a very important study to better understand how we as scientists can interact with families to appropriately inform and educate them,” Thomas said.

“Researchers from all over the world can apply to use the data,” Thomas added. “The data and everything else will probably continue on for our lifetimes. It’s really creating a tool that’s going to be used forever.”

amanda.treible@temple.edu

News Desk 215.204.7419 news@temple-news.com

OPINION TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 4

A watchdog for the Temple University community since 1921.

Michaela Winberg Editor-in-Chief Grace Shallow Managing Editor Jenny Roberts Supervising Editor Julie Christie Enterprise Editor Gillian McGoldrick News Editor Jayna Schaffer Opinion Editor Emily Scott Features Editor Evan Easterling Sports Editor Kelly Brennan Asst. News Editor Tom Ignudo Asst. Sports Editor Ian Walker Asst. Features Editor Amanda Lien Copy Editor Patrick Bilow Copy Editor Ian Schobel Co-Multimedia Editor Abbie Lee Co-Multimedia Editor Sydney Schaefer Photography Editor Jamie Cottrell Asst. Photography Editor Sasha Lasakow Design Editor Courtney Redmon Designer Greta Anderson Designer Mira Wise Advertising Manager Finnian Saylor Business & Marketing Manager Valentina Wrisley Asst. Bus.& Mktg Manager

The Temple News is an editorially independent weekly publication serving the Temple University community.

Adjacent commentary is reflective of their authors, not The Temple News.

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

Improving green efforts Aramark, Temple’s food service provider, will help the university meet its sustainability goals.

continue considering Aramark’s role in campus-wide sustainability efforts, Endri Baduni, Aramark’s resident district manager, told The Temple News. When the university revises its Climate Action Plan in June, which guides Temple’s steps to becoming a more sustainable campus, Aramark will be involved, he added.

Aramark is also partnering with Temple Student Government so students can provide feedback about the food service provider, including its sustainability initiative.

It’s a positive thing the food service provider is making itself available to the people it serves, since it will be present on campus for years to come.

We admire the university’s commitment to making Temple more sustainable, and we hope Aramark’s efforts help it make its goals a reality.

Developers: serve public The Goldenberg Group should engage the community while building a new student apartment complex.

This semester, construction began on a $199 million student housing complex on 12th Street near Montgomery Avenue. The new apartment building, named the View II, will be built adjacent to the View at Montgomery.

The Goldenberg Group, the owner and developer of the building, promised the new building will have a dedicated community space for North Philadelphia residents, specifically for children or the elderly.

The Temple News is optimistic about the inclusion of a community space in a student housing complex. After all, generations of North Philadelphia residents grew up and lived here long before most current Temple students. Now that we live and learn in their community, we must remember to give back.

But some community groups aren’t so certain about the Goldenberg Group’s promises. Over the summer, the Yorktown Community Organization requested a permanent office space in the View II. Cur-

rently, the organization doesn’t have a regular meeting space.

But in August, the Goldenberg Group denied the request.

“They’re not giving us what we’re asking for,” said Robert McMichael, the president of the Yorktown Community Organization. “You can be in contact, but if you’re not really serving the community, it’s an ego thing.”

It’s a shame that the Goldenberg Group has already rejected a proposal for community space in the View II, especially since it would directly respond to some of the community’s needs.

At this point, it is unclear exactly how the Goldenberg Group plans to give back to the North Philadelphia community. But if the Goldenberg Group is promising a dedicated community space, it should also engage with North Philadelphia residents to ensure the space is meeting their needs.

Otherwise, the promise of a community space is lackluster at best.

CORRECTIONS The photo spread “Convention explores basic needs insecurities” that ran Oct. 24 on Page 6 misstated Rasir Baxter’s name and age. He is 9 years old.

In a brief that ran on Page 12 on Oct. 24 titled “’Rocky Horror Picture Show’ screens at The Reel,” the date tickets went on sale and the co-sponsor were misstated. Tickets went on sale Oct. 18. and the co-sponsor was Student Center Operations.

Accuracy is our business, so when a mistake is made, we’ll correct it as soon as possible. Anyone with inquiries about content in this newspaper can contact Editor-in-Chief Michaela Winberg at editor@temple-news.com or 215-204-6737. letters@temple-news.com

A student describes her love of Halloween and explains why the holiday is so important to her.

Unsigned editorial content represents the opinion of The Temple News.

EDITORIALS

Aramark, Temple’s food service provider, is committed to being 100 percent sustainable by 2020.

Since signing a 15-year contract with the university in May, it’s brought several sustainability initiatives to campus, like Green Thread — a multi-faceted approach developed by the company that focuses on local food sourcing, minimizing waste, efficient operations and transportation management.

The Temple News commends the food service provider for its sustainability efforts.

We also recognize the university for its involvement in improving sustainability.

Temple pledged to be a carbon-free university by 2050 last year, and university and Aramark officials meet monthly to discuss sustainability in food services.

The university plans to

Halloween: a family treat

BY JAYNA SCHAFFER

W

hen I tell people I love Halloween, I’m not sure they understand how much I mean it.

I find paradise in places adorned with pumpkins and fake spider webs, and I feel most serene with Timberland boots on my feet and a hot pumpkin coffee in my hand. Spooky things and colored leaves simply captivate me.

When I moved into my apartment near Main Campus this past August, I made sure to decorate my bedroom with a few little Halloween trinkets. I’ll admit I was early for the season, but I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Growing up, I remember planning my costumes months in advance and wishing I had been born in the fall so I could have a costume party for my birthday — even though my annual July pool parties were a total hit.

John Carpenter’s “Halloween” from 1978 has been my favorite movie ever since I first watched it with my mom in elementary school. And I’ve been lucky enough to see screenings of it at Ritz at the Bourse on Ranstead near 4th Street the past few Octobers with my boyfriend. There’s something about the building, suspenseful of the music when you know Michael Myers is about to do something horrible that never gets old.

And for as long as I can remember, my family has treated Halloween like the most exciting day of the year, too.

Each year on the holiday, I find myself at my grandparents’ house eating dinner and sweets with my loved ones. Some years, we turn the backyard into a haunted house where my family members are the actors — complete with zombie makeup, torn clothing, trembling screams and a bloody backdrop.

One time, a child was so terrified of my Aunt Kelly that he bit her hand.

The only exception to our traditional Halloween celebration was three years ago when my aunt and uncle got married. The wedding was our family’s opportunity to throw the ultimate Halloween celebration — we spent months preparing horror movie-themed centerpieces and decorating skulls and pumpkins.

Guests were encouraged to wear masquerade masks, and the wedding party stayed overnight at the eerie Centre Bridge Inn in New Hope, Pennsylvania, one of the most haunted towns in the country.

My suite was complete with retro champagne-col-

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ored, patterned wall- paper and a bunch of oldfashioned lamps. I felt like I was living in an oldtime horror movie for the night.

Because I’m so used to my family sharing my excitement about Halloween, I was horrified last year when I woke up to find my peers on campus treating that Monday morning with no more enthusiasm than usual.

I couldn’t wait to take the train home to my family after class.

We share a common fascination with Halloween. It’s something we obsess over together and talk about for months.

So after my classes this year, I’ll be going home on Halloween to celebrate with my family during this magical time. I’ll sit on my stoop with my granny in her witch hat, and I’ll help hand out candy to the cheerful children in costumes.

Many of them will grow out of the excitement of Halloween with each passing year. It will fade more and more with each annual sugar high.

But it’s been the opposite for me. With each Halloween, I collect new memorieås with my loved ones — like pieces of candy in an old pillowcase.

And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

jayna.alexandra.schaffer@temple.edu @jaynaalexandra_

LETTER TO THE EDITOR On Oct. 25, the State House of Representatives approved Senate Bill 328, appropriating more than $150 million for the students of Temple University. In a vote of 180-6, legislators once again overwhelmingly reaffirmed their support for public higher education in Pennsylvania. Similar votes came for the other state-related universities: the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University and Lincoln University.

That vote was the latest in a 50-year partnership between Temple and the people of Penn-

sylvania. We are so grateful to Gov. Tom Wolf, who signed the legislation on Friday, and the members of the state General Assembly, both the Senate and the House, for their continued support of Temple. They know this is a partnership that works for Pennsylvania students.

I also want to thank the students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni of Temple who emailed, called and met with their legislators. Thousands of you came together to advocate for students from Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania. Your efforts are in-

spiring.

Temple has this tremendous support because of our mission: We are committed to an education that is accessible, high quality, engaged with the community, affordable and diverse. At Temple, we know who we are, we know what we value, and we will work tirelessly on behalf of our students. We are proud to be Philadelphia’s public university.

Richard M. Englert is the president of Temple. He can be reached at president@temple.edu.

FROM THE ARCHIVES October 26, 1993: Five Pi Lambda Phi fraternity pledges were arrested for stealing $500 worth of pumpkins after being told to do so by brothers of the fraternity. They were supposed to bring the pumpkins to a fraternity party scheduled for two days later. The men were released on $3,000 bail, and they had to return the pumpkins to the two stores from which they stole them.

This week, Opinion Editor Jayna Schaffer wrote an essay about how much she cherishes spending Halloween with her family.

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

OPINION TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 5

ECONOMY

Amazon would help Philly prosper Amazon HQ2 would bring jobs and economic growth to Philadelphia.

A

mazon has received 238 proposals since announcing its plan to builds its second headquarters in North America. And Philadelphia has hopped on the bandwagon, anticipating potential job growth and economic stimulation in the city if it is chosen to host Amazon’s second headquarters.

Philadelphia fits the few qualifications Amazon wants to see in the city it chooses: a population of more than 1 million people, public transportation and close proximity to an airport.

With a population of 1.6 million people, Philadelphia has a huge potential for business expansion, making it the ideal city for Amazon to plant its new headquarters. And with the promise to creLAUREN PIONTKO LEAD COLUMNIST ate more than 50,000 new jobs, an Amazon headquarters in the city could completely change Philadelphia’s economy for the better by reducing the city’s unemployment rate, which is 6.4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More employment means more money for people to spend. And if 50,000 people are spending more, our economy will be boosted tremendously.

“There are gonna be more restaurants, bars, retailers. It would increase spending in and around the economy of Philadelphia,” said Benjamin Salzer, a junior economics major and president of the Temple Economics Society. “It would just be really good for so many different sectors of the economy.”

Philadelphia is the sixth most populous city in the country, and housing Amazon’s second post would grant it even greater national status.

“Living in Philadelphia, I think it would be great,” said Moritz Ritter, an economics professor. “Not that Philadelphia needs to be put on the map, but maybe other companies will look more favorably on Philadelphia when they choose their location.”

Philadelphia ranks among the top three cities for information technology companies — which Amazon is developing into, since it accounts for 43 percent of America’s online retail sales, according to Business Insider.

This could be extremely helpful

for students looking for technologybased jobs after graduation.

Salzer said he thinks Amazon HQ2 could also increase Temple enrollment, as well as other Philadelphia colleges like Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, because prospective students may see Amazon as a potential employer. Students looking to find tech jobs after they graduate will be more inclined to attend college in Philadelphia, attracting more qualified job candidates.

“They’re going to say, ‘Hey, if I go to one of these schools and I study engineering, Amazon’s going to have a good look at me, and I can just go work for them after I graduate,’” Salzer said. “What I think would impact [the economy] is not just the employment going toward Amazon, but overall employment into tech jobs.”

The emergence of a second headquarters might attract other businesses to the city, too, which could lead to even more job openings for Philadelphia residents.

“To estimate, for any one Amazon job, five to six other local jobs will be created, so then you’re going from 50,000 jobs to something like 250,000 jobs,” Ritter said. “I mean that obviously will be a tremendous difference to Philadelphia.”

A corporate expansion that brings that many jobs to our city is clearly beneficial.

According to the Inquirer, in the hopes of winning Amazon over, the state of Pennsylvania offered a $1 billion tax break to Amazon.

“I do think Philadelphia should be a top candidate, based on the cheapness of the city, the amount of prospects for employment and the rising tech employment,” Salzer said.

I think we have a strong chance of being chosen as the birthplace for Amazon’s HQ2, and rightfully so. Compared to the top few candidates, Philadelphia is one of the cheapest areas for Amazon to buy land.

According to the Center City District, rents for office space are $29 per square foot compared to $82 per square foot for midtown Manhattan, $56 per square foot for Boston and $52 per square foot for DC. It is clear that Amazon and Philadelphia would benefit if Amazon were to open its new headquarters here.

Philadelphia could help Amazon settle for a decent price, while Amazon would bring job opportunity to a city that needs it.

lauren.piontko@temple.edu

ECONOMY

SASHA LASAKOW / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Amazon HQ2 would compromise inclusivity Amazon’s second headquarters would negatively impact Philly’s long-time residents.

S

hopping is now easier than ever.

With the click of a button, you can have toiletries, groceries, clothes and almost any item at your door in two days. Amazon has become one of the most popular ways to do that.

Amazon, the multi-billion dollar company that has helped make online shopping popular, has grown so much in the last two decades that it is looking to build a second headquarters.

More than 200 cities and regions have submitted proposals for Amazon to build headquarters in their cities, MONICA MELLON and Philadelphia is one LEAD COLUMNIST of them.

Citizens of Seattle, the home of Amazon’s first headquarters, have been warning other cities to petition for Amazon with caution, due to the negative impacts it’s had on their city, like sky-high real estate prices, a housing shortage and a less diverse community. We should heed their concerns.

“Before Amazon disrupted books, music, television, furniture — everything — it disrupted Seattle,” Timothy Egan, a Seattle resident and an op-ed contributing writer, wrote for The New York Times.

Amazon has 40,000 employees in Seattle, and has indirectly caused 50,000 jobs to open at other companies, Egan wrote.

But these jobs were disproportionately given to middle-class, white men. Amazon’s workforce is currently 61 percent male and 48 percent white. This likely hurt Seattle’s diversity and heightened the wage gap between men and women, as a lack of female employees doesn’t allow the same opportunity for increased wages.

“The changes that have happened have created Seattle a less livable place for categories of people,” said Robby Stern, the president of Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action in Seattle.

Philadelphia is known for being an inclusive, progressive city. Putting our wellrespected reputation at risk by hosting Amazon’s HQ2 is reason enough to urge against the construction.

Additionally, any growing business inevitably brings new consumers, some of whom are looking for permanent residency. According to Politico, the growth and success of the Amazon-induced technology industry has increased housing costs by 69 percent since 2012 in Seattle.

“There will be more demand, more housing and as a result, more is being built to accommodate it,” said economics professor Simon Hakim.

But an increased interest in living in Philadelphia poses the risk of a higher rate of gentrification, as the expansion of homes will intrude on the neighborhoods of long-time residents.

At first, Amazon received criticism from Seattle residents for being disengaged with the city. Critics claimed Amazon was solely interested in corporate matters.

It wasn’t until after Amazon was criticized that it started engaging with the community, like supporting some Seattle nonprofits.

“If Amazon wants to be a good corporate citizen and a good neighbor, yes, they’re going to support the community in which they’re doing business,” said public relations professor Gregg Feistman.

It’s not unreasonable to expect a major corporation like Amazon to want to better its community. Philadelphia residents should not have to wait and ask for Amazon to be a good neighbor, but the company’s lack of immediate involvement in Seattle makes me think we might have to.

A requirement of HQ2’s future host city is at least 8 million square feet available to be used for expansion. Hakim said we have this space, but it is taken up by older buildings that contribute to Philadelphia’s historic culture.

The risk of losing any cultural or historic sites in the city make the idea of hosting Amazon’s HQ2 unreasonable.

Hakim said bringing Amazon to Philadelphia will lead to more success for the city, suggesting Amazon will make a name for Philadelphia and help us grow.

But Philadelphia is already considered a major city for opportunity and experience. It attracts millions of visitors each year. Without Amazon’s help, we’ve already created a name of our own.

Philadelphia is a historic city with hundreds of local restaurants, museums and plenty of events that may see more success after Amazon attracts new tourists and employees to the area. However, it may inhibit local residents from enjoying the entertainment they’ve always had.

“We’ll have more people with higher income, we’ll have more restaurants and more demand for [entertainment],” Hakim said.

According to Politico, the economic benefits Seattle has seen from the growth and expansion of Amazon are not a guarantee for the next host of the company, as it’s arbitrary to expect an exact repeat of events.

The threats that Amazon HQ2 poses to our city’s identity greatly outweigh the economic benefits that may occur from another corporate expansion. It’s time to reconsider hosting HQ2.

monica.mellon@temple.edu @Monica_Mellon

ONLINE Watch these two columnists debate Amazon’s second headquarters coming to Philadelphia at temple-news.com/multimedia.

LILLIAN DURAN / THE TEMPLE NEWS

letters@temple-news.com

NEWS PAGE 6

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

NEWS BRIEFS UNIVERSITY NEWS

Gov. Wolf signs bill releasing funds to Temple Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf signed the state Senate’s bill that approved $600 million of total funding for Temple and the other state-related universities last week, after the Senate approved it earlier that week.

Due to the state’s $2.2 billion deficit, Temple’s $150 million state appropriation was at risk if the state budget was not balanced and passed.

If the university did not receive its $150 million allocation, in-state students would have paid an extra $12,000 a year, President Richard Englert wrote in a Letter to the Editor sent to The Temple News.

-Kelly Brennan

CITY NEWS

Report: SRC may dissolve itself in November The School Reform Commission is expected to vote to dissolve itself at its next meeting on Nov. 16, the Notebook reported.

The Notebook obtained a copy of an email from Jeff Hornstein, the chair of the Philadelphia Crosstown Coalition, which is a nonprofit that advocates for education and land use. The email included a plan to dissolve the SRC before the 2018-19 school year and establish a locally controlled, nine-person Board of Education.

Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration is also requesting suggestions for potential members of a Board of Education nominating committee, the Notebook reported.

The SRC must vote to dissolve itself, and Pa. Secretary of Education Pedro Rivera would have to approve the dissolution by the end of this year for a board to be established before the next gubernatorial election.

-Alyssa Biederman

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS A man works on the construction site of the View II housing complex on 12th Street between Montgomery and Cecil B. Moore avenues on Monday.

Construction broke ground on the site earlier this month.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

VIEW II The organization wanted a small, permanent office space in the building because it does not have a permanent space, but was not told why the request was denied, McMichael said.

Yorktown Community Organization serves residents in the area bounded by Girard and Cecil B. Moore avenues and Broad and 11th streets.

Trapper told The Temple News that the community space could offer programming for children or elderly residents in the community.

Ellen Rosenberg, the vice president of development and civic engagement for the Goldenberg Group, has been in contact with McMichael and the Yorktown Community Organization, McMichael said.

A Goldenberg Group spokesperson could not confirm if the request for office was denied and added that the use of the community space has

not been finalized.

“As we approach the development of the second phase of our student housing project, we are committed to continuing to build those relationships and to creating a project that serves the community as a whole,” a statement from the Goldenberg Group read.

“They’re not giving us what we’re asking for,” he said. “You can be in contact, but if you’re not really serving the community, it’s an ego thing.”

The Goldenberg Group partners with Paul Dunbar Elementary as a part of the developer’s “Adopt-A-School” program. The development group has repaired parts of the building on Cecil B. Moore Avenue near the construction of the View II. “They want to do these things, but not really put out where it costs them money,” McMichael said. “They like to do service stuff, but that’s not the answer to our problem.”

McMichael added that the organization is concerned with trash and parking issues when the building

opens and that they want to be “reimbursed” for these problems.

The housing complex will have 984 beds and 94 parking spots for residents to use at a fee.

McMichael expects that students will prefer to park in Yorktown for free which leaves little space for permanent residents to park, he said.

“It’s easier to park in Yorktown and leave the cars sitting for sometimes weeks at a time,” he added.

The organization is still open to negotiating with the Goldenberg Group about how the building can serve the community, but McMichael said members will demonstrate and protest as a “last resort” if their requests are denied.

“Being nice, talking to the community, that’s fine,” McMichael said.

“But it’s not really solving the problem. So, they’re really not solving our problem.”

kelly.brennan@temple.edu @_kellybrennan

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FEATURES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 7

ON CAMPUS

50 YEARS OF PRESERVING THE CITY’S HISTORY The Urban Archives was founded in 1967 in response to the academic trend of “social history.”

BY EMILY SCOTT & IAN WALKER For The Temple News ack in 1980, Ken Finkel ran into former Inquirer photographer Chuck Isaacs in Center City.

Isaacs told Finkel the Inquirer and the Daily News were getting rid of their “photograph morgue,” which was the newspapers’ collection of thousands of old photos from past print issues.

Finkel was working for the Library Company of Philadelphia at the time and convinced his boss to acquire the photos.

Eventually, they made their way to the Urban Archives, a part of Temple University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.

“It’s like pulling something back from the age of oblivion,” said Finkel, a history professor. “I was always proud to be part of that because otherwise they would’ve been gone forever.”

Established by the history department in 1967 and incorporated into Temple University Libraries five years later, the Urban Archives celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

The Urban Archives also houses 7 million news clippings from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a newspaper active from 1884 to 1978, and local TV newsreel footage from KYW and WPVI. In addition, it contains records from many Philadelphia-based organizations documenting the city’s political, economic, social and physical development during the last three centuries.

On Oct. 20, Temple University Libraries hosted a symposium at the Temple Performing Arts Center to recognize the achieve-

B

JOCELYN BURNS / THE TEMPLE NEWS The Urban Archives at the Paley Library houses 7 million news clippings from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, a newspaper active from 1884 to 1978, and local TV newsreel footage from KYW and WPVI.

ments of the Urban Archives. In conjunction with the event, display cases placed on the lower level, first floor and mezzanine level of Paley Library will highlight documents from the collection through late January.

Each display focuses on a particular theme, like education and activism.

Prior to the 1960s, Margery Sly, the director of the Special Collections, said historians examined a lot of “great white men,” like American presidents and governors, but often disregarded the stories of ordinary people, especially people of color.

“In the ’60s, there was a rise in interest to look at just the average people, immigrants and underserved populations,” Sly said.

This academic trend is known as “social history” and, coupled with rising civil unrest in cities, it compelled the history department to found the Urban Archives, according to a 1975 statement by then-Director Fredric Miller. The collection began to catalog records from organizations like the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based civic reform group founded in 1904, and the Urban League of Philadelphia, a branch of a national advocacy group for African-Americans, which was founded in 1917.

Finkel said for many years, scholars paid less attention to the city’s 19th and 20th century history.

“Everybody, as you can imagine, in Philadelphia has a real problem shaking 1776,” Finkel said. “It’s the default setting we’ve had.”

One of the Urban Archives’ most prominent 20th century documents is its collection of Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission records, which includes information on the MOVE bombing.

MOVE, a Philadelphia Black liberation group, had multiple conflicts with the Philadelphia Police Department in the 1970s and ’80s. In 1985, police dropped a bomb

C OL L ECT I ON S PAG E 1 1

COMMUNITY

Students respond to devastation from hurricanes Several students are using websites like GoFundMe to raise money for their families in Puerto Rico.

BY NATASHA CLAUDIO For The Temple News

About two months ago, palm trees used to line the driveway of Amanda Figueroa-Diaz’s family’s home in Lares, Puerto Rico.

Today, they no longer stand.

“Everyone says the same thing, ‘You can’t recognize Puerto Rico,’” said Figueroa-Diaz, a senior political science major and president of TU Experience Puerto Rico.

TU Experience Puerto Rico is one of several campus organizations and students raising money to support rebuilding efforts in Puerto Rico following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in September. More than 80 percent of residents remain without power, and many face food and water shortages.

Two other student organizations — Strong Men Overcoming Obstacles Through Hard Work and Temple’s chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals For America — organized drives to collect nonperishable food items, clothing and toiletries, said Chris Carey, the senior director of student services.

For some students, the hurricanes directly affected their homes and families on the island.

PUERTO R I CO PAG E 1 2

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Ryan Eckes, a poet and adjunct English instructor at Temple, sits among his book collection in his third-floor apartment in South Philadelphia on Saturday.

PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW

Alumnus finds ‘truth’ in poetry A 2007 master’s of poetry alumnus recently finished the manuscript for his book, “General Motors.”

BY MARY RAGLAND For The Temple News

Ryan Eckes documents his life through poetry.

In one, he recalls the sound of his

neighbor, Frank, calling to his dog Ginger as they walk down the street.

In another poem, Ekes captures the experience of waiting at a bus stop near his house with a man who resembles Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian writer.

“I’m interested in poetry that’s documentary-like, so I’ve always kind of had a journalistic thread in my poetry,” said Eckes, a 2007 master’s of poetry alumnus. “I like reportage. I’m interested in making

meaning, making new meaning. I’m interested in truth, and the truth is an ever-evolving thing.”

Eckes, a poet and adjunct English instructor, recently finished the manuscript for his fourth poetry book, “General Motors,” which focuses on transportation’s impact on city life. He read from the manuscript earlier this month during Paley’s second annual Midday Arts Series,

POE T RY PAG E 9

FILM | PAGE 8

LIVE IN PHILLY | PAGE 10

FOOD | PAGE 11

Eight documentaries made by students will be shown at the Temple Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

The South Street Headhouse District hosted a pumpkin festival on Saturday at the Headhouse Shambles.

An alumnus co-founded WeGardn, which delivers fresh, local food to people in Philadelphia.

F E AT U R E S PAGE 8

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

FILM

Students present documentaries at film series event Eight students and alumni will show short documentaries focused on identity, art and race.

BY CACIE ROSARIO For The Temple News As third-year film and media arts graduate student Chike Nwabukwu began preparing for his next documentary, he immediately thought of 60-year-old dancer and vegan soul food restaurant owner Mama Sam’her.

The two met while teaching at the Khepera Charter School, a K-8 school with an African-centric curriculum near the Health Sciences Campus. Nwabukwu was a full-time social studies teacher and Sam’her was a long-term substitute teacher. What began as simple greetings in passing between colleagues, Nwabukwu said, turned into a compelling health and wellness documentary.

Nwabukwu’s film “Ageless Rhythm” is one of eight documentaries selected to be shown at the Film and Media Arts Department’s first Diamond Screen Film Series: Diamond Docs on Wednesday. The films will be screened at the Temple Performing Arts Center at 5 p.m.

The film series was put together by film and media arts professors Chris Cagle and Rea Tajiri, as well as second-year film and media arts graduate student Qiyue Sun. Cagle said pieces were chosen based on their quality, pacing and visuals.

The group accepted submissions by graduate and undergraduate students, as well as alumni who graduated within the past two years. The films were either produced as in-class projects or independent pieces. The films had to have been made while their creators were enrolled as students.

After the eight pieces were chosen, Cagle, Tajiri and Sun looked for their similarities to determine a theme.

“The main focuses we saw were in identity, art and race,” Sun said.

Sun added that they chose pieces offering a new perspective on these broad topics.

“Ageless Rhythm” was one of these films. It tells the story of Mama Sam’her, also known as Theresa Corinaldi, and how she dances with her group Afro-Qi to stay youthful.

Nwabukwu said Sam’her believes dance

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

SPIRITS work. She highlighted spirit photography, the practice in which a photographer attempts to capture ghosts or other spiritual entities on camera. Iepson’s interest in spirit photography developed after seeing Andrews’ painting.

In her talk, Iepson said death was a common topic in the 19th century because of short life expectancies. Death was handled differently than it is today, with the deceased person displayed in the home so others could pay their respects before the family buried the body. Similarly, Iepson said mourning and grief were communicated differently than they are today.

In the 1800s, specific clothing was worn by mourners every day to indicate where they were in their grieving process. Black clothing indicated being in the early stages of grief, and a lighter shade of black or gray would be worn further into mourning.

These clothes helped others understand how to interact with those in mourning, a technique Iepson said she finds helpful.

“I often think that we don’t know what to do anymore with grief and with death and dying,” Iepson said during her presentation. “People don’t know what to say to other people.”

She also discussed the rise in popularity of spiritualism.

Iepson said spiritualists believe spirits want to communicate with people on Earth because they have

features@temple-news.com

helps her “age gracefully” and stay active while connecting to her culture. She is the co-owner of The Nile Cafe, a vegan soul food restaurant in Germantown.

“I was inspired by her example,” Nwabukwu said. “[The documentary] is not a stagnant, boring example of exercise and health.”

Sophomore film and media arts major Sophia You also delved into the life of one of her inspirations. Her piece, “The Artist,” documents junior printmaking major Pablo Alarcon Jr. Alarcon began creating work at age 4 and was inspired by his grandmother, who taught him to draw figures. As a bisexual Latino man and artist, he said he uses his work as a platform to communicate his ideas about his own experiences in a relatable way.

You initially saw Alarcon’s work on Instagram and contacted him to learn more.

She said she is interested in making documentaries not because she wants to address political issues, but rather to share the stories of others.

“There are a lot of people that can relate to his story,” You said. “They can kind of incorporate themselves into his story and his artwork, and I was really drawn to that idea.”

This relatability is something Hansen Bursic, a sophomore film and media arts major, wanted to explore in his film, “The Toothmans.” The documentary examines the experience of a transgender woman named Cooper growing up in rural Pennsylvania, as well as her family’s experiences and opinions. It was funded by the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, a statewide LGTBQ youth advocacy organization.

“This documentary was more special than anything that I’ve ever created because it’s so relatable,” Bursic said. “It’s really about family, and the power of family.”

“Through this piece, I tried to demystify rural areas because it breaks the idea that LGBT people can only live in cities,” Bursic added.

All three artists said storytelling is their main motivation for creating documentaries, and they hope the stories they tell make a difference in the lives of both their subjects and their audience.

Cagle said documentaries are often underrepresented in the film industry. According to a study conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, documentaries comprised about 23 percent of feature films pro-

messages from God. The concept of spiritualism developed after the Civil War because of the number of people who lost their loved ones in battle without a chance to say goodbye. More than 600,000 people died in the Civil War, according to the BBC. At this time, William H. Mumler, a spirit photographer, began offering his services at the expensive price of $10 for 12 pictures.

He said the photos he took captured the spirits of his customers’ deceased loved ones. Mumler took photos of his clients and made it look like their loved one was in the background as a translucent spirit.

Today, it is thought that Mumler’s work is simply the result of long exposure photography techniques, Iepson said. He destroyed all his film negatives before his death, so no one could further investigate his work.

Adjunct art history instructor Ariel Pearce said she has mixed feelings about Mumler’s work.

“People like Mumler saw this need for these desperate people who just wanted to connect somehow with the deceased,” Pearce said. “They were willing to pretty much believe anything. So I look at it like he’s fulfilling a need, but if you look at it on the other hand, he’s really quite a horrible person.”

Pearce added that she liked how Iepson’s talk highlighted the differences between mourning in the 19th century and today. She said although mourning is practiced differently in different cultures, there’s a common thread of wanting to believe in the afterlife.

“It’s so hard for people to deal

KAM GRAY / THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophia You, a sophomore film and media arts major, created the documentary “The Artist,” which will be presented during this year’s Diamond Screen Film Series: Diamond Docs.

duced globally in 2013.

“Documentary is often overshadowed by fiction films,” Cagle said. “The event will show diversity in documentary through both experimental and traditional pieces.”

Sun hopes the audience will feel inspired after leaving the screening.

“I hope it will be an eye-opening expe-

rience for viewers,” Sun said. “These topics are important and not often discussed. This is the time people need to discuss them in America.”

cacie.rosario@temple.edu

LAURA SMYTHE / THE TEMPLE NEWS Sarah Iepson, a 2013 art history Ph.D. alumna and head of the Community College of Philadelphia’s art department, spoke about spirit photography and spiritualism in art on Friday at the Tyler School of Art.

with death in their lives,” Pearce said. “There’s a hope of something better for other people and for ourselves. I think that all those funerary practices and mourning rituals, they’re for the living. They’re not really for the deceased.”

Sidney Moore, a senior illustration major at Moore College of Art & Design, said she went to the event because she’s interested in

how death is handled by society.

She added that she thinks spirit photography is interesting.

“It combines a lot of my interests like art, death and spiritualism,” Moore said. “Death is the ultimate equalizer.”

Iepson said while she doesn’t know anybody who does spirit photography professionally, people dedicated to the craft are still

out there.

“There are ghost hunters, so I always think that’s interesting,” Iepson said. “People are still doing it. People are still trying to capture something, energy or entities or spirits.”

laura.smythe@temple.edu @lcs_smythe

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

F E AT U R E S TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 9

VOICES “What are your plans for celebrating Halloween?”

OLIVIA STALLINGS Sophomore Undeclared in CLA

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Ryan Eckes, a 2007 master’s of poetry alumnus and English adjunct instructor, flips through one of his poetry brainstorming books in his South Philadelphia apartment on Saturday.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

POETRY which features literary readings and arts events. He’s written three other books prior to this one.

This manuscript is a product of a year’s worth of writing. Eckes was able to take a break from teaching to focus on writing after he was awarded a fellowship last year from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, a Philadelphia arts and culture nonprofit.

“We look for artists with a distinctive voice, whose work is marked by excellence, imagination and courage, and Ryan had that,” said Melissa Franklin, the director of Pew fellowships.

Eckes discovered his love for poetry in his last year as an undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University in 1999. He took a class with poet and essayist C.S. Giscombe, who introduced him to poems he had never read before.

Reading mid-20th century poetry, like that of the New York School — an informal group of poets, painters and other artists in the ’50s and ’60s — molded his poetic influences.

He’s also inspired by poets like Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka and Frank O’Hara.

“They did things with language that I didn’t know was possible,” Eckes said. “They blew open my world.”

“I started writing poems because I was filled with this sense of possibility in language,” he added.

After graduating from Penn State with a degree in English, Eckes worked various jobs from proofreading to teaching to working in retail.

“All the jobs I had were really just to support myself so I could do what I wanted,” Eckes said.

In 2005, Eckes’ increasing desire to immerse himself in poetry and take a break from his job teaching English as a second language led him to apply to Temple’s MFA creative writing program.

While at Temple, he was offered a teaching assistant position to pay for his education. He eventually became an adjunct instructor at Temple and several other schools, like the University of the Arts, the

Community College of Philadelphia and Rowan University.

As an observation-based writer, Eckes combines overheard conversation, personal dialogue and slang with surreal and often dreamlike images of Philadelphia, where he grew up.

“He turns these everyday moments, commonly used expressions, commonly used phrasings and presents them in completely new ways,” said Stanley Mir McDonald, an English professor who has collaborated with Eckes. “He has a very keen sense of how to turn everyday speech on its head.”

Like his other works, “General Motors” focuses on life in the city,

Temple that allowed adjunct instructors to become members of the Temple Association of University Professionals, giving them stronger job security and benefits. TAUP was originally only for full-time faculty.

Adjuncts received their first contract as part of the union this fall.

“It seemed really daunting in the beginning,” Eckes said. “Temple’s a huge school. [The administration] fought us hard, and there are a lot of adjuncts here, so that was a big fight that I learned a lot from.”

In much of “General Motors,” Eckes documents this struggle: “we’re doing unpaid work in

we’re doing unpaid work in the courtroom while temple university’s/ lawyer attacks us for being poor...but we just sit there and we can’t be fired for just/ sitting there, for being a poet, for being a union. which is an army/ of lovers.

I was a Calvin Klein underwear model. … I basically wore like the underwear, the bra and panty set, and I had the baggy jeans. And I wore a jacket. … I live in The Edge and they’re holding a party in the lobby [on Halloween] so I’ll probably get dressed up and go to that.

MARIAH SLADE Sophomore Media studies and production

I decided to go into the city and just see all costumes that people had to wear. … Someone was in, I think, a sumo costume, it was like crazy.

But a lot of people just put stuff together and I was like, ‘Alright, that’s cool.’ … I plan on going trick-or-treating. I don’t know what I’m going to be yet.

RYAN ECKES

2007 MASTER’S OF POETRY ALUMNUS, ADJUNCT ENGLISH INSTRUCTOR FROM HIS POEM “CHASE SCENE”

specifically on public transportation and labor. He was inspired to write his latest manuscript by his family’s long history of working for SEPTA and his more recent work as a union organizer at Temple.

For Eckes, who has an interest in urban planning and public transportation, there is something fascinating about the infrastructure of the city and writing about how life in Philadelphia could have been.

Eckes said he believes Philadelphia’s subway system would have been more vast if General Motors hadn’t been so popular at the time.

Eckes is not only interested in thinking about what could have been, but what can still happen today in Philadelphia.

Nearly three years ago, Eckes helped organize a movement at

the courtroom while temple university’s lawyer attacks us for being poor...but we just sit there and we can’t be fired for just sitting there, for being a poet, for being a union. which is an army of lovers.”

As Eckes searches for a publisher for “General Motors,” he plans to continue to write poetry books.

“Philadelphia happens to have a great community of poets and writers who have helped sustain me,” Eckes said. “So there’s community and then having to push yourself to keep the faith that what you’re doing is worth it.”

mary.ragland@temple.edu @maryeragland

IMANI PETERSON Sophomore Kinesiology

Earlier [on Saturday], we were trying to watch all the ‘Saws.’ … [On Halloween], I’m going back home to trick-or-treat, where I know I’m gonna get some candy. … I’m never too old to go trick-or-treating.

features@temple-news.com

F E AT U R E S PAGE 10

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

HALLOWEEN

MAKE YOUR MARK

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features@temple-news.com

Fall Open House for Graduate Programs Monday, November 13 Register online www.design.upenn.edu/oh3

CHLOE FOX / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Headhouse District organizes fall pumpkin celebration

Philadelphians gathered at The Headhouse Shambles at 2nd and Lombard streets on Saturday to celebrate Halloween with food, candy and a variety of arts and crafts activities at the Fall Pumpkin Fest.

Local businesses opened their doors to trick-or-treaters during the event to pass out candy.

Pumpkins and hay bales lined the streets, and musicians performed outside in the district. Other activities included circus performances by the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, horse and wagon hay rides, “Pumpkin Putt-Putt Golf” and a straw bale maze. A pumpkin pie eating contest and a jack ‘o lantern contest were new to the festival this year.

Commonwealth Ciders and Philadelphia Brewing Company were on site pouring alcoholic beverages. temple-news.com @thetemplenews

F E AT U R E S TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 11

SUSTAINABILITY

Using delivery to increase fresh food access A public health alumnus cofounded WeGardn, which uses a farm-to-table model to deliver fresh food to Philadelphians.

According to The Food Trust, a Philadelphia nonprofit aimed at alleviating food insecurity, a food desert exists in a city when people need to travel more than a mile to the nearest grocery store.

BY VERONICA THOMAS For The Temple News At her job, Chavely Noval handles a lot of family trauma. One of the biggest traumas she witnesses is a lack of access to healthy food.

“Not having food creates stress, which leads to high tensions, leading into assault, and then hospitalization,” said Noval, who is a family liaison at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for its Violence Prevention Program and a 2017 psychology alumna.

“Not having healthy food, or not having food at all, is traumatic. It’s just so sad.”

In some parts of North Philadelphia, residents have to travel nearly a mile to reach the closest grocery store, making it difficult to buy fresh produce. Nearby neighborhood corner stores have replaced grocery stores for some.

These neighborhoods are often considered food deserts: areas with a lack of access to fresh food, like fruits and vegetables.

Aasit Nanavati is trying to find a solution to this problem.

Nanavati, a 2012 master’s of epidemiology and biostatistics alumnus, co-founded WeGardn in April — a nonprofit that provides fresh produce and nutrition education to Philadelphians at affordable prices.

With the help of New Jersey farmers and Pennsylvania dairy producers, customers can receive fresh produce while supporting sustainable practices. Nanavati hopes to help alleviate urban food deserts and food waste.

“Fresh food is a luxury,” Nanavati said.

“Everyone does not have access to the best quality produce.”

Using a farm-to-table model, WeGardn allows the customer to shop from home.

Through WeGardn’s website or app, customers can shop for the produce of their choice and set a date for delivery.

WeGardn currently sells vegetables, like sweet potatoes and collard greens, and fruits, like grapefruit and apples. It also offers protein like frozen chicken breasts and eggs, as well as nonperishables, dairy, coffee and tea.

“We want to create a model of social impact and sustainability in Philadelphia,” said Nanavati, who is also a 2009 public health alumnus.

A 2009 review of census data by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service found that 23.5

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

COLLECTIONS on MOVE’s headquarters in West Philadelphia, killing 11 members, including five children. The fire from the bomb destroyed more than 60 rowhomes.

“It’s a very rich collection and there’s almost always somebody wanting [to use the collection] to do a documentary or a story,” Sly said.

Carter Reynolds, a sophomore political science and economics major and Special Collections student worker, said he had never learned about MOVE until he had to photocopy documents produced by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission. The commission, appointed by then-Mayor Wilson Goode, conducted public hearings and wrote a report criticizing the actions of the city government.

“Just skimming over the papers, it was really interesting to read,” Reynolds said.

Timothy Patterson, an education professor who teaches social studies courses, uses the archives to teach his students how to better use primary sources. He wants to help his students, who will be teachers themselves, assist their future students in being critical evaluators.

Patterson added that it’s im-

For some North Central Philadelphia residents, the nearest grocery store is about three-quarters of a mile away.

SASHA LASAKOW / THE TEMPLE NEWS

million people live in low-income neighborhoods where the nearest supermarket is more than a mile from their home.

This lack of supermarkets and the reliance on corner stores have impacted people’s health in low-income parts of the city, according to The Food Trust, a nonprofit that makes affordable, healthy food more accessible in the U.S. “From a public health standpoint, having easy access to fruits and vegetables is certainly preferable,” said Sarah Bauerle Bass, a public health professor. “For many people who live in urban settings, especially a place like Philadelphia, fresh fruits and vegetables are a subway ride, a bus ride [or] a taxi ride to get to.”

“Most of the bodegas or corner stores that might be in their actual neighborhoods either don’t have fruits or vegetables or if they do there are very few choices,” she added. “They’re not giving people a wide variety of choices, especially greens, or produce that doesn’t stay fresh for a long period of time.”

Throughout the last several years, Nanavati has worked for health nonprofits in countries like India, Uganda and Costa Rica. After living abroad for several years,

portant to preserve the archives for future questions by historians and academics.

“We have to preserve evidence from the past,” Patterson said. “We have to present as much as we can so that that evidence exists. Historians don’t write in a vacuum.”

Last Friday, Reynolds leafed through envelopes filled with Philadelphia Evening Bulletin clippings and alphabetized them by their keywords. The envelopes were recently transferred into new acid-free storage containers, a part of the Urban Archives’ five-year preparation for moving into the new library.

Sly said the new library will provide Special Collections with a dedicated classroom to conduct its own programming. Special Collections also plans to digitize more past archived material.

“In olden days, it used to be that stuff was stashed in closets and attics,” Sly said. “But now the digital is more challenging. ... A lot of that is much more ephemeral. So if you don’t capture it up front, you might not get it.”

One of the Urban Archives’ digital-focused projects is a collaboration with organizers from the Women’s March on Philadelphia, which was one of more than 600 protest marches held in the United States on Jan. 21, the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. On the day of the march,

he said he saw a nutritional gap in the U.S. compared to places like India. He felt the produce in India was fresher than produce sold in U.S. grocery stores.

In 2015, Nanavati was conducting sexual health research in New Delhi with Global Health Strategies, an advocacy organization that wants to improve health worldwide.

While there, he noticed the difference between Indian and American produce.

This prompted his interest in creating an easier method to access healthy food in Philadelphia.

Upon returning to Philadelphia in 2017, Nanavati began working on the startup, along with Greg Donworth, a 2016 Drexel University mechanical engineering alumnus.

Nanavati and Donworth met at a phone charging station at the 2016 Forbes Under 30 Summit in Boston. They began talking about their backgrounds and interests on sustainability, which led to a meeting where they came up with the WeGardn concept.

With his education in statistics and public health, Nanavati wanted to find an economically and environmentally sustainable way to serve people in low-income communities who do not have the means to pur-

chase fresh fruits and vegetables.

Nanavati said there are challenges to running a brand new nonprofit and educating the public on how they can help.

“It’s a challenge converting someone from just, ‘It’s great idea’ to an actual customer,” Nanavati said. “We’re looking forward to more mentorship and fundraising.”

Noval added that she plans to add WeGardn to her resource list for clients.

“Living with limited and/or overpriced healthy food choices should not be an issue in low-income neighborhoods,” Noval said.

“It’s so upsetting that healthy food options are only available in medium-to-high income neighborhoods that are gentrified.”

The nonprofit is currently piloting a last-mile delivery program, which is an environmentally conscious method that utilizes various transportation modes, like bicycle and car share programs.

“I wanted to connect the dots to use technology and innovation to help people and give them the opportunity to access health care and to live a better life,” Nanavati said.

veronica.elizabeth.thomas@temple.edu

JOCELYN BURNS / THE TEMPLE NEWS Margery Sly, the director of the Special Collections Research Center walks the Urban Archives in Paley Library on Oct. 16.

Urban Archives staff hosted a collection station to gather signs and other materials. Later, they “harvested,” or digitally preserved, the content from the Women’s March on Philadelphia website and Facebook page.

Despite the changes brought by the spread of digital technologies, Sly said the mission of the Urban Archives to preserve Philadelphia’s social history remains the same.

“Everybody has a story to tell

and we want to be able to make sure those are captured and preserved,” she added.

features@temple-news.com @TheTempleNews

features@temple-news.com

F E AT U R E S PAGE 12

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

EVENTS Writer-in-residence reads newest novel at Paley The creative writing program’s writer-in-residence Liz Moore will read from her latest novel, “The Unseen World,” on Wednesday at 1 p.m. in the Ground Floor Lecture Hall of Paley Library.

Set in 1980s Boston, the novel follows Ada Sibelius from childhood to adulthood as she tries to uncover the secrets of her father’s hidden past. “The Unseen World” was included on five publications’ “Best of 2016” lists, including The New Yorker and the BBC. Moore previously taught creative writing at Hunter College, University of Pennsylvania and Holy Family University. Her reading is part of Temple University Libraries’ Beyond the Page programming series.

-Khanya Brann

English professors to record their podcast live English professors Tom McAllister and Mike Ingram will present a live recording of their podcast, “Book Fight!”, on Thursday at 2 p.m. in the Ground Floor Lecture Hall of Paley Library. The pair will interview Jason Rekulak, the Philadelphia-based author of “The Impossible Fortress” and publisher at Quirk Books, and P.E. Garcia, a poet, fiction writer and current rhetoric doctoral student.

According to the Book Fight! website, the podcast interviews are like “the conversations writers have at the bar...unflinchingly honest and open to tangents, misdirection, general silliness.” In 2015, Book Fight! won an award for the Best Streaming Media Project at the Philly Geek Awards.

-Ian Walker

The Writing Center to run scholarship essay session The Writing Center will host a scholarship essaywriting session on Friday from noon to 2 p.m. in Room 201 of the Tuttleman Learning Center. The workshop is designed to help students who are looking to apply for any study abroad scholarships, like the Gilman Scholarship, a grant to help students study abroad who have limited financial means.

Participants can register for the workshop on the Study Abroad website.

Elisa Torres’ cousin Angel Onel Colon lost his entire home, pictured above, to hurricanes in Orocovis, Puerto Rico.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

PUERTO RICO Figueroa-Diaz’s immediate family lives in Lares, but she also has an aunt that lives in Toa Alta. FigueroaDiaz was born in Philadelphia, after her family came here to receive treatment for her ill grandparent. Her mother stayed in Philadelphia, but the rest of her family currently lives in Puerto Rico.

In both Lares and Toa Alta, they have no electricity or running water.

Her relatives in Tao Alta have it the hardest, she said, where a river flooded over the roads. Every Sunday, a family member travels to San Juan, the capitol city, to find a hotspot so they can make a call to Figueroa-Diaz in the United States.

To help alleviate these struggles, TU Experience Puerto Rico established a GoFundMe to raise money for “Unidos Por Puerto Rico,” a fundraising initiative created by the First Lady of Puerto Rico Beatriz Rosselló to provide aid to individuals who were affected by the hurricanes.

TU Experience Puerto Rico has raised $230 so far through its GoFundMe, $24,770 short of the $25,000 goal listed on the page. The group started the fundraiser on Oct. 11, eight days after Hurricane Maria ended.

“Everyone said we’re crazy, we might be crazy, but I don’t know,” Figueroa-Diaz said. “I am not going to get upset. No one’s going to get upset if it’s not $25,000. It’s the idea that counts.”

Starting next week, the organization plans to reach out to larger businesses around the city, like Comcast, in hopes they will donate to the cause.

In addition to its GoFundMe, TU Experience Puerto Rico sold “pastelillo con carne y queso” — a

fried dough turnover with meat and cheese — a few weeks ago in front of the Qdoba at Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue. After selling 40 pastelillos at the first event, Figueroa-Diaz said the group plans to cook 200 more to sell at its next fundraiser.

But more than just raising money, Figueroa-Diaz said it’s important to maintain the identity of the island.

For her, the Puerto Rican identity is defined by the “traditions on the island and the sense of family, and the liveliness of Puerto Ricans.”

“All the money in the world is one thing, because Puerto Rico is in debt...but it’s important to keep the spirit alive too,” Figueroa-Diaz said.

A major obstacle in distributing resources, Figueroa-Diaz said, is that few supplies are making it outside San Juan and into rural areas where people are most in need, including some of her relatives.

“Giving clothes and first necessity items are good, but we all know the situation,” Figueroa-Diaz said.

“It’s being shipped, and what’s happening? It’s not being given out honestly. Because a lot of the roads are destroyed and federal aid from the United States, I’d say, is pretty embarrassing.”

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the Senate approved a $36.5 billion aid package for hurricane and wildfire relief, and would also help Puerto Rico’s government avoid running out of funds. This aid comes on top of a $15.3 billion natural disaster package that was approved in September.

President Donald Trump has been criticized for his slow and sometimes unsympathetic response to the devastation in Puerto Rico and tweeting insults about the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz.

“You can’t romanticize Puerto Rico anymore,” Figueroa-Diaz said.

COURTESY / OSCAR TORRES

“And now it’s blatant the way the president was throwing paper towels at people like he was raffling out some candy. And they had to swallow it because they need these things.”

Elisa Torres, a sophomore art education major, also began raising money with a GoFundMe to help her family and others in Puerto Rico. Her grandparents and other extended family members currently live in the mountainous Orocovis municipality in the center of the island.

She was inspired after seeing her cousin raise more than $13,000 from his GoFundMe account, so she and her immediate family decided to start their own GoFundMe, which raised $2,920. Additionally, she said her family raised $8,000 from other family members, friends and colleagues to send to Orocovis.

“People have been crazy generous,” Torres said. “But it’s also like the amount of need is insane. It’s insane down there.”

Torres said her grandparents’ house is at risk of falling off a mountainside because of the flood damage, which forced them to leave and stay with Torres’ great-aunt. But even there, Torres said flooding left her great aunt’s house covered in mold, forcing her relatives to give up their belongings.

With the money raised from the GoFundMe, Torres said her family was able to give supplies to 24 different families. They donated cleaning supplies, water, gas, an oxygen tank and nonperishable foods like peanut butter and tuna. The supplies were all brought by Torres’ father, who traveled to Puerto Rico two weeks ago.

“When my dad went, the lack of resources was unreal,” Torres said.

“So I’m honestly not sure how people are managing.”

natasha.claudio@temple.edu

-Emily Trinh

STEM education director speaks on women in tech Jamie Bracey, director of STEM Education, Outreach & Research at Temple, will speak at the HUE Tech Talk on Friday along with eight other panelists about the challenges women of color face in techbased fields. The event will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. at the WeWork co-working space on Market near 16th Street.

HUE Tech Talk is hosted by the Tech Women Network, an online platform for women working in techrelated fields to collaborate and network. In addition to the panel, HUE Tech Talk will feature a discussion with other industry professionals.

-Amanda Lien

COURTESY / OSCAR TORRES Elisa Torres’ Great Aunt Hilda Colon had to throw away her bed and dresser because they were covered in mold due to flooding from Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico.

features@temple-news.com

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

S P O RT S TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 13

FENCING

SPORTS BRIEFS

Alumnae reunited as coaches 2016 alumnae Olivia Wynn and Fatima Largaespada coached in Saturday’s Temple Open.

BY MICHAEL ZINGRONE Fencing Beat Reporter Fatima Largaespada frequently checked her inbox soon after she graduated from Temple as she tried to figure out her career plans.

She saw a few emails from John Moreau, the coach at the University of the Incarnate Word, and other coaches she knew with “Wagner College Head Coaching Job” in the subject line.

Largaespada, a former foil who made three NCAA championship meets from 2012-16, talked with her family and decided to call about the job at Wagner.

After a series of interviews, Largaespada became the first fencing coach in the history of the private college in New York City for the inaugural 201617 season. Largaespada didn’t have any assistant coaches last season. In August, Wagner hired two assistant coaches, including Largaespada’s friend and former teammate Olivia Wynn.

The two have been friends for six years, and they believe their relationship will help them be successful coaches.

Their offices at Wagner are next door to each other.

“The year after I graduated from Temple, I really missed fencing,” said Wynn, who had a 99-39 record in foil and sabre bouts from 2012-16. “Fatima gave me a call one day about the open position and I was super excited to hop on board.”

“We aren’t afraid to tell one another if they are wrong,” Largaespada said.

“We can be pushy towards each other, but we never get in arguments. I can’t remember a time we ever have.”

Fencing is a big part of Largaespada’s family life. Her grandfather Viterbo Simont owns a fencing club in Mexico, and her mother Georgina Simont has owned a club in San Antonio, Texas, since 1987.

“She has in her blood fencing DNA,” her mother wrote in an email. “She knows perfectly what to do, she knows this business, and she could be a great coach. She has lived a lot in fencing.”

Largaespada and Wynn still call their former coach, Nikki Franke, for advice almost every week, Franke said.

Franke also wrote a letter of recommendation for Largaespada when she applied for the Seahawks’ coaching job.

Franke expects to hear from Wynn and Largaespada often when the season becomes more intense, she said.

“It is really weird seeing Fatima in a green jumpsuit,” Franke said, referring to Wagner’s team colors. “I like how invested she is into her program. I can see how much she cares. Fatima worked ex-

tremely hard while at Temple, so it does not surprise me seeing her work hard for Wagner.”

Franke saw Largaespada at last year’s Temple Open and saw her and Wynn at Saturday’s event at the Liacouras Center.

In the program’s first season, Largaespada and the Seahawks only had one fencer at the Temple Open. This year, Wagner sent seven.

With the Seahawks in just their second season, Largaespada has the challenge of jump-starting a fairly new fencing program. Her fencing background from her home in Mexico and learning from Franke at Temple has given her a “healthy” mix of coaching styles, she said.

“At Temple, practice would be set up and we would focus on one thing for that day,” Largaespada said. “In Mexico, we just trained. Experiencing those things helped me develop my practice and put me in a position to coach my fencers the best I can.”

Despite taking on coaching roles at a different school, Largaespada and Wynn still reflect on their Temple careers every day, Largaespada added.

“We share the same memories,” Wynn said. “You don’t get that type of relationship with a lot of people. We are eager to make more memories together here at Wagner.”

FOOTBALL

Redshirt-junior fullback earns full scholarship Temple awarded redshirt-junior fullback Rob Ritrovato a full scholarship last week.

Ritrovato, a former walk-on, ranks third on the team in rushing yards with 48 on 14 attempts. He had a career-high 86 rushing yards and scored his first touchdown in Temple’s 34-10 victory against East Carolina on Oct. 7.

Prior to this season, Ritrovato mostly played on special teams. Through eight games, he has the fourth most rushing attempts.

Football Bowl Subdivision schools get a maximum of 85 scholarships to award to their football teams. Walk-ons don’t usually get scholarships. Ritrovato is the second former walk-on to earn a scholarship during coach Geoff Collins’ tenure.

At the Cherry and White game in April, the Owls awarded redshirt-junior tight end Chris Myarick with a full scholarship.

SportsCenter anchor and 1998 communications alumnus Kevin Negandhi gave Myarick the Most Valuable Walk-on award with former walk-on linebacker Haason Reddick standing nearby.

michael.zingrone@temple.edu

-Tom Ignudo

Former Owl to have high school uniform retired Linden High School in New Jersey will retire former Temple player and current New York Jets defensive tackle Muhammad Wilkerson’s No. 91 jersey on Nov. 22.

The Jets selected Wilkerson 30th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft after he earned firstteam Mid-American Conference honors and recorded a team-high 13 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks in his junior season.

In Wilkerson’s final two seasons at Temple, he recorded 131 tackles, 23.5 tackles for loss and 16.5 sacks.

On top of playing football at Linden, Wilkerson helped the basketball team win back-to-back Group 4 state titles in 2005 and 2006.

Through eight games this season, Wilkerson has 26 tackles and one interception.

GENEVA HEFFERNAN / THE TEMPLE NEWS Left: Wagner College assistant coach Olivia Wynn gives instructions during Saturday’s Temple Open at the Liacouras Center.

Right: Seahawks sophomore foil Karen Gutierrez (left) listens to coach Fatima Largaespada during Saturday’s Temple Open.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

RANDALL In 2016, Randall led the team with four interceptions and recovered two fumbles.

At Gateway, Randall, Davis and Nicholson used to compete for how many takeaways they could force and bring back to their coach, Terry Smith. After coaching Gateway from 2002-12, Smith coached wide receivers at Temple in 2013 and has been the defensive recruiting coordinator and cornerbacks coach at Penn State since 2014.

Davis remembers when Randall scored the touchdown during their sophomore year at Antimarino Stadium in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, that sparked the creation of “The Eat Team” in 2012.

Randall made a catch over a Greater Latrobe Senior High School defensive back in the end zone.

Davis, who watched from the sideline, ran toward the end zone, and he and Randall began pretending to “eat,” motioning as

if eating with a spoon.

“They competed so much sometimes it got a little hostile in a positive way,” Smith said. “They wanted to be ‘the guy.’ ... It was like iron sharpening iron, because you had good-on-good battling and competing. They set goals for themselves to achieve.”

Randall and Davis aren’t on the same team anymore, but they still compete for the most interceptions. During the season, they talk via FaceTime, over the phone or text after their games. Davis is tied for second with three interceptions on the Crimson Hawks.

“I tell him, ‘I’m going to have more picks than you,’” Davis said.

“Most of the time [Temple is] on TV, so I’ll watch the little recaps and he usually always has a little play on one of the recaps,” he added.

Ever since Randall started playing football, he dreamed of playing in the NFL. During his sophomore year of high school ­— with only one offer from the University of Toledo — he watched the 2012 NFL Draft

thinking his dreams could soon become reality.

Once Temple hired coach Geoff Collins in December 2016, Randall said he immediately thought of the defensive backs Collins coached as the University of Florida’s defensive coordinator.

In the 2017 NFL Draft, teams selected former Florida defensive backs Marcus Maye, Quincy Wilson and Teez Tabor in the second round. Former Florida defensive backs Vernon Hargreaves and Keanu Neal were selected in the first round in 2016.

Collins said Randall was like a “sponge” during the offseason and came into the season on a mission.

In February, inside defensive coordinator Taver Johnson’s office at Edberg-Olson Hall, Collins, Randall and senior safety Sean Chandler dug into Collins’ catalog of defensive back film to watch Neal, Wilson and Tabor’s techniques.

“We watched those films and then we watched NFL films because our defense is

-Tom Ignudo

very similar to what they run at the Falcons, what they run at the Seahawks and what they run with the Cardinals,” Collins said.

“So we’ll watch that tape over the summer, let ’em see the things that we are doing from our scheme that they’re working in the NFL.” Smith said Randall, Davis and Nicholson won Gateway a lot of games during their careers. Smith added he wasn’t surprised by Randall’s performance over the past two seasons.

Chandler hasn’t been shocked by it either.

“I’ve been knew [Randall] was a baller since he got here his freshman year,” Chandler said. “It’s not a surprise to me. Even last year he balled out. I already knew he had this in him.” thomas.ignudo@temple.edu @TomIgnudo

sports@temple-news.com @TTN_Sports

S P O RT S PAGE 14

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

VOLLEYBALL

Momentum building as Wichita State approaches The Owls have won 10 of their last 11 matches since losing to the Shockers.

BY AUSTIN AMPELOQUIO Volleyball Beat Reporter After Temple’s 3-1 loss to a ranked Wichita State squad on Sept. 22, coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam still said his team had one of its betterplayed matches all season.

Even now, with the Owls in the midst of a seven-game winning streak, Ganesharatnam still ranks the match among the team’s best.

Against Wichita State, Temple hit 25.3 percent, matching its season average. The Owls average 13.9 kills per set, a mark they only missed in the fourth set against the Shockers.

Since the Wichita State match, Temple (14-6, 10-2 American Athletic Conference) has won 10 of its past 11 matches.

“We played really well against Wichita State,” Ganesharatnam said. “Just because we lost to them didn’t mean we needed to make big adjustments moving forward.”

Since its performance against the Shockers, Temple has been focusing on being more consistent, Ganesharatnam said. The loss to Wichita State, which is ranked 21st in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, came down to a small margin between points and errors, he added.

Temple had a season-high 28 attack errors against the Shockers, who only made 13.

The Owls haven’t made more than 22 errors in a match since, and are averaging 17 errors per match during their seven-game winning streak.

The team’s consistency has been a product of the communication Temple has improved during conference play, senior middle blocker Janine Simmons said. The Owls are second in The American by virtue of their head-to-head win against Southern Methodist on Oct. 22. Wichita State is first.

“We had to figure out who we were as a team,” Simmons said. “We had different lineups, so that’s also going to factor into communication, but our ability to adjust to other teams has gotten a lot better. We’re making adjustments in our offense and adjustments in our defense that make a difference overall in the entire game.”

The Owls have specifically improved on “one of their weaknesses” of defending tip shots as a result of better communication between the front row and back row, Simmons added.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

SAMNIK liams said.

The Owls (8-7-1, 3-3 American Athletic Conference) had a 1-3-1 record when Samnik made his first start against Fairfield University on Sept. 16.

Temple, which allowed 15 goals in 18 games last season, had already allowed seven.

“I think we went through a period where we struggled early and we were looking for goals and we were looking to stop goals,” MacWilliams said. “We made some changes and then when Cagle got hurt, Samnik stepped in and he’s done a good job for us.”

The Owls lost to Fairfield, 2-0, and Cagle started the next two games. But he hasn’t been able to play since Sept. 23 against Connecticut after he suffered a concussion.

Samnik took over as the starter.

Cagle is still injured, MacWilliams said, so Samnick will start on Saturday against South Florida. Temple needs to win the game to qualify for The American’s postseason tournament.

Since Cagle’s injury, Samnik is 6-2 and has a goals-against average of 0.99. He earned shutouts against Penn State on Sept.

27 and against Drexel on Oct. 3.

Samnik’s size 15 shoes and 6-foot5-inch, 230-pound frame has helped him keep opponents from scoring in an 8-by-24 foot goal.

“My wingspan cuts down angles a lot, and that’s a big thing about goalkeeping is you’ve just got to know where the ball is and make sure you’re not giving up too much of one side of the goal versus the other,” Samnik said. “Being this tall sometimes makes it a little harder getting down to the low balls, but I think for my size, I’m pretty agile.”

sports@temple-news.com @TTN_Sports

The Owls recorded 61 digs against Wichita State. The only time Temple has had fewer digs since then was in its sweep of South Florida on Oct. 13. The Owls had 42 digs against the Bulls in just three sets.

“Every match is different and every opponent is different, so we make adjustments based on that,” Ganesharatnam said.

The Owls have also worked on rotating different players into the lineup. Freshman middle hitter Baleigh Jean-Philippe came off the bench late in the match against Southern Methodist.

The Owls led two sets to one and had match point when Jean-Philippe stepped onto the floor.

Two plays later, Jean-Philippe swung a kill directly at Southern Methodist’s middle blockers for the match-winning point.

“Being mentally prepared for the games helps us a lot to do better,” Jean-Philippe said. “That’s just something that we’ve been focusing on in practice.”

The team has capitalized on its recent schedule of games, which will help Temple “prepare for more difficult ones in the future,” Jean-Philippe said.

Five teams Temple has played on its sevengame winning streak have losing records in The American. Southern Methodist and Cincinnati are the only two teams Temple has beaten during the streak that have conference records above .500.

The Owls lost to Wichita State and East Carolina, the other two teams in The American that have winning records.

After conference cellar-dweller Memphis on Friday, the Owls will play at Wichita State on Sunday. Then they’ll play a match in Dallas against Southern Methodist on Nov. 9.

Ganesharatnam has stressed to his players maintaining the streak should not be a primary concern.

“I know people are excited about the streak right now but if you look at this conference for the last three years, you have to win more than 15 games to win the conference,” Ganesharatnam said. “We knew [a winning streak] was going to have to happen in order to compete for the first two or three spots, so it’s not a big deal for us in the locker room. I really emphasize on focusing on the next match. If we do that, the streak is going to be OK, and we’re going to put ourselves in a good position.” austin.ampeloquio@temple.edu @AustinPaulAmp

The defense had to adjust to Cagle and Samnik’s different goalkeeping styles. But sophomore midfielder Nick Sarver, who plays on the back line, said the transition from defending with Cagle to Samnik has been easy.

“I think they all have attributes that, whether one’s more communicative, one’s better with his feet, distribution, so I think there’s little things,” MacWilliams said. “But I think for the most part, it isn’t a big adjustment. So it’s just knowing the strengths of the guy that’s in between the pipes.”

Along with Samnik’s size, MacWilliams said his calm disposition in net is one of his strengths. Instead of getting “rattled,” Samnik keeps control of the box and remains focused, which is not always an easy task, MacWilliams added.

“Probably the hardest part of being a goalkeeper is you’ve just got to stay locked in for the entire 90 minutes,” Samnik said.

“You could go a whole game without getting a shot on you and then, like what happened in the Memphis game, get one shot on goal and they score to tie it with nine seconds left. So it’s just more mental than it is physical sometimes.”

To get in his zone before games, Samnik likes to be in the locker room and listen to music. His appreciation of country, however, is not common on the team, MacWilliams said. He added Samnik often jokes around with his teammates and has added to the team’s dynamic.

Samnik’s presence on and off the field allowed him to quickly integrate into the team after transferring from North Georgia, Sarver said.

“Samnik came right in and just felt right at home,” Sarver said. “I felt like I’d known him for years when I first got to meet him.” maura.razanauskas@temple.edu @CaptainAMAURAca

MIKE NGUYEN / THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior middle blocker Janine Simmons (center) attempts to block an attack during the Owls’ 3-1 loss to East Carolina at McGonigle Hall on Oct. 6.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

ATTENDANCE games. Crowds peaked at an average of 46,565 in 2008.

“More than ever, college football programs are finding it difficult to draw and retain the young fans who grow up to be lifelong season-ticket holders,” the New York Times’ Marc Tracy wrote in September 2016.

The response from athletic departments has been to engage students with offfield experiences and incentives. At Temple, a concerted effort has been made to enhance the gameday experience. It starts the day before games, when a pep rally is held on Main Campus. The rallies only used to happen before big games, like when Temple played Penn State in 2011, said Scott Walcoff, the senior associate athletic director of external operations who has worked in marketing and promotions at Temple since 2005.

Once Pat Kraft, currently the athletic director, arrived as the deputy director of athletics in 2013, Temple decided to move the pre-game vendors and entertainment from HeadHouse Plaza, an area within the Lincoln Financial Field gates, to the parking lot to offer it to people before they had their tickets scanned.

This year, Temple has also worked with Blockparty Suites — the athletic department’s official tailgate partner — to offer lounges with an all-you-can-drink bar and high-definition television in the parking lot. The athletic department got the idea when Temple played Southern Methodist in Dallas in 2015.

“It’s starting to look like what a bigtime college football pre-game atmosphere should be,” Walcoff said. “We’re starting to build that.”

The eye test and the numbers agree.

At Temple, the average crowd increased by nearly 8,000 people from 2010 to 2011, when the Owls won their first bowl game since 1979. The largest increase during the stretch from 2005 to 2016 occurred from 2014 to 2015, when the Owls — aided by sellouts against Penn State and Notre Dame — averaged 44,158 fans at their home games.

Through its first four home games in 2017, Temple has an average attendance of about 27,975 people, which is about 1,353 people more than the first four games last year.

Temple hasn’t hosted a Power Five school since the 2015 season opener against Penn State and isn’t scheduled to until September 2019 against the University of Maryland. Home games against Georgia Tech in 2019, Rutgers University in 2020 and 2022 and Boston College in 2021 could continue to boost attendance.

None of those teams, including Temple, however, is guaranteed to be good by the time those games will be played. Success, as demonstrated by this year’s Temple team, can be either long-lasting or fleeting.

So if Temple is to continue boosting attendance, it has to keep improving its tailgating and in-game promotions no matter where it plays the games.

“When and if that time comes that we get an on-campus stadium, I have no doubt that we will be able to replicate what we do at Lincoln Financial Field to possibly having something on Temple’s campus,” Walcoff said. “Whether it be Liacouras Walk, whether it be the center area of campus now where the Bell Tower is, I think there’s enough areas that we would be able to hopefully do something with.” evan.easterling@temple.edu @Evan_Easterling

temple-news.com @thetemplenews

S P O RT S TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 15

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Sophomore playing less ‘timid’ in second year Cecilia Castelli won her lone singles match this fall.

BY IBUKUN BABATUNDE For The Temple News Cecilia Castelli competed in her sixth-career match in Temple’s third-to-last regular-season contest last year.

She swept her Rider University opponent and only dropped one

game. Coach Steve Mauro told The Temple News after the match that Castelli will become a key player as she gains more experience.

Castelli, a sophomore and the team’s lone returning underclassman, played in two matches in fall competition. She and junior Alice Patch lost their doubles match to Cornell University on Sept. 30 in the Princeton Invitational. Castelli won her singles match, 6-0, 6-1, against the University of Delaware

on Oct. 7.

She has gone from “playing kind of timid to really actually wanting to be aggressive and finishing points,” senior Monet Stuckey-Willis said.

“This year she’s been more consistent than she was,” Mauro said. “Last year she was making errors. I don’t know if it was because she was nervous or if she was trying to impress too much. I think this year she’s settled down. She’s

SYDNEY SCHAEFER / THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore Cecilia Castelli prepares to serve to her teammate at practice on Friday afternoon at the Student Pavilion.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

TUROFF who competed for UMass from 1967-71, has been to Mexico, Indonesia and the Red Sea with Turoff, said his son Aaron Vexler, who competed for Temple from 1995-98.

His brother Luke Vexler competed 10 years after him.

During Aaron Vexler’s sophomore year, he, his father and Turoff took a trip to the Caribbean Sea to scuba dive.

Doug Brown, a Temple gymnast from 1980-85, said Turoff always ran the team like a family. He water skied for the first time when Turoff took him and other gymnasts to Central Pennsylvania during his sophomore year.

After he graduated, Brown worked as

the team’s announcer for 13 years and had a front-row seat for nine of Turoff’s 18 EIGL and Eastern College Athletic Conference title-winning teams.

“I hadn’t seen Fred in probably about four years, and seeing him tonight it’s just like you hadn’t skipped a day,” Brown said.

“Fred has a way about him that [is] hard to describe,” said Mickey Gorn, who was a senior gymnast during Turoff’s freshman season and worked out in Pearson Hall for 30 years after his graduation. “It’s like, very open, very friendly, but extremely intelligent. So he’s able to communicate with everybody very easily.”

Saturday was a celebration of Turoff’s career, one that includes competing in the 1970 World Championships and gaining USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame membership as a coach. Miles Avery, who has coached in

had a couple of good matches in the fall, so hopefully she can build on it.”

In Fall 2016, Castelli had a 3-3 record before she went 5-2 in the spring. Castelli played mostly out of the sixth flight, finishing with a 3-2 record in Spring 2017.

She played one match each out of the fourth and fifth flights.

In her fourth-flight match against Longwood University sophomore Fallon Burger on Jan. 29, Castelli earned a 6-3, 6-1 sweep. She swept Saint Francis University freshman Kathryn Dunleavy, 6-4, 6-1, in her fifth-flight match on Feb. 25.

Last year, Castelli focused on growing accustomed to the team and adjusting to college tennis, she said. Now, she is trying to “find out things about the other girls and become a team,” she added.

During Friday’s practice, she switched from intensely competing in matches to lightly joking with her teammates.

“We try to find time not just to talk about tennis, because before the sport comes the people,” Castelli said. “We need to know each other, trust each other outside of the courts.”

Castelli has four new teammates this year. The Owls added three transfers to their roster, including Patch. She posted a 32-12 singles record and 40-8 doubles mark in two seasons at Division II Armstrong State University.

four Olympics, thanked Turoff for developing him from a gymnast without experience to someone who competed for the United States in the 1980s.

Tom Gibbs, one of Turoff’s assistant coaches in the 1980s, held a “roast of Fred,” where he joked about Turoff’s diminutive stature and how he’d do a press handstand every morning, often nude, even when sharing a room with assistant coaches on trips to away meets.

Saturday was also a celebration of Temple gymnastics. The former gymnasts cheered and applauded between bites of food as a reel of Turoff’s five NCAA champions played.

All former athletes in attendance signed a “Temple Gymnastics” flag that hung in Pearson Gym 143 for decades. It was auctioned for $2,100 with proceeds benefit-

Sophomore Kristina Titova had an 11-4 singles record for Hampton University last season and helped the Pirates get within one match of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference team title.

Senior Rimpledeep Kaur won the 2017 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year after winning all five of her singles matches in the top flight for New Mexico State University in league play.

With the fall season finished, the team is shifting its focus to preparing for the spring. Last year, Temple (11-13, 1-4 American Athletic Conference) lost in the first round of the conference tournament.

Temple lost to Cincinnati in the first round of The American’s tournament in the 2015-16 season.

In four seasons in The American, the Owls have only advanced past the first round once when they had a program-record 19 wins in the 2014-15 campaign.

Creating a “great team bond” is important to the team’s success, Castelli said.

“The goal is obviously to have a great season,” she said. “We have to approach this coming season in the same way. We know that we’re a good team. If we compete hard and work hard, we will have a great season.” ibukun.babatunde@temple.edu

ting Philadelphia Boys’ Gymnastics, where Turoff is the program director.

Turoff closed the night with a speech.

Before everybody went home, Turoff wanted to make sure all of the gymnasts signed the flag and posed for a picture — a family photo of sorts with the past and future of the program in the frame.

“It’s big shoes to fill, and it’s hard because now the program is in a new phase and I’m being relied on by a lot of people,” Kitzen-Abelson said. “I’ve got a big job to do.

We want this program to survive, and I’ve got to deliver.”

evan.easterling@temple.edu @Evan_Easterling

FIELD HOCKEY

Seniors give way to talented recruiting class The Owls have verbal commitments from two top-50 players.

BY KEVIN SCHAEFFER Field Hockey Beat Reporter After her last practice ended, redshirt-senior forward Sarah Keer joked around with her teammates as she walked off Howarth Field.

Keer was trying to soak up as much as she could before she played in her last two games on Friday and Sunday. For the first time in her five seasons, Keer’s team will not play in a conference tournament.

Temple (4-14, 0-7 Big East Conference) finished last in the Big East and won one game out of its final seven. The Owls missed their conference tournament for the first time in coach Marybeth Freeman’s three seasons and for the first time since their 2-4 record in the Atlantic 10 Conference in 2002.

Going back to 1988, Temple had never finished a season winless in its conference.

“It’s kind of disappointing we didn’t have a better result to our season,” Keer said. “But I’m lucky to have played as long as I did and

with teammates I had.”

For the second year in a row, the Owls finished in the top five of Division I in defensive saves. Last year, Temple made 17 defensive saves to finish second, and the team had 13 for second this year.

A freshman led the team in defensive saves for the second consecutive year. Midfielder Dani Batze led the Owls with four this year. She started 14 games and played the fourth-most minutes on the team.

“Dani showed us a lot this season,” Freeman said. “Any time a freshman comes in and demands the amount of playing time that she did with her work ethic is amazing, and I’m looking forward to seeing her grow as a player.”

Batze and freshman midfielder and back Taylor Alba came to Temple as Max Field Hockey top-100 recruits from the high school class of 2017. Alba, a top-50 recruit, started all 18 games and finished second in minutes behind sophomore back Becky Gerhart.

Temple has six verbal commitments from the high school Class of 2018, according to Max Field Hockey. Two of the commits are in the top 50 of graduating players.

Kerrie Lorenz, who is the 26thranked recruit and plays midfield

for Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, competed in the USA Field Hockey National Futures Tournament in June. Annie Judge, an incoming midfielder from Delaware, also played in the tournament.

Tali Popinko, a midfielder and forward and the 49th-ranked recruit, has 18 goals and 12 assists for Warren Hills Regional High School in New Jersey. Popinko is trying to help her team win its third state title in her four seasons.

Freeman couldn’t discuss the recruits because of an NCAA rule that bans coaches from talking about prospective players until they sign their National Letters of Intent.

The early signing period for field hockey and other non-revenue sports is from Nov. 8-15, and the regular signing period is from April 11 to Aug. 1, 2018.

The incoming class will replace four seniors — Keer, midfielder Rachael Mueller, midfielder and forward Maiyah Brown and forward Hattie Kuhns. Mueller, Brown and Kuhns were the team’s captains this season.

Each senior was among the Owls’ top five players in shot attempts. Mueller led the team in scoring, Keer tied for second and

CHIA YU LIAO / THE TEMPLE NEWS Senior midfielder and captain Rachael Mueller defends during the Owls’ overtime win against Sacred Heart University at Howarth Field on Sept. 24.

Brown was tied for fourth.

Mueller is among 38 athletes selected to play in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Division I senior game on Nov. 17 at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

“All of the seniors have had impacts on and off the field, especially with their leadership,” Freeman

said. “The impact they had on the younger players, showing how to play the Temple way, was huge for us as a coaching staff.” kevinschaeffer@temple.edu @_kevinschaeffer

sports@temple-news.com @TTN_Sports

SPORTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2017

PAGE 16

FOOTBALL

Junior safety ‘never going to be satisfied’ Delvon Randall leads Temple with three interceptions.

BY TOM IGNUDO Assistant Sports Editor

W

hen Delvon Randall played as a sophomore at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, he focused on eating.

Randall enjoys the fried chicken from Hook Fish & Chicken a couple blocks from his house in Pittsburgh, but he would rather feast on the football field with takeaways, touchdowns and big hits.

“Basically eating is playing well, making plays and doing what every alpha athlete should do,” said Anthony Davis, who played with Randall at Gateway and is now a redshirt-junior defensive back at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

At Gateway, Randall, Davis and Montae Nicholson, now a safety for the Washington Redskins, formed “The Eat Team.”

“Just eat, eat, eat and keep eating,” Randall said. “I’m never going to be satisfied with anything.”

Randall, a junior safety, leads Temple with three interceptions and ranks second with 54 tackles. His streak of three consecutive games with an interception ended on Oct. 21 against Army West Point, which primarily runs the ball.

2017 stats Tackles Tackles-for-loss Interceptions Sacks

54 6.5 3 1

COURTNEY REDMON / THE TEMPLE NEWS

STADIUM

RA N DA L L PAG E 13 PHOTOS BY: EVAN EASTERLING, SYDNEY SCHAEFER, GENEVA HEFFERNAN , HOJUN YU AND JAMIE COTTRELL

MEN’S SOCCER

Football can’t be only sell for oncampus stadium Though Temple’s numbers are up, FBS attendance is declining.

Former President Neil Theobald often called football the “front porch” of the university. In the last two years, the curb appeal has been tremendous.

A record number of students attended Temple’s open house on Nov. 8, 2015, just eight days after ESPN’s College GameDay came EVAN EASTERLING to Independence SPORTS EDITOR Mall and Temple played a ranked University of Notre Dame team in the primetime Saturday night slot on ABC at Lincoln Financial Field.

Temple (3-5, 1-3 American Athletic Conference) opened its season on Sept. 2 against Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, to close its three-game series against the Fighting Irish. More than 77,000 people, Notre Dame’s 256th consecutive sellout crowd dating back to 1974, filed into

the stadium to watch the Fighting Irish beat the Owls, 49-16.

As part of Notre Dame’s enhancements to its stadium, the school debuted a videoboard in 2017. If you go to Notre Dame Stadium, you’re there for football, and that’s it.

Temple wants to replicate Notre Dame’s on-campus game experience on a smaller scale with a potential 35,000-seat, $130 million stadium at 15th and Norris streets. But few places are like Notre Dame.

National trends show people are less interested in the in-person experience across the Football Bowl Subdivision level. So if any stadium, including Temple’s proposed on-campus facility, is to be successful in filling seats, it can’t simply rely on the on-field product.

What is offered to fans before kickoff and during breaks in action is important now more than ever.

Attendance at FBS games decreased for the sixth year in a row in 2016 when an average of 43,106 was reported at home

AT TENDAN CE PAGE 14

MIKE NGUYEN / THE TEMPLE NEWS Sophomore goalkeeper Michael Samnik goal kicks during the Owls’ 4-0 win against Drexel on Oct. 3 at the Temple Sports Complex.

Transfer goalie starting late in season Sophomore Michael Samnik has a 6-2 record since Sept. 23.

BY MAURA RAZANAUSKAS Men’s Soccer Beat Reporter Michael Samnik is still looking for the best place in Philadelphia to get a cheesesteak.

The sophomore goalkeeper enjoyed the one he ate from Dalessandro’s in Roxborough, but he believes that the ultimate cheesesteak, his favorite food, is

still out there.

“I love a good cheesesteak,” Samnik said. “If anyone wants to hit me up with a good shop, let me know.”

When Samnik transferred from the University of North Georgia to Temple, cheesesteaks weren’t the first thing on his mind, but they were a welcome bonus.

Another bonus has been the playing time he’s gotten in his first season. Despite joining a team with redshirt senior Alex Cagle, a goalie who started 36 of the Owls’ 37 games the past two

years. Samnik has started nine of Temple’s 16 games.

“When I was getting recruited, they actually said there’s a senior that will be playing ahead of me,” Samnik said. “Then just [through] a series of unfortunate events, Cagle got injured, and I got in. I think I’ve been doing well with my starting time.”

Coach David MacWilliams initially put Samnik in the starting lineup to try to switch things up because Temple was not playing as well as he wanted, MacWil-

S A MN I K PAG E 14

FIELD HOCKEY | PAGE 15

W TENNIS | PAGE 15

VOLLEYBALL | PAGE 14

FENCING | PAGE 13

Temple finished the season on a six-game losing streak and winless in Big East Conference games, but it will add two top50 recruits next season.

Sophomore Cecilia Castelli is the Owls’ only returning underclassman. One of her teammates said she is playing a more aggressive style.

Since losing to Wichita State on Sept. 22, the Owls have won 10 of their last 11 games, including their active sevengame streak.

Former fencers Fatima Largaespada and Olivia Wynn, now coaching for Wagner College, returned to Temple for Saturday’s Temple Open.