TSG joins the Student Debt Alert campaign

Several Temple Student Government members participated in a photo shoot held by the Student Debt Alert campaign last Wednesday afternoon outside of the Student Center.

The Student Debt Alert is a nationwide project developed by Student Public Interest Research Groups that is focused on “sounding the alarm about rising student debt and the need to improve student loan programs,” according to the campaign statement on the organization’s Web site.

Student Debt Alert staff workers photographed more than 20 Temple students for their “Student Debt Yearbook” – a feature on the Web site where students from different colleges share their personal experiences with debt by answering a set of questions.

At the TSG meeting last Monday, Vice President of Academic Affairs Ryan Phelan said a Student Debt Alert staff member contacted him before the group arrived on campus.

Phelan said joining the campaign benefits Temple students because through the Student Debt Alert Web site, “we can appeal to the senators, in order to increase the amount of money we receive for our funding rather then cut it.”

Phelan also said that “working until senators start to realize how we are affected by the amount of tuition that we pay during our years at Temple” is another objective of the partnership.

In his report, Treasurer Ryan Feldman said 500 Temple-Opoly board games are currently being developed by Pride Distributors Inc., the Michigan-based company behind the “Your Town”-Opoly series. He said student organizations could purchase a space along the outside of the board for $250.

“This is a different type of advertising than any other advertising that you would use because it’s for an infinite amount of time,” Feldman said.

“We figure that for every board sold, a minimum of four people will sit down to play the game once. That’s 2,000 people. That’s less then 15 cents an ad per person,” he said. “Yes, it’s $250 [to purchase one space], but the amount of people that will see the game and the number of years that the board is going to last makes it worthwhile.”

Feldman said all advertising money will go directly to Pride Distributors Inc., while the funds collected from purchases of Temple-Opoly will be used by TSG to organize a future event.

Capt. Eileen Bradley of Campus Safety Services said she is looking for volunteers to help with the annual holiday party on Dec. 10.

Bradley said the event attracted more than 300 children from the area last winter and said she expects even more this year.

“The kids have a great time when we do services around the community,” Bradley said about the significance of the party. “That’s what we focus on, our neighbors here in the community. It will be a great day.”

Tyson McCloud can be reached at tyson@temple.edu.