Goodbye, Good Luck

For the last three months and a half, we’ve told you what we thought about a smorgasbord of issues.

Whether it was controversy erupting on a national level like the spewing of racial epithets heard around the world, or controversy right here on Main Campus with the status of the Blockson Collection, we had our say, and at times, you also had your say (although we wish you’d have your say more often).

For those who have been here for a while, the start of the fall semester was almost like beginning your college career at a new school.

It certainly was a new era, a brand new day here.

For the first time in three years, we welcomed new students with a welcome back edition at the end of August.

We welcomed coaches Al Golden and Fran Dunphy to Temple Athletics and ushered in Dr. Ann Weaver Hart as Temple’s first female president.

In her short time here, we see in Dr. Hart, a president who has the immense potential to better connect with her students – with time.

We’ve covered Temple football’s sole win of the season, Tyler’s imminent move here to Main, a fraternity’s suspension, and sadly the passing of Arnold Boyd and the departure of Ainsley Carry.

But with such sadness, there was some joy.
Your student newspaper was selected
as a recipient of the Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award, the highest honor bestowed upon any college newspaper in the nation.

In any case, we couldn’t have done it without you, a dedicated readership.
We thank you for reading what we had to say and writing to us even when you were the least bit amused by what appeared on our pages.

But before we take off for our own versions of a Winter Wonderland, we’re going to wrap up of a few things and lay out our thoughts and Christmas wishes for this university’s future next year.

We’ll start with Temple Student Government. Last May, “The Temple News” for the first time endorsed a slate running for TSG.

That slate was Owl Evolution which comprised Raysean Hogan, Juan Galeano and Priya Patel.

One of the slate’s primary concerns going into the race was diversity affairs here at Temple. At the first President’s Forum held last Thursday, that plan was visualized in the announcement about TSG’s initiation of a multicultural student union. A revamping of Greek Week was also discussed.

This is an idea that not only has promise, but has been a long time coming. Temple’s diversity is a feature that is often used as a selling point to incoming students.
But how true is this when the numbers of minority students enrolling at the university continue to decline as years go by?

A multicultural student union would embrace the diversity that exists on this campus while serving as an umbrella organization and support network for students and organizations of color, giving all students the opportunity to share their unique cultural differences.

While beefing up diversity affairs is a chief concern of TSG, we found this issue discussed at the forum humorous and were left to ask, “What’s in a name?”

Apparently a lot, as our beloved Student Center was recently christened the Howard Gittis Student Center. Jason Levy, director of the Student Center said that the Student Center, affectionately known to most students as the SAC, would no longer be known as that.

If we understood Levy correctly at last week’s forum, the university will waste our precious tuition dollars to work on a “major campaign,” to aid in phasing out the colloquial moniker of the place that many of us consider our second home on campus.

As for the pledge to better Greek Week here, we see a plan that will only work if the entire Greek system can work together as one to achieve their common goals.

The Greek community does a lot to better the Temple community as is evident in the many service-related activities they perform.

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. held a Christmas benefit concert together with Temple Advocates for Africa last Sunday. Toys were collected to be donated to underprivileged children.

And our final Christmas wish? That you’ll come back in January for yet another semester of engaging and stimulating dialogue from yours truly.

Here’s hoping all of your wishes come true this holiday season.

Happy Holidays.