A task force focusing on community issues plans to question student groups.
On Oct. 8, the Community and Student Issues and Concerns Task Force met for the third time since its inception last month.
Chaired by Dean of Students Dr. Stephanie Ives, the task force was created to ease tensions between Temple and residents in the North Philadelphia area. Main issues include off-campus student housing, student-neighbor relations and students’ safety off campus.
“I really enjoy being on the task force because you get to see how the different entities at Temple care about students’ safety,” Ugo Obilo, Temple Student Government vice president of services, said.
Ives said, in an email, “When the larger task force is not meeting, several sub-committees get together and engage in specific inquiries in order to develop recommendations to be proposed. Those subcommittees are: (1) programs and services, (2) outreach, (3) discipline & police interaction, (4) academic inquiry, and (5) communication.”
Obilo and Andrea Caporale Seiss,
senior associate dean of students, make up the outreach committee. The Outreach committee is currently compiling sample questions to present to a student focus group. Obilo said the focus group will include students picked from different student groups, majors, housing situations and years.
Sample questions, which have yet to be finalized include “What support did you receive from the university to help prepare you for living off campus?” and “Do you know if you live within the university’s primary patrol zone?”
The task force, Obilo said, hopes to create the focus group before finals.
Obilo said the Task Force suggested a “transitioning seminar for students who are moving off campus into the community.”
“The task force will meet three more times by mid-December and will present a report to [President Ann Weaver Hart] in mid-January,” Ives said.
Amelia Brust can be reached at abrust@temple.edu.
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