Temple University’s Board of Trustees voted to freeze tuition and change the name of the College of Education to the College of Education and Human Development on Tuesday afternoon at their first meeting since the university moved its classes online.
The Board, meeting via Zoom teleconferencing software, also approved several changes to academic programs and scholarships.
Temple announced, pending the Board’s vote, it would freeze tuition for the 2020-21 academic year amid the COVID-19 pandemic in late April, and the Board approved it today.
“Students have had to face many challenges in recent months,” President Richard Englert said in the original announcement. “A tuition increase should not be one of them.”
In his speech to the trustees via Zoom, Englert highlighted the work of students and faculty to help transition the university online as well as hospital workers and university staff who, in a number of ways, have contributed to the ongoing effort to contain COVID-19.
“Despite all the challenges we face, I have never been more proud of Temple,” Englert said.
Englert also reiterated that it is his intention to open campus in the fall “in a way that will be safe” while ensuring that “quality teaching, education, and research takes place.”
“Coming back will be complicated, but we know this,: no one works harder than the Temple community when it comes to the safety of our community and ensuring the ongoing education of our students,” he said.
Before the meeting adjourned, Chair Mitchell Morgan said many staff at Temple are working to plan “every detail” to ensure that the fall semester is successful.
“We are all optimistic that we will be back to normal, or as close to normal as we possibly can,” Morgan said.
Here’s what happened at the meeting.
Academics
Adding to ongoing changes to its facilities, scholarships and academics, the College of Education will now be named the College of Education and Human Development, the Board approved Tuesday.
In March, the Board approved changes to the bachelor of science in secondary education, the PhD in school psychology and the College of Education and Human Development’s special education programs, among others, The Temple News reported. On Tuesday, trustees approved a slew of other changes, including a restructuring of several undergraduate degrees and the termination, renaming and creation of some concentrations.
Regarding the College of Public Health, the Board voted to establish a clinical doctorate in occupational therapy in occupational therapy, create a master of public health in nutrition and terminate the minor in communication sciences and disorders.
The College of Liberal Arts will establish a minor in public policy, rename its minor in anthropology: human biology, and terminate its concentration in human biology in the bachelor of arts in anthropology and the minor in Asian American studies, the Board approved.
The Board also voted to establish an optional concentration in electromechanical engineering and a concentration in energy and power engineering for the bachelor of science in engineering.
Finally, the Fox School of Business will rename the master of science in marketing as the master of science in marketing research and insights and terminate several concentrations while the College of Science and Technology establishes a minor in natural sciences, the Board approved.
Scholarships
The Board voted to allow the Lewis Katz School of Medicine to accept a pledge of $1,500,000 to establish an endowed scholarship fund that would award an annual scholarship to one high-achieving medical student in good academic standing with demonstrated financial need. The medical school will also establish the Medical Alumni Association Board Endowed Scholarship Fund, whose purpose is to provide an annual scholarship to a deserving medical school student with demonstrated financial need from a $25,000 donation and other funds.
Trustees also approved the creation of an endowed chair in the Religion Department in the College of Liberal Arts with a concentration in Interreligious Dialogue and Catholic Studies. The Beasley School of Law will establish an endowed professorship in trial advocacy named after Edward Ohlbaum, a 1976 law school alumnus and longtime professor at the school, the Board approved.
Temple will establish a capital fund to promote last year’s renovations to the IBC Student Recreation Center and support the university’s health and wellness programs after Independence Blue Cross pledged an additional $4 million to the Department of Campus Recreation, the Board approved.
Finally, the Board voted to allow Temple Libraries to accept a donation of poems by Walter de la Mare, an English poet.
Speakers
In his remarks, Rafael Porrata-Doria, the chair of the faculty senate, said it has been “quite an eventful and calmative semester that none of us expected.”
Porrata-Doria also recognized faculty members who won outstanding faculty service awards, including Maurice Wright, a music studies professor; Gerald Stahler, a geography and urban studies professor; Paul Lafollette, a computer and information sciences professor; and Ellen Walker, the chair of the department of pharmaceutical sciences.
In her remarks, Francesca Capozzi, the former Student Body President, highlighted the initiatives that Temple Student Government undertook this year, including the continuation of Sexual Assault Prevention Week, the installation of sanitary bins in Main Campus bathrooms, and TSG’s advocacy for partial tuition reimbursements for Spring 2020.
Capozzi also named members of the incoming TSG administration, who won in an unopposed election last month, and said she is “positive that they will make the student body proud.”
“The incoming TSG administration is comprised of incredible and hardworking individuals, and I am excited to see the work they accomplish,” Capozzi said.
The Board will meet next on July 7.
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