As new Temple president John Fry approaches his first 100 days in office, he follows a history of more than six other presidents spanning almost two decades.
During his first week, Fry met with The Temple News, enrollment management, Temple Student Government, the presidential transition team, the Department of Public Safety and former President Richard Englert.
Since former President David Adamany left in 2006 with a low approval rating, seven presidents have taken the lead for Temple, with most only staying for four to six years. Public perception, strategic vision and important hires are often decided during the first 100 days of a presidential tenure.
During the past month, The Temple News’ staff dug through archives of our previous reporting to examine the last few decades of Temple presidents to compare their first months in the position.
Here is a look at what Temple’s last six presidents accomplished, and what they didn’t, in their first 100 days in office.
Ann Weaver Hart (2006-2012)
Hart was selected as the university’s first female president in May 2006 and assumed the presidency in July that year.
Hart immediately prioritized increasing private philanthropy, keeping out of the residential neighborhood around Temple’s campus and possibly capping enrollment at its then-34,000-strong student body, The Temple News reported.
She believed the university should focus on supporting and strengthening the current infrastructure instead of overloading it with more students, she told The Temple News in October 2006.
Hart was president for four years at the University of New Hampshire, which drew concerns about her lack of experience at a school like Temple in an urban location versus UNH’s campus located in a rural area.
“Great cities need great universities, and great universities need great cities,” Hart said in an April 2006 meeting with students. “The surrounding neighborhood of Temple is one of the important parts of the future success of Temple in achieving that original mission and a commitment to access to excellence.”
The next year, the then-largest freshman class in Temple’s history, enrolled 4,300 students. In 2010, another record-breaking number of undergraduates would arrive, at more than 7,000 total including 4,300 freshmen. In comparison, the Class of 2028 enrolled 4,926 students, according to the university.
Hart accomplished her immediate goal of raising Temple’s endowment in her first year and continued her fundraising efforts during her tenure. Temple completed its first comprehensive fundraising campaign under Hart, raising $380 million — $80 million more than its original goal.
Hart announced her departure on Sept. 9, 2012, with an end date effective June 2013. She cited her mother’s failing health in Salt Lake City as her departure, The Temple News reported.
While searching for a new president, Richard Englert served as interim president from June 2012 to Dec. 31, 2013.
Neil Theobald (2013-2016)
Theobald was announced as the university’s next president in August 2012 and began his tenure on Jan. 1, 2013. He was Indiana University’s senior vice president and chief financial officer before he began at Temple. His financial background heavily influenced his tenure as president.
“It doesn’t do you any good to simply lower costs if you lower quality at the same time,” Theobald told The Temple News in August 2012. “We have to train students and prepare them for a very competitive economy when they graduate. You can provide access, you can provide opportunity, but if it’s not affordable to students, you really undercut yourself.”
In his inauguration speech, Theobald announced a $50 million research funding project to urban ecology, sustainability, cancer research and genetics, but kept quiet about ongoing projects in university remodeling and a struggling athletic department, The Temple News reported.
Theobald spearheaded Visualize Temple, a project that includes the ongoing updates to Paley Hall, which is scheduled to reopen in 2026.
The project also included the demolition of Beury Hall and the Biology-Life Sciences Building, which would be replaced with a new building. There have been no apparent updates on this portion of the project following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Theobald reworked Temple’s budgeting model to allocate funds to the individual colleges within the university, which he modeled after Indiana’s budget.
In 2016, The Board of Trustees initiated a vote of no confidence and ousted Theobald after he terminated Provost Hai-Lung Dai without first notifying the board due to his misappropriation of funds. He resigned on July 21, 2016, and Englert was named acting president once again, The Temple News reported.
Richard Englert (2016-2021)
Englert began his first long-term presidential tenure on July 21, 2016.
In his inauguration speech, Englert announced his intention to cap merit scholarships to avoid a repeat of financial aid deficits that overshadowed Theobald’s administration. That year, Temple enrolled more high schoolers with high GPAs to Temple, increasing 17% with the class of 2020. He also encouraged increasing alumni donations and improving public rankings through their graduation rate numbers and their research and faculty.
During Englert’s first term, Temple saw its highest overall enrollment and U.S. News ranking in his first year — with a 40,240 student body and becoming the No. 53 best public university in 2017, respectively.
The development team raised more than $90 million in gifts between 2016-17. Temple received more than $250 million in research expenditures, like a Lewis Katz School of Medicine study for stem cell heart treatments and opioid addiction.
Englert unsuccessfully campaigned to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in February 2017 and asked to receive their 2008 appropriation of $187 million, even though then-Gov. Tom Wolf proposed about $150 million early in the month. Instead, the university had to look at alternative revenue sources, like tuition increases, without an increased appropriation, Chief Financial Officer Ken Kaiser told The Temple News in 2017.
Temple’s state appropriation has remained at more than $158,000,000 since 2019.
Englert announced in July 2020 that he would retire by the end of the 2020-21 academic year. He was 74 at the time.
Jason Wingard (2021-2023)
Wingard, dean emeritus and professor at Columbia University, was announced as the university’s next president on June 8, 2021. He officially became Temple’s first Black president on July 1.
Quickly, he became arguably the most tumultuous president in university history.
Wingard immediately overhauled the office of the president. He created new chief of staff and chief administration officer positions to “streamline” his administration and achieve his goal of “rebranding the university,” said Michael Gebhardt, Wingard’s chief of staff and current university secretary.
In his inauguration, he outlined 10 initiatives to help increase Temple’s accessibility, community engagement and reputation, The Temple News reported. The list included an Institute for the Future of Work, which could plan future campuses in Los Angeles, South America, Asia and other continents. The institute was never founded in Wingard’s tenure.
Wingard also made efforts to elevate public perception of Temple by increasing social media engagement but rarely made himself available for media requests and made it difficult to schedule a meeting with him. It took nearly eight months for Wingard to complete his first sit-down interview with The Temple News — in March 2022.
He also introduced the Temple Access Fund, which provided unrestricted financial support to students with “demonstrated financial need” so they would graduate on time. The form for alumni donations to the fund has since been disabled, effectively ending the program.
Wingard promised Temple students that the campus safety force would increase by 50%, according to a Nov. 30 statement. That goal had not been reached more than a year later. In an interview with NBC10, Wingard said he didn’t “have the answer” to how to keep Temple students safe.
A March 2023 poll by The Temple News found that more than 92% of 1,000 surveyed students disapproved of Wingard;s performance. The Temple University Association of Professionals opted to hold a no-confidence vote in Wingard, Provost Gregory Mandel and BOT Chairman Mitchell Morgan in March 2023, The Temple News first reported. Wingard resigned two weeks before the anticipated vote and a week after The Temple News’ poll.
JoAnne Epps (2023) and Englert (2023-24)
Epps was named acting president on April 11, 2023 as the university searched for a long-term replacement for Wingard. She had departed the university’s administration after Wingard reorganized administrative leadership in his initial weeks.
“The question that I will be asking is what are we doing, what else might we be doing, and most importantly, what else might I confer and listen so that we can come up with a comprehensive plan and move forward so that our students and their parents will feel this is a safe place for them to go to school,” Epps said in her introductory press conference.
Epps did not have any fundamental plans for Temple in her acting presidency, as she knew she would not be in the role for long as the Search Committee looked for a replacement. She hoped that Temple, a year from her press conference, would be “calmer, happier and a little less stressed,” she told The Temple News.
About five months later, Epps unexpectedly died after collapsing during a memorial service for Charles L. Blockson, the curator emeritus of the namesake Afro-American Collection at Temple. A figurehead of the university for almost four decades, hundreds of students attended her public vigil in mid-September.
The Board of Trustees appointed Englert as president once again, which he served from late September 2023 into Fry’s Nov. 1 hiring.
John Fry (2024-)
Fry is most recognized in Philadelphia for leading Drexel for 14 years. In his 2010 inauguration speech, he outlined two significant parts of his vision; one, to make Drexel a “deeper and better” institution using the university’s existing mission, and second, to strengthen Drexel’s role in the “local, regional and national” scope.
As he begins his first official months at Temple, Fry does not plan to hold a press conference or bring back State of the University addresses, according to a university spokesperson. In November, The Temple News’ Editorial Board encouraged Fry to be accessible and hold different university addresses to maintain transparency with the university community.
In the last week of the Fall 2024 semester, Fry recapped his short tenure with a message of gratitude for the community and hopes for the future. He intends to conduct studies into the Department of Public Safety, Temple’s budgeting model and the Institutional Advancement and Alumni Relations office. The university will also open a new comprehensive student services center as well as a success management platform for students to utilize.
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