The Prince and the Pauper: A New Twist

“If you are the CEO of a bank, you get shown the money; if you’re the CEO of an auto company, you get shown the door.” That’s the sentiment voiced by many Americans in response to the financial bailout of banks and insurers. And when legal experts, in defense of the bank bailouts, cited the importance of upholding the contractual agreements of those in the financial industry, some wondered, “What about the employment contracts of the people who take their showers after work?” This double standard is what Temple History Professor Peter Gran sees when he looks at modern world history.

(05/21) [More]

Academic Strategic Compass

This Academic Strategic Compass (Academic Compass), which resulted from an 18-month collaborative planning process, is the next step in realizing a strategic plan to guide Temple over the next 5 years. The Compass provides an overview of the strategies we’ll use to reach our goals during a time when the college landscape is quickly changing. Refer to the Inventory of Initiatives for insight into the milestones and metrics that will benchmark the success of the plan. We look forward to working together as we map our new destiny. Your comments are welcome through our Suggestion Box.

(05/20) [More]

Temple Sociologist Questions Assumptions About Suicide

When the death of Freddie Mac CFO David Kellerman looked to be a suicide, many wondered whether it was driven by economic stress. In a recession this severe, people ask, does the suicide rate go up? The sad truth is, nobody knows. Thanks to the power of modern disease surveillance, we can watch the swine flu pandemic unfold before our eyes, minute by minute. Yet there is no equivalent way to monitor suicides. “People everywhere are wondering if suicides are spiking in response to economic woes, yet we have no reliable system for tracking suicide rates in real-time,” said Matt Wray, a sociologist at Temple University and a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at Harvard University.

(05/06) [More]

Psych Major Spins Big

After solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles such as “The Nutty Professor,” “Microwave Popcorn,” and “Fond Memories,” Temple student Drew Magathan arrived home from the show’s college edition more than $110,000 richer. Solving word puzzles has always come naturally to the junior psychology major.

(05/06) [More]

Rankings Highlight Quality of Research Efforts in Criminal Justice

Each year, U.S. News & World Report ranks professional programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine based on two criteria: statistical data and expert opinions. They also periodically rank other academic programs and specialties based solely on ratings from peer institutions. This year, two Temple programs made major leaps in the rankings in America’s Best Graduate Schools: 2010 Edition: the School of Medicine and Criminal Justice Department in the College of Liberal Arts.

(05/01) [More]

Conference: Black Studies Forty Years Later | May 1-3, 2009

Black Studies as a discipline was institutionalized in 1969. Since then, over 200 Black Studies departments have been established at colleges and universities across the United States with several offering doctoral degrees in African American Studies or Africana Studies. As an academic discipline, Black Studies were originally designed to describe and explain the conditions and problems faced by African American communities and to identify and assess alternative solutions to improve their life situations. Registration opens 2:00pm Friday in Anderson Hall

(04/30) [More]

UCCP Paints Penrose in 100 Hours of Power

Last week, approximately 250 volunteers, including many Temple students, met at Penrose Community Center to perform 100 Hours of Power — a service marathon to paint a mural and build a series of flower beds for starting a community garden. The project is part of a year-long commitment called “MLK 365” organized by Temple’s University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia (UCCP) to revitalize the playground and recreation center located at 12th Street and Susquehanna Avenue, near Temple’s Main Campus. The program began in January on Martin Luther King Day, when UCCP kicked off MLK 365 with a service project to refurbish the kitchen and build a community library at the Penrose Recreation Center.

(04/30) [More]

Temple Announces Smallest Tuition Increase in 13 Years

Temple University announced its lowest tuition increase in 13 years today, coupled with a plan to significantly increase the university’s financial aid budget over the next three years. The university’s Board of Trustees took these steps in passing the FY2010 budget two months earlier than originally scheduled to assist students and their families in this unprecedented economic downturn. Temple’s fiscal year begins July 1.Tuition will rise 2.9 percent for the coming school year. The last time that Temple had a lower tuition increase was in FY1997, when tuition went up 2.3 percent for Pennsylvania residents.

(04/30) [More]

2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist Explores How a War of Liberation Felt to Ordinary People

When the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners for letters, drama and music were announced on April 19, one of just two finalists in the general nonfiction category was The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe, by Temple historian William I. Hitchcock, a "heavily documented exploration of the overlooked suffering of noncombatants in the victory over Nazi Germany, written with the dash of a novelist and the authority of a scholar."

(04/27) [More]

William C. Dunkelberg, Ph.D. to Serve as Economic Strategist for Boenning & Scattergood

Boenning & Scattergood, Inc., an independent, securities, asset management and investment banking firm headquartered in the Mid-Atlantic region, announced it has partnered with William C. Dunkelberg, Ph.D. to serve as economic strategist for the firm. A well-respected economist and seasoned public speaker, Mr. Dunkelberg will be assisting the firm and its clients in a variety of ways in his role as economic strategist.

(04/09) [More]

To Sci-fi and Beyond

Delany, who is considered one of the most influential American postwar science-fiction stylists, has come into the public eye in Philadelphia a couple of times over the last year. He was the focus of the documentary Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, which was shown at last year's Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Last month, he read a selection of his latest works to a nearly full house at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

(04/09) [More]

Comparing Today to the Great Depression

Bryant Simon, professor of history and director of American studies at Temple University, says that there are some obvious similarities between today's crisis and the earlier one. "Of course, both crises were all-time lows for Wall Street - although the anti-Wall Street language in the 1930s was more pointed and directed," said Simon. "And, both were triggered by speculation, unregulated financial markets, and a failure of confidence. FDR closed the banks to restore credit."

(04/09) [More]