The Board of Trustees approved a name change to the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management and accepted a gift of $1 million from a trustee for fine-art installations in the Student Center and Alter Hall.
The Board changed the name to the School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management. The school will be reorganized and a department of Sport and Recreation Management will be created.
This is the first time SSTHM has rebranded since the school’s opening in 1998.
“As we developed a plan to appropriately rebrand our school, it became apparent that we must find a creative way to best position ourselves for the future, while also honoring our storied past,” said Dr. Elizabeth H. Barber, the school’s Associate Dean in a press release.
“Our school was founded as STHM,” she said. “We have attained national rankings, achieved international renown, hired award-winning faculty, and educated industry-leading students as STHM. Those letters are synonymous with success at every level, and it was critical to our rebranding process that we preserve this acronym.”
Sport management is not new to SSTHM; a Bachelor of Science in Sport and Recreation Management is a popular major within the school.
“It’s not unusual for colleges and universities to make decisions that they need to make changes to what they’re requiring for a specific field as that field evolves,” said Ray Betzner, associate vice president for executive communications. “They want to make sure that students leave here with the knowledge and have the skills that they need to be really current with what’s going on in their field.”
The $1 million gift from Trustee Dennis Alter and $500,000 from the university will be spent on a curator, said Jim Dicker, vice president of institutional advancement.
“We approached [Alter] about giving a gift, and then worked through this idea,” Dicker said after the Board meeting. “He is very interested in art, so it was perfect.”
Various art installations will be added to Alter Hall and the Student Center while the Center is being renovated.
The curator will work with Alter and the university to choose the art pieces and add them within two years, Dicker said.
“If we can use art as a teaching tool for students where they are anyway, it’s great,” he added.
President Theobald began the meeting by congratulating the Class of 2016 and several exemplary students.
This included the first of two students to complete Temple’s Fly in 4 program, a civil engineering graduate employed to Hensel Phelps in Orlando and a Beasley School of Law graduate headed to the Air Force to be a judge advocate general.
Both TSG President Ryan Rinaldi and Faculty Senate President Tricia Jones said goodbye to the Board of Trustees. Rinaldi graduated and is headed to a position at Goldman Sachs and Jones is replaced by professor Michael Sachs.
The Board approved the continued use of 2015-2016 fiscal year spending levels until it reconvenes July 12 to approve the 2016-2017 university budget due to the nine-month state budget impasse that occurred earlier this year.
Faculty tenure and renovations to bathrooms and locker rooms in Pearson McGonigle hall were approved. An increase in budget was added to bathroom renovations in Temple Towers. Johnson and Hardwick Residence halls was also approved a facade repair.
A standardized patient/clinical simulation lab was approved by the Board for the School of Podiatric Medicine, along with general anatomy laboratory renovations for the school.
The Board approved the Academic Affairs Committee’s recommendation to make 30 changes to curricula in schools and colleges across the university. This includes the establishment of a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese and a Master of Science in Neuroscience: Systems, Behavior and Plasticity in the College of Liberal Arts. Master of Public Health with concentrations in applied biostatistics, environmental health, epidemiology, health policy management and social and behavioral science in the College of Public Health.
Gillian McGoldrick can be reached at gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu or on Twitter @gill_mcgoldrick.
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