Moore College of Art & Design hosted a four day “Women in Animation” Film Festival this past weekend. The festival included round table discussions with women in the gaming and animation industry, viewings of animated films made by women, and a three hour design contest hosted by Adobe.
Month: March 2017
Fraternity’s Doing Good on Temple’s Campus
*Written April 5, 2016*
People tend to have preconceived notions about fraternities on college campuses. Fraternity boys are typically known for dressing and acting in a particular way. Many people have a difficult time moving beyond their predetermined opinions about fraternity life and fail to realize that not every fraternity fits the stereotype.
“[Fraternity boys] wear preppy clothes, party a lot and tend to be cliquey,” said Temple University student Amanda Stejskal.
Stejksal is not the only person who has this stereotypical image of fraternity boys in her mind. News articles and stories are constantly circulated about frat boys throwing parties, slipping drugs into people’s drinks, and getting violent.
“Earlier this semester there was a rumor going around campus about a frat brother hitting a girl in the face,” said Stejskal.
However, not all fraternities fit the infamous stereotype. Tyler Wood, Vice President of the fraternity Alpha Tau Omega, and his brothers work hard to prove that not every frat is the same.
“People think that frat boys just drink beer, play sports, and hit on women,” said Wood, “but that’s not what we do.”
Alpha Tau Omega is the National Leadership Fraternity, said Wood, annually hosting conferences and retreats that help brothers develop leadership skills which can help them in their future professional lives.
Besides working to improve members’ leadership skills, Temple University’s chapter of Alpha Tau Omega frequently enjoys doing philanthropy work. The brothers of this fraternity are frequently walking dogs at the Saved Me Animal Shelter, said Wood, or setting up pizza sales to benefit different organizations and charities.
On March 31, Alpha Tau Omega teamed up with Iota Nu Delta and Delta Sigma Theta, Wood said, and held a Krispy Kreme donut sale that benefitted the Flint Michigan Water Crisis.
Wood said the fraternity host’s donut sales at least once a month on campus. They sell one donut for one dollar, said Wood, and all of the proceeds typically go to the Women’s Organization Against Rape, which is the organization that Alpha Tau Omega works most closely with.
WOAR is an organization in Philadelphia whose mission is to eliminate all forms of sexual violence. Alpha Tau Omega recently set up a presentation with this organization for the Inter-Fraternal Council, said Wood, to help raise awareness towards sexual violence. Wood also said that last year the brothers raised over $300 for the organization at the fraternity’s signature event.
Alpha Tau Omega’s signature event is an annual campout that helps raise awareness and money for a specific cause. This year, the signature event will be benefitting the Boys and Girls Club of America, said Wood, which is a national organization that has after-school programs help inspire and enable children to realize their full potential.
This year’s signature event will be a 36-hour campout on the lawn in front of the dean’s office, said Wood, starting on April 12 and ending April 13.
“We’ll be sleeping in tents for the whole night,” Wood said, “This will help raise awareness [for the cause].”
During the campout the fraternity will be selling Krispy Kreme donuts and calendars, featuring pictures of the brothers, for ten dollars. On top of this, Wood said the fraternity will be hosting carnival games, like can jam and corn hole, charging one dollar per game.
The brothers have already raised $120 for their signature event, Wood said, through a Go-Fund-Me page.
“We’re expecting to raise at least over $500,” said Wood.
The brothers of Alpha Tau Omega have had a busy year raising money and awareness for their organizations. Wood said he is proud of his fraternity brothers for their outstanding community service this year.
Rad Dish Cafe: Temple University’s Student Run Co-op
*Written March 23, 2016*
Tucked into a corner hallway of Ritter Hall at Temple University is a little-known success story: the Rad Dish Café.
The café is the only student run food cooperative in Philadelphia, and according to the Head of Governance Committee, Rhiannon Wright, it has been open for two full semesters.
Besides being an accomplished student run co-op, this café is unique for being a completely sustainable food system, meaning they only acquire ingredients from businesses that respect the earth and their employees.
The co-op respects the earth by being environmentally friendly and purchasing all of their ingredients from local sources like Common Market and Lancaster Farm Fresh, which are no more than 150 miles away from Temple’s campus.
The café also respects their employees. Being a co-op means that there is no hierarchy in the business, said Wright. A cooperative is a business that is run democratically by its members, so every employee has a say in what the business does.
The co-op has a specific structure. There is a Board of Directors, which consists of a few Temple students who are the heads of each committee. The committees are groups who run specific aspects of the business, such as the Committee of Marketing and Outreach and the Committee of Finance.
However, these are not the only people in the co-op who make decisions and suggestions for the café. “We have an employee who sits on our board of directors,” said Wright, “so his job specifically is to convey the concerns of the workers to the board.”
To get further input from employees, the café also does surveys amongst the staff, said Wright, to see what works for them and what doesn’t. There is also a suggestion box next to the cash register at the café, so even costumers can put in any ideas they have to improve the Rad Dish café.
Although the café has been open for two semesters, Wright said it’s really only been about 6 months of operation because it is not open during summer and winter breaks. However, the Rad Dish already has a steady following of regular costumers, said Wright.
“We’re in this weird random building that you don’t go into unless you either know about Rad Dish or you are in the college of education or social work or public health,” said Wright, “so we have a lot of regulars that are in this building all the time.”
In order to gain more of a following the Rad Dish café has a marketing committee. However, the café does not currently have enough funds to spend a lot of money on advertising.
“All of our profits right now are really just going towards wages and covering our costs and paying back the loan we got to start,” said Wright, so the café has turned to using social media as a platform for marketing.
Wright said Rad Dish café has a decent following on their social media accounts, which helps bring people to their events. On March 22 the café held a clothing swap in collaboration with the Office of Sustainability, and they regularly have open microphone nights, said Wright, as an attempt to draw more people in.
As the co-op grows, the employees keep seeing new faces come into the café as well as their regular costumers. Wright said the café workers biggest concern at the moment is remaining sustainable and continuing to open each year.
“It’s just such a fun and relaxed atmosphere,” Wright said, “It’s definitely something that we all have created together.”
How Two Temple Grads Started a Hyperlocal Newspaper
*Written Feb. 24, 2016*
Hyperlocal newspaper company Spirit News has been completely revamped within the past eighteen months thanks to recent Temple Graduates Max Pulcini and Matthew Albasi.
It’s not an easy time to be in the newspaper business, however in August 2014 these two bought the hyperlocal news company and started making their mark on Philadelphia neighborhoods.
It all started when Pulcini was going into his senior year at Temple University and working as a freelance writer for Spirit News, he said. His first ever story, about the Kensington High School Football Team, ran as a front-page story, which, he said, “really kind of blew my mind, at first.”
From there, Pulcini met with fellow Temple student, Matthew Albasi and together they came up with the idea to make the story about the Kensington Football Team into a documentary. They both “realized they’re pretty good at this multimedia journalism stuff,” said Pulcini, and after graduating college they started the business Downhill Productions. The business mainly worked on music videos and some other small projects, however they both knew they wanted to do more with journalism, said Pulcini.
While planning to make Downhill Productions into a multimedia journalism company, Pulcini said he thought to ask his bosses at Spirit News to partner up.
“The conversation then kind of shifted into, well, how can we not just partner up, but kind of take over the operation as a whole,” said Pulcini. The owners of Spirit News were on board because they knew that Pulcini and Albasi could “elevate the quality of news that was being done,” for the paper, Pulcini said.
They bought the company and by August 2014, the two Temple alumni had found a way to “bring an old, traditional style newsweekly to the modern multimedia era,” said Pulcini. They’ve been in charge of the publication ever since.
Obviously they faced challenges at first.
“We are words people, you know? We deal with letters and words, not so much numbers and mathematics. So, really trying to figure out the business aspect of it was the biggest challenge,” said Pulcini.
Pulcini said they didn’t have problems with finding content for the newspaper; they just had problems with the business side. They sought help from other people, particularly accountants and bookkeepers, said Pulcini.
Once they found the right people to help them run the business side of things, they began making some changes to the newspaper itself. Pulcini said the first changes they made were regarding the content of the paper. The old publication was a softer side of community news, he said, reporting on topics like community meetings and business profiles.
“We kind of shifted from that, you know, dealing with soft news to kind of taking an investigative approach on things,” Pulcini said.
The changes in content were clearly successful, as this paper is now making changes in the communities it reports on. In May 2015, Spirit News covered a story on a path that connects Berks El Station to Frankfurt Avenue, Pulcini said, which is a popular sight for random muggings and attacks. Through this story, the paper connected people from the community with the police, who ended up knocking down a wall that was creating the problems of the attacks, said Pulcini.
“That was one really cool instance,” Pulcini said, “We reported on an issue and within, you know, a month or two that issue was taken care of by the community itself.”
Besides just changing the content, Spirit News, is expanding. While the company still has print publications, they have also shifted to a digital media platform. Pulcini said the company launched a new website and now uses social media tools to spread information about the stories the paper is covering and about the paper itself.
The company has also been expanding the neighborhoods that they are covering by releasing a new print publication. The original publication, The Spirit of the Riverwards, covers neighborhoods around Fishtown. At the start of this past year, Pulcini said, the company launched The Spirit of Penn’s Garden, which is a paper that covers completely new neighborhoods including the area directly around Temple.
The company is still looking forward to expanding: “That’s just the first step. We’re looking to not just stop at Penn’s Garden, we’re looking at the options to continue our expansion as we continue to build our company,” said Pulcini.
So far, as a fairly new owner of a business, Pulcini is succeeding at the company’s mission “hyperlocal news, done differently,” by focusing on investigative stories, comprehensive reporting, and the use of social media.
While reflecting on the work he’s done so far with the company Pulcini said, “It’s like a different art project each and every week. It’s a collage, you’re trying to piece together things that work…and when we do make it happen it’s a pretty awesome thing,”
Spencer Trabbold: Senior Producer for Temple Update
Spencer Trabbold, a junior Media Studies and Production major, has had quite the journey while studying at Temple University. From fourth grade he said he has had a passion for creating videos, but it wasn’t until he came to Temple that he realized his passion for producing live television. While at Temple he has worked as the producer for Update Now and Temple Update. His involvement in Temple University Television (TUTV) has helped him a build a full portfolio including coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia and coverage of the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Currently he is an intern at NBC 10 and the Senior Producer of Temple Update.
Short for Theresa 