Students honored at Diamond Awards Ceremony

A jazz trio played as guests and winners filed in to room 200 of the Student Center for the third annual Diamond Awards Ceremony last night, where 25 juniors and seniors were awarded for their superior leadership, academic achievement, service to the university and impact on the community.

“Our Diamond Award recipients are willing to take the risks—that is what has set you apart,” Ainsley Carry, dean of students, said to the winners before presenting a portion of the awards.

In previous years, winners were recognized as Diamond Award winners after receiving other awards or distinctions. Theresa A. Powell, vice president for student affairs, said that this year’s selections were more selective than previous years, where 60 and 70 students received the distinction.

“They are simply the best and brightest,” Powell said.

Potential candidates were referred to the Diamond Awards Selection Committee by students and faculty members. 125 names were submitted to the committee, with 95 of those students choosing to apply. The committee then selected the top 25 of the group.

“This is the most accomplished gathering of student talent assembled in one room,” Powell said.

She added that the average grade point average for the winners is a 3.6. Two of the winners will speak at college graduation ceremonies on May 22 and one will speak at the university-wide commencement that day. Powell said that the winners will be attending graduate school at Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, Harvard and Temple.

Four presenters read a short list of each winner’s accomplishments and presented the recipients with a glass diamond award with the words “Simply the best” etched in to the glass.

After the ceremony, a reception was held in the Student Center for winners, faculty, and family. Many presenters and faculty members stayed for the ceremony to personally congratulate the winners.

“Each time a Temple student is recognized, we all share in his or her glory,” Powell said.

2008 Diamond Award recipients:

Candice L. Borrows

Michael D. Campanell

Kendrick B. Davis

Samantha M. Davis

Anthony A. DeFusco

Mawata Dunbar

Rachel J. Ezzell

Karolina Galler

Julie M. Gargotta

Bradley S. Hoffman

Jaclyne E. Hopkins

Erin M. Howley

Brooke L. Huttner

Stephen P. Hyslop

Tamara A. Johns

Timothy W. Magee

Courtney E. Norene

Allison K. Pymer

Pauline M. Romas

Lindsay A. Siegle

Laura Stein

Eric H. Stephenson

Chris B. Stover

Emily N. Tatro

Christopher G. Wink

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu
*Full disclosure: Chris Stover and Chris Wink are members of The Temple News staff.

History professor takes job at NYC museum

History professor Morris J. Vogul has accepted a positition as president of The Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side in New York City.

Vogul will begin his term as president starting this summer. He has taught American history at Temple for the last 30 years, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article. He served as acting dean of the college of liberal arts from 1999 to 2003.

“The museum is a different way of teaching,” Vogul told The Temple News. “It has 130,000 visitors a year. It is the most visited historic site in Manhattan. It’s a way to be a Temple historian in a different setting.”

The Tenement Museum is housed in an actual six-story tenement building in New York City. Vogul is the second president of the museum, preceded by founding president Ruth J. Abram.

“It’s an outgrowth of the kind of work I’ve been doing while at Temple. I’ve been involved in both public history and social American history. This is an iconic institution in both of those areas. It’s an institution that has done a lot to shape the fields of discipline in which I work. I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity,” Vogul told The Temple News.

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu

Cosby not around for my commencement

I was an eager freshman in 2004.

That fall, Bill Cosby, Board of Trustees member, alumnus and longtime university advocate, held his second annual “Cosby 101” event, during which he lectured to incoming Temple students on life, the city and education.

There he promised the graduating Class of 2008 – my class – he would speak at our commencement. As a freshman, I thought this would be the greatest thing in the world and looked forward to continuing in the Temple tradition of having Cosby speak at my graduation.

But, of course, a lot can change in four years.

Cosby is not scheduled to speak at the 2008 commencement, as reported last week by The Temple News [“Graduation speaker announced,” Alex Irwin, April 14, 2008].

He hasn’t spoken at a Temple graduation event since 2004.

Since then, he has appeared only sporadically at Temple, such as when he addressed the track and field team in early 2007 and a handful of teach-ins for the college of education. Even the very “Cosby 101” event that was promoted as a yearly occurrence hasn’t taken place since 2004.

In the past, the university has claimed it is Cosby’s schedule that precludes him from coming back to North Broad.
Cosby has indeed been busy, but he’s had time to fit in lots of graduation speeches.

He has spoken at Spellman College, Dillard University and the University of Connecticut since 2004, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He also spoke at the May 2007 graduation ceremony held by High Point University in High Point, N.C., as reported by The Temple News [“Cosby to speak at 2007 High Point grad,” Alex Irwin, Sept. 5, 2006].

In April 2006, Stuart Sullivan, then the university’s vice president for development and alumni affairs, suggested Cosby was distancing himself from Temple, [“Celebrity support wanes,” Megan Kelsey, April 25, 2006]. Sullivan said the university wanted Cosby to be the lone alumni commencement speaker – a tradition.

Well, it’s been broken.

This year, Floyd W. Alston, a local business leader and 1970 graduate, is the featured university-wide speaker. Calls to Cosby and his publicist were not returned regarding this matter, and the university has no official position.

Regardless, what can be gathered is that, like other aspects of Temple, our commencement tradition may be at the end of an era.
Last May, President Ann Weaver Hart asked a committee to examine the process used to select commencement speakers, encouraging more focus on a student speaker, highlighted by last year’s address from Jameel Rush, a 2007 graduate who grew up in Temple’s shadow, came here and excelled [“N. Philadelphia native to speak at graduation,” Leigh Zaleski, May 1, 2007].

Although the Class of 2008 may not have the pleasure of partaking in the longtime Temple tradition of hearing from one of this country’s great 20th-century icons, the most important tradition we have witnessed at Temple is the tradition of change. The knowledge that what was there yesterday can be improved by tomorrow, and that we can carry that ambition for positive action long after graduation.

Sean Blanda can be reached at sean.blanda@temple.edu.

Graduation speaker announced

Floyd W. Alston will be the featured speaker at the university-wide commencement ceremony at the Liacouras Center on May 22.

Alston, a local business leader, will also receive an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the university, according to a university release. In 1990, Alston founded Beech Corp., a community development corporation that revitalized the Cecil B. Moore neighborhood. Alston’s contributions through Beech have created $200 million of private development in the neighborhoods surrounding Main Campus.

Alston, a North Philadelphia native, graduated from Temple in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He also served as president of the School District of Philadelphia and participated in numerous other civic organizations.

“Floyd Alston has been a catalyst for the kind of change that makes a real difference in the daily lives of Philadelphians, especially those who live and work in the community surrounding Temple,” President Ann Weaver Hart said in the release.

In 2004, Bill Cosby spoke at an event titled “Cosby 101,” where he promised to be at the freshman class’ graduation, which is this year. Temple spokesman Ray Betzner said that the university has no information on Cosby’s plans to attend the ceremony.

The university has awarded more than 800 honorary degrees in its 124-year history. During former president David Adamany’s six-year tenure from 2000 to 2006, only three honorary degrees were awarded. Ann Weaver Hart’s administration awarded its only honorary degree prior to Alston’s award in May at the 25th anniversary of Temple University Japan. That recipient was author and film critic Donald Richie.

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu.

Kahlo-culture comes to PMA

Many great artists gain the most recognition from their tortured lives and the abnormal events that fueled their creativity. The works they produce in reaction to these events are often overshadowed by the fabled stories that surround them.

Frida Kahlo’s life and work are no exception. The tragedies of her life have been the subject of countless films and books. But the Philadelphia Museum of Art decided to put a refreshingly direct focus on her art in their latest featured exhibit, Frida Kahlo.

The exhibit opened on Feb. 20 and runs through May 18, featuring 42 of the Mexican artist’s paintings and more than 100 photographs of Kahlo and those close to her, taken prior to her death in 1957.

The first painting on display, Self-Portrait with Monkey (1943), exhibits many of Kahlo’s trademark subjects and techniques. One of several self-portraits in the gallery, it features her distinctive unibrow and whisper of facial hair on the upper lip. Kahlo painted herself in front of a floral background with four monkeys clinging to her, perhaps representing the children she was never able to have.

The next painting exhibited is another self-portrait – a painting from 1931 that shows Kahlo with her longtime husband, the famed Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Here she is dwarfed by Rivera. She stands slightly behind him, her feet almost comically small in comparison to his. He holds the painter’s palette, not her.

These first two paintings show Kahlo’s artistic development in the years that separate them, even though they are displayed in reverse order. After showing just these two portraits, however, the gallery presents the 118 photographs from Kahlo’s life.

In many of them she wears the same stern expression that she dons in most of her self-portraits. Many of the photographs also show Kahlo and Rivera together. Famed communist Leon Trotsky, with whom Kahlo had an affair, is also present in many of the photos. The exhibit mixes candid shots with posed portraits, blurring the line between Kahlo’s public life with her infamous personal exploits.

While the photographs reveal a great deal about her life, their impact is lost by their early presentation in the progression of the exhibit. Visitors should be exposed to more of Kahlo’s works before seeing the motivations behind them. While I enjoyed looking at the photographs from a historical perspective, I pushed through them to get back to her paintings.

The rest of the exhibit exclusively features Kahlo’s art, with pieces grouped together in a loose chronological order that makes it easy to view Kahlo’s paintings through the framework of her life. A series of self-portraits from the late 1930s show her holding cigarettes with various inhuman companions, including a doll and an Itzcuintli dog, symbolizing her divorce from Rivera and feelings of isolation.

Her 1932 oil-on-metal painting, Henry Ford Hospital, shows Kahlo in a hospital bed shedding one large tear, which chronicles her multiple miscarriages. In a barren landscape with the bleak, industrial Henry Ford Automobile Plant in the background, bloody veins connect her to floating images, including an orchid, a snail and a misshapen fetus.

The painting, like others in the gallery, has a collaged feel to it, as if Kahlo painted each element separately, photographed them, then put them back together into one painting. The outward symbolism of the orchid’s sexuality and the snail’s representation of long, drawn-out pregnancies leave a lasting impact and beg for further interpretation.

The emotion and meaning of Kahlo’s work cannot be contained by canvas in a few literal cases. In A Few Small Nips, the small painting shows a man who has just stabbed a woman to death, the red paint violently spilling onto the frame. In The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, the blood trickles down past the edge of the canvas. In these paintings, as with Portrait of Luther Burbank, it is revitalizing to see Kahlo working on a deep and symbolic level with a subject other than herself.

The exhibit shows some of Kahlo’s most famous works, such as Two Fridas and Me and My Parrots and fuses these with other Latin American art forms from which Kahlo drew inspiration. With the exception of the photographs, the gallery flows well. Examining the similarities between Kahlo’s pieces reveals the intricate relationship between her tragic life and her work.

Alex Irwin can be reached at alex.irwin@temple.edu.

Ron Paul does Philly

A group of Ron Paul supporters passed out pamphlets at Saturday’s rally for the Republican presidential candidate. They handed one to an older woman hurrying across the street. “Who is he?” she asked.

“He’s running for president,” said one of the supporters.

“I’ve never heard of him. I’m voting for the lady,” the woman replied.

Paul, a lesser-known candidate, has been enjoying new media attention thanks to grassroots fundraising and Internet celebrity. He spoke to between 3,000 and 5,000 supporters at the rally, which was held at Independence Mall last Saturday afternoon.

The event was coordinated by the Greater Philadelphia Ron Paul Presidential Campaign, which is not affiliated with the official Ron Paul presidential campaign. Rocco Moffa, an assistant organizer with GPRPPC, said the organization hoped to increase the media coverage of Paul’s campaign.

“We’re looking for national exposure. The number of people who came out to rally this early in the year says something,” Moffa said. Moffa has also campaigned for Paul on Temple’s campus many times this year.

Mike Haldeman, a member of GPRPPC, said that hearing Paul speak was the most important part of the rally.

“It’s easy to go out and talk about the issues,” Haldeman said. “I tell people that I don’t do him justice – it’s better to just hear him speak.”

The event began at 1 p.m. with a short concert of patriotic songs from country music artist and veteran Rockie Lynne. To the south of the stage was a display of white markers identifying Philadelphia residents who died in foreign wars. This display is a Veterans Day tradition and was unconnected to the rally, but rally organizers said that it added to the spirit of the event.

The rally also focused on Veterans Day, with organizers asking veterans to sit directly in front of the stage. An advocate for locating abandoned prisoners of war also spoke.

After the short concert, Paul’s campaign manager Lou Moore spoke briefly about the goals of the campaign before introducing a minister to offer a prayer.

“We have one objective and one objective only,” Moore said. “To take back our country and to take back our Constitution.”

Lynne then performed again, ending with “God Bless America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Debbi Hopper, the assistant campaign manager for Paul, gave a tearful plea to encourage delegates that support Paul to the Republican National Convention, which will be held in Saint Paul, Minn., from Sept. 1 to Sept. 4, 2008.

New Jersey State Rep. Michael Doherty also spoke and introduced Paul.

Paul began his speech just before 2 p.m. and ended around 2:45 p.m. He covered many of the issues central to his campaign, focusing on withdrawing troops from Iraq and around the world and strengthening national economic policy. He began by addressing rumors in the national media, which suggest that his support in the debates and public polls comes from “spammers” who inflate his numbers with repeated votes.

“It can’t be just a few people, because they send in a lot of money,” Paul said.

“This crowd today is going to make a few believers.”

Much of his speech focused on the war in Iraq and his call for the immediate removal of troops.

“There should be no war whatsoever without a declaration from the United States Congress,” Paul said. He also noted that Iraq was created after the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I. “It’s time we got out of the way and let the Iraqis decide what kind of government they want.”

Paul also said that he feared the current attack on civil liberties, citing the war on drugs, terror, poverty and illiteracy. “There is never a reason that we should have to sacrifice liberty for safety,” he said.

In addressing the recent talks about a North American Union, Paul said he opposed it and other worldwide organizations that threaten the national sovereignty of the U.S.

“We don’t need a North American Union. We don’t need a NAFTA highway. We don’t need a North American currency called the ‘Amero.’”

Late in his speech, Paul talked about the success his campaign has had with younger voters and called the Internet a “very strong political equalizer.”

Several members of the Temple Libertarians attended the rally as a registered group. Kaushik Shankar, the vice president of the group, said he expected Paul to speak about foreign policy and said that he was impressed by the rally.

“I think that it’s done pretty well considering that it’s all grassroots,” Shankar said.

Jeff Heinbach, a senior film and English double major, also attended the rally and said that he was surprised by the large turnout and hoped to hear Paul affirm many of his campaign points.

“I hope he talks about reinstituting basic rights and the Bill of Rights, which is the crux of his campaign,” Heinbach said.

Paul himself seemed pleased with the outcome of the rally.

“If I had to guess,” he said, “it’s the biggest rally that we’ve ever had.”

Alex Irwin can be reached at alex.irwin@temple.edu.

On the road, she works to open minds

Abigail Reikow, the daughter of a Philadelphia Police officer, has been arrested three times.

The junior English and education double major is an active member of Soulforce, a national organization that is working to end sexual discrimination. As an equality rider for the organization, Reikow has been arrested for her civil disobedience
work.

Since March 7, Reikow has traveled to conservative Christian colleges across the East Coast, where she nonviolently protests the schools’ discriminatory policies against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. Paige Schilt, director of national media and public relations for Soulforce, said nonviolence
is the foundation of the organization.

“Soulforce is a national social justice organization that seeks freedom from religious and political oppression of LGBT individuals through relentless nonviolent resistance based on Martin Luther King and [Mohandas] Gandhi,” Schilt said.

Reikow started working with the organization when she protested the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military at the Philadelphia Army Recruitment
Center, which is located at Broad and Arch streets. But Reikow said she is glad she stepped up her involvement with the organization as an equality rider.

“It has been an incredible experience,” Reikow said. “If you would have asked me a year ago where I would be today, I would not have said on a bus to demonstrate at Cedarville University. I’m really glad I did it though. It’s been awesome.”

The Equality Ride was composed of a total
of 52 riders. It was divided into two regions: East and West. Reikow, riding on the East bus, traveled to 15 Christian colleges, including Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., and Messiah College in Grantham, Pa. But of the 15 schools she and fellow her riders visited, Reikow said only five allowed the riders to enter the campus. One of the most resistant campuses was Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss., she said.

“At Mississippi College, the city tried to pass an ordinance that, if we got off the bus in groups of four or more, they would arrest us,” Reikow said. “We got the [American Civil Liberities Union] involved, and eventually we were allowed
off the bus.

“But they still had police surrounding the campus and wouldn’t let us enter. Students
then started coming down to us on the public streets to talk to us,” she continued.”

When the group left the campus, a police
officer pulled them over three times, telling them to leave the city and threatening to arrest the bus driver, who was not affiliated with Soulforce, Reikow added.

Reikow, who is heterosexual, said being
straight has helped her generate interest when talking to students on campuses.

“A lot of students assume that I’m gay,” Reikow said. “When they find out that I’m straight, they are interested to find out why a heterosexual is on this trip. It helps me connect with the students, especially young male heterosexuals.”

When not demonstrating on college campuses, Reikow and the equality riders find ways to occupy their time, such as having
dinner with students or writing postcards to their trip sponsors.

But even their recreational activities employ a heavy emphasis on activism.

“Sometimes we take day trips. In Birmingham, [Ala.], we visited the Civil Rights Institute. It was really cool to be in that moment and say, ‘Wow, I am a part of continuing this,’” Reikow said.

A self-proclaimed atheist, Reikow said she was surprised by how this trip changed her view of Christianity.

“It’s given me a much better perspective
on Christianity. There is usually a welcoming church at each stop where we have dinner and meet some of the congregation,” she said.

“These people don’t even know us, but are so wonderful, largely because of their faith. It has given me a better view of Christianity, even though I’ve also seen the worst of it.”

Reikow will return to Temple April 26, when the trip concludes. She plans to take classes during the summer before graduating next year.

“I’m pretty sure that a lot of us might not ever see each other again,” she said of the other riders on the trip. “It will be really sad. I’m thankful that I’ve known them in this situation, though, because this kind of thing really brings out the best in people,” she said.

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu.

A friendly exchange of words

Temple and the University of Pennsylvania have more in common than just basketball coach Fran Dunphy.

Graduate students from both universities take classes through each school’s English department in a program called Temple-Penn Poetics. The program also sponsors poetry readings and discussions from notable poets in an effort to promote and stimulate the poetry community in Philadelphia. These events take place on both Temple’s and Penn’s campuses throughout the semester.

Rachel Blau Duplessis, a poetry professor in Temple’s creative writing program, is involved in Temple-Penn Poetics. She said that these connections benefit the individual student and the community as a whole.

“There is a tremendous exchange between these two universities who have great offerings in poetry and poetics in this region,” Duplessis said. “There are also great intellectual exchanges between graduate students from both schools, who now know each other a bit better.”

Charles Bernstein, a professor of English at Penn, said the partnership gives the events a community-wide context. “We are able to offer more events and cross publicize them to offer a greater range of student and faculty interest,” Bernstein said. “These events, which are free and open to the public, provide arts programming for the Philadelphia community.”

Bob Perelman, another English professor at Penn, and Jena Osman, a poetry professor at Temple, are the other two professors involved in the program. Sarah Dowling, a Penn graduate student who is taking a class in the Temple-Penn Poetics program, said one of the most significant advantages
of the program is the career opportunities it creates.

“You want to prove that you’ve done things more than just going to class and writing papers,” Dowling said. “Working with students and faculty from another school shows that you are able to do readings or set-up conferences. It’s a great opportunity to take that set of skills wherever you are going.”

This fall, Duplessis and Bernstein will co-teach a class for graduate students at both universities.

The class, which Duplessis describes as the “greatest hits of modernism,” will be shared between the two campuses. “This merger of classes is a great experment in collaboration with the graduate students
who are most anxious to learn about the field,” Duplessis said. She added that the transcripts of all students taking classes through Temple-Penn Poetics will now show that they took classes at another school. Previously, all collaboration had been done through independent studies.

Dowling said she sees another advantage to a whole class of collaborations, rather than just one or two students per year.

“The mix of students will be much greater
in a whole class,” Dowling said. “There will be lots of people who don’t have poetics as their primary interest. Having these people mix within the class will really benefit discussion.” Julia Bloch, a Penn graduate student of English literature, said the opportunity to work with Duplessis was the advantage to participating.

“I knew before I came to Penn that [Duplessis] was someone I wanted to work with when I came to Philadelphia,” Bloch said. “I knew her work and I was lucky that the infrastructure was there for me to take her class at Temple.” Bloch added that the unique program has become recognized within the poetry and poetics community. “It’s taken a very short time for it to become a cornerstone of the poetry scene, which is exciting to see. I hope it will inspire other schools to look beyond their own campus borders as well,” Bloch said.

Although the participation in the program
is still relatively limited, Duplessis said the cooperation between the professors involved will allow the program to continue to grow.

“The four professors involved have a lot of intellectual closeness and a large vision for what it could become,” Duplessis said.

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu.

Former IH professor vying for vacant City Council seat

Sometimes, in politics, being at large is the best way to get elected. That’s Marc Stier’s plan, anyway. Stier, a former intellectual heritage professor in the College of Liberal Arts, is seeking the Democratic nomination for city councilman-at-large in the May 15 primary.

The Philadelphia City Council consists of 17 seats, 10 from districts around the city and seven others who are elected “at large” to represent the entire city of Philadelphia. Stier said he chose to run for councilman-at-large in part because his residence in Mt. Airy falls on the border between Districts 4 and 8. He also said his campaign platforms have a broader, citywide appeal.

“There is an opportunity to gather the progressives around the city for their votes. I can win this race if I can bring progressives, progressive unions and various minorities together,” Stier said.

In an effort to reach out to progressives,
Stier’s campaign Web site includes a blog where he regularly posts his thoughts and essays about Philadelphia politics and his campaign. A longtime blogger, Stier transferred his personal blog to his campaign site in hopes of attracting more readers.

“In politics, you first go for the activists who help you spread your message. Blogs help to do that,” Stier said.

Kevin Arceneaux, assistant professor in the political science department, said campaign
Web sites have been utilized in the past, though for different goals.

“Campaigns have definitely used Web sites as a fundraising tool in the past, basically building a Web site that attracts faithful voters for donations. “The Web will continue to be used [in] that way in the future,” Arceneaux said.

Stier also keeps in touch with voters by sending them e-mails and posting messages on the comment page of his Web site. He said he plans to send almost 40,000 recipients e-mails, encouraging them to visit his site and read his blog.

This recent use of campaign sites indicates
a new direction many candidates are pursuing with their online content, Arceneaux said.

“I think that campaigns are going to have to start making Web content more entertaining. Stier’s site shows where the future is headed in making sites more interactive and more spontaneous,” Arceneaux said.

Although Stier is not teaching this semester in order to focus on his campaign, he said campaigning has become more than a full-time job.

“I shouldn’t have even taught last semester. I felt it was unfair to my students. The campaign practically started in October and I was much busier than I anticipated,” Stier said.

Although it is only primary election season, the Democratic Party’s stronghold in Philadelphia makes this election almost as important as the general election in the fall. Stier said this is especially true for at-large council seats.

“In the Democratic Primary, the top five vote recipients get on the ballot for the general election,” Stier said. “Because of the large Democratic majority in Philadelphia, the primary is a huge deal. If I win the primary, I’m in.”

If elected, Stier said he hopes to work for change with reformers outside city politics and administration.

“Progressives are already building citywide
organizations, but it’s hard to get real answers unless you have someone on the inside,” Stier said. “We need an insider to know about things like upcoming legislation,” he continued.

“We also need to combine that with people on the outside to put pressure on council,” Stier said.Stier added that, if elected, he wants to tackle government corruption and work on modernizing the services provided by the city.

“Politicians are elected by cutting deals with individuals and groups and not by presenting innovative ideas for the city,” Stier said. He said he plans to bring innovative ideas to a city that, he believes, is “15 years behind [other] modern cities in crime, transit,
education and affordable housing because of the [current] political system.”

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.edu.

Assaults worry community

Philadelphia and Campus Police are investigating three potentially related assault cases involving three female Temple students in areas just a block from Broad Street.

The three victims gave similar descriptions of the offender, identifying him as an African American teenage male who was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall with a medium to stocky build. Capt. Robert M. Lowell of Campus Police said the similar descriptions have led police to consider a single perpetrator, though they cannot be sure at this time.

“It’s extremely difficult to say. There are several similarities and dissimilarities.
It’s a hard call,” Lowell said.

The first incident occurred Feb. 3 at the 1600 block of Fontaine Street. According to the official police report, the offender approached a 21-year-old female Temple student and asked to borrow her cell phone.

The offender then forced her to the ground and unzipped his pants before unsuccessfully attempting to steal her purse. The perpetrator eventually fled the scene with the victim’s cell phone.Four days later, at the 1700 block of Diamond Street, the offender held a knife to a female student’s neck, demanding her purse and cell phone. The victim reported that the offender groped her before leaving with the victim’s purse and cell phone.

And last Monday, while walking along the 2000 block of Carlisle Street, a female student reported that a man asked to use her cell phone and, when she refused, he grabbed her and repeatedly asked for a hug. Eventually the offender fled, only taking the victim’s cell phone.

Lowell said both Campus Police Provostand Philadelphia Police have taken steps to further the investigation and make the areas safer for students, including making it more difficult for people to identify police officers in the area.

“Patrol-wise, the city [police] and Campus Police both have extra units out,” Lowell said. “Both departments are using marked as well as unmarked vehicles. We are using uniformed and plain-clothes officers
as well as bicycle patrols in subdued uniforms so that they can investigate without being immediately marked as a police officer.”

Diamond Street is home to many Temple students, including Brea Stover,
who lives off Diamond and Carlisle streets. Though unaware of the recent incidents,
Stover said she was surprised that these things had happened.

“I didn’t think that there were any real problems with students, but I guess I was wrong,” said Stover, a junior public relations major.

Katie Hoban, a junior advertising major, said she heard about the events from family and friends and is taking extra precautions to stay safe.

“I don’t park my car around the block anymore because I’m not comfortable
walking by myself,” Hoban said, adding
that a more visible police force would help make her feel safer.

“I usually feel pretty safe around here. There are some families on my street that really look out for everyone. I would like to see Temple cops riding around more often. I usually only see them on Friday nights,” Hoban said.

Freshman Jennifer Markle lives in White Hall, which is located in close proximity
to where the incidents occurred. She said the incidents have changed how attentive she will be when walking in that part of the neighborhood.

“I am definitely going to be more aware. People don’t always pay attention to what’s going on around them, but I definitely will now,” said Markle, an advertising
major.

Lowell said awareness is key in staying
safe on and around campus, adding that cell phones often detract from a pedestrian’s awareness.

“If you watch faculty and students, they are often talking on cell phones or texting, not paying much attention,” Lowell
said. “Using a cell phone tells people that you have something they want. We encourage students to only use their cell phones in public if the absolutely have to.”

Alex Irwin can be reached at a.irwin@temple.ed

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