Students perform RENT, Brubeck premiere in March and April

If you are in the Philadelphia or New York area in the coming month, Temple students have some fantastic performances coming up. Temple Theaters’ production of RENT opened March 3 and continues through April 11 in Tomlinson Theater, Main Campus. Tickets are $20-$25. Watch a video promo on Temple’s channel on YouTube or visit www.temple.edu/theater for more information.

At the same time, Temple University Symphony Orchestra is performing two new works — one by jazz legends Dave and Chris Brubeck and the other by composer and former Temple professor Bill Cunliffe — on March 21 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philly and April 9 at Lincoln Center in New York City. The Brubecks’ work is a tribute to the photography of Ansel Adams (check out the NPR story here) and the performance will include a slideshow of 100 of his images. Cunliffe’s piece (check out the Temple Online Newsroom story and video here)  is a collaboration initiated by jazz trumpeter and Temple professor  Terrell Stafford.

Tickets to the March 21 Kimmel Center concert are $20-$35.

Tickets to the April 9 Lincoln Center concert are available directly from Lincoln Center for $20-$35 or in a package with a pre-concert reception hosted by Temple University Alumni Association for $35. 

“First lady takes health message to N. Phila.”

On Friday,  Feb. 19, Michelle Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited the new Fresh Grocer next to Main Campus. The same day, at a meeting of about 200 invited guests,  Michelle Obama lauded research done at Temple’s Center for Obesity Research and Education as “extraordinary and revolutionary,” and said that she hoped it could serve as a model for the country.

The Fresh Grocer is located in Progress Plaza on North Broad Street, and campus and community members have kept it busy day and night since its opening in December 2009. It is part of a major renovation of Progress Plaza and more than $200 million in private investment around Main Campus and the Health Sciences Center in recent years.

The first lady’s visit was part of her “Let’s Move” initiative to reduce childhood obesity, which the Philadelphia Inquirer detailed on Saturday: “First lady takes health message to N. Phila.”

Conwell Inn in Washington Post

Washington Past staff writer Zofia Smardz stayed at the boutique Conwell Inn on Main Campus recently, and her great write-up about the experience has just been published: Bed Check: Philadelphia’s phriendly Conwell Inn

She writes: “… two blocks and you’re at the SEPTA (the Philly subway), which zips you straight downtown for $2 — and in the summer high season … the hotel can offer better rates, especially on weekends, than the busy downtown properties. Plus there’s that campus energy and liveliness thing that some people find so invigorating.” She notes that great Philadelphia restaurants are just a few blocks down Broad Street, and that even late in the evening,  “people were still bustling and bicycling along the walks.”

President Hart named one of Philadelphia’s “Ten to Watch” in 2010

Last week’s Philadelphia Business Journal included President Ann Weaver Hart as one of its “Ten to Watch” in 2010. Individuals who “distinguished themselves in 2009 and were poised to have an even greater impact in 2010” were selected by the editor, who wrote: “Hart has been laying the groundwork for a transformation…in North Philadelphia.” The piece also noted the Temple 20/20 plan, designed to give the university a more notable presence on Broad Street and that Temple aims to become a greater center of academic research.

Back in September, Philadelphia magazine named President Hart among its “Power 50,” the magazine’s list of the city’s most influential citizens.

State funding for Temple still not approved

Today Temple issued the following statement in response to the action this week in the state General Assembly regarding the Commonwealth Appropriation for state-related schools:

“We are extremely concerned with the continued delay on a final vote for the appropriation for Temple University. The failure to act has continuing financial consequences for the University and creates an unacceptable level of uncertainty for our students, families and employees. We remain hopeful that the appropriation will pass next week but we are preparing to take action if it does not.”

Temple has been without its state funding — $178.5 million, accounting for approximately 20 percent of its budget — since the new fiscal year began on July 1, 2009. Learn more about current legislative activities that affect the university at http://www.temple.edu/newsroom/TUGovtAffairs.

Addressing Philly’s stormwater issues

Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer included a Page 1 story about the city’s plans to deal with stormwater over the next two decades. Currently, whenever it rains, the volume overwhelms the city’s infrastructure, and both the storm runoff and untreated sewage flow straight into the Delaware, the Schuylkill and other creeks and rivers. A major culprit is impervious surface (such as sidewalks, rooftops, roads and parking lots, where water can’t enter the ground).

Temple wasn’t mentioned in the story, but this is an area  that faculty researchers are actively engaged in improving, locally and nationally. The  cover story of the current Temple Review — which arrived in homes in early September — is  about the  Civil and Environmental Engineering Department‘s work in this area. The article, “Physicians for the Planet,”  talks about the department’s development of new water treatment methods (such as using ultrasound to destroy minute contaminants) and the kinds of porous surfaces mentioned in the Inquirer article (one called PlastiSoil uses recycled plastic bottles to strengthen the ground beneath asphalt and pavement).

The Center for Sustainable Communities, which is part of the (newly named) School of Environmental Design, also is working on solutions and strategies for stormwater management. A story in the fall 2008 issue of the Temple Review (PDF), “Mapping out a Future We Can Live With” (page 24) talks about the CDC’s work in sustainable land use and floodplain mapping (FEMA adopted the maps Temple researchers generated).

Fantastic recent media coverage about changes in North Philly

Philadelphians have been seeing Temple’s name in the news a lot lately! On Sept. 8, the Daily News published “North to the future” about the “explosion of building activity that is changing the face of a section of the city once considered blighted and unsafe” — including The Edge on Main Campus and the new School of Medicine building at the Health Sciences Center. The reporter, Valerie Russ, says Temple’s place as an “anchor institution” has “driven much of the development — but not all of it.”

It’s true that the area has changed a lot over the past decade; today, more than 12,000 students live on or around Main Campus, and there’s activity day and night. The Pearl movie theater opened beside Main Campus a couple of years ago, and a Fresh Grocer is being built in the Progress Plaza across the street from it. Restaurants have been opening, two 7-11 stores are open 24 hours… Alumni who haven’t been back for a while should come just look around — it’s incredible.

The next day, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran “Temple president’s plan for the decade,” about President Ann Weaver Hart’s  plan to make Broad Street the focal point of Main Campus by 2020. The plan is ambitious: Build a new library on Broad Street and create a large green space in the center of campus. A follow-up  editorial and commentary each heralded the plan as great for Philadelphia.

A little-known fact about all this growth: Most of Temple’s building projects — the Tyler School of Art, Alter Hall, the Student Center — have been within its existing campus footprint. Most of the surrounding change — Avenue North, University Village, Progress Plaza — is private investment.