Temple University

Wednesday's preliminary hearing for the Black Madam featured testimony about "butt pumping parties" and a woman who goes by the name of "Back Shots. " But perhaps the most bizarre moment came when Black Madam's attorney argued that one reason his client isn't a flight risk is that she always wears 4-inch heels. Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde didn't buy the argument. She held the case for trial and refused to reduce the $750,000 bail for Black Madam, a transgender gothic hip-hop artist whose real name is Padge Victoria Windslowe.

PAULA'S NOT SOLD on the college dating scene. Because of her workload as a Temple University biochemistry student, she's more likely to be found cracking open books in her dorm than beers at a frat party. Besides, she thinks that guys her age are, like, so immature. "I've always been attracted to older men," she said. "They've been through more and know how to treat women better. " Paula (not her real name) has a new strategy for finding potential mates, one that can also help pay her tuition.

John B. Roberts, 94, founder of the Temple University radio station, WRTI-FM, in 1953 and a teacher of communications at Temple from 1946 to 1988, died Thursday, March 8, of a spinal infection at his home in the retirement community of Rydal Park. Mr. Roberts was also the weekend news anchor at WFIL-TV (Channel 6) from 1952 to 1972, according to the website of Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, which named him its person of the year in 1987. Paul Gluck, a former TV executive now on the Temple faculty, said Friday: "For people like me, who worked as practicing journalists and transitioned into the academic world, he is a near-perfect role model.

Temple University has agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settles claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and a trio of plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Dr. Joseph J. Kubacki, former Chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed federal agencies more than $1.5 million claiming he had performed services at the hospital performed by residents when he wasn't there.

Due to an unsettled offseason, the Big East Conference has finally released its 2012 football schedule. The conference had to deal with the departure of West Virginia before luring a former member that it had booted years earlier - Temple. For now, the Owls will have an 11-game schedule - including seven Big East foes - this coming season, with two bye weeks. That could change, as Temple is still looking to add a 12th opponent. So far, the Owls' schedule that was released on Tuesday is highlighted with games against Villanova, Penn State, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Cincinnati.

The people began forming a line at 4 p.m., an hour before the church doors swung open, and some were still there as late as 10:15, 75 minutes after the scheduled ending. That thousands, despite rainy, dreary weather, turned out last night at St. Alphonsus Church, in Maple Glen, Montgomery County, to honor C. Robert "Bob" Harrington was an occurrence that should have surprised no one. He meant that much to that many. Harrington, 55, who first made a name for himself as a basketball player and coach, and then enhanced it by becoming a giant in labor relations as a vice president for personnel services and chief negotiator at Temple University, all the while nurturing old friendships and starting new ones and caring for his beloved family, died last Thursday after battling cancer for close to four years.

Temple University was in the news recently in a way it couldn't have liked. More than 100 angry students demonstrated in Center City last Sunday - tangling traffic as they marched toward the Rittenhouse Square residence of Temple President David Adamany. These were African American and Latino students. The essence of their complaint: As Temple has gotten bigger, recruiting students from the suburbs and out of state, the campus has become increasingly white. The protesting students blame Adamany for falling back on minority recruitment.

A day after Gov. Corbett signed a state budget that cuts funding for higher education, Temple University announced Friday that it would raise tuition nearly 10 percent for Pennsylvania students. Though the $27.15 billion budget was a done deal, the funding cuts continued to draw protests. About 50 people gathered Friday outside Corbett's satellite office in Center City to denounce the reductions. The 2011-12 budget reduces funding to four state-related universities, including Temple, by 19 percent.

Working with Temple University officials, Philadelphia police took decisive action by charging four Temple students with the senseless beating of the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The attackers reportedly shouted anti-Semitic slurs before pummeling the 23-year-old college student, a visitor to the North Broad Street campus who attends Penn State University. While the victim suffered a broken nose and orbital bone in his face, the hopeful news is that he is expected to recover fully, his father told a campus meeting on the attack late last week.

Temple University has tapped current provost and long-time administrator Richard M. Englert to serve as acting president while the search for a permanent successor continues. Englert, also senior vice president for academic affairs, becomes acting president on July 1 upon the exit of current president Ann Weaver Hart, Temple Board President Patrick O'Connor said Wednesday morning. The university is in the middle of a national search to replace Hart, who has served as president for six years and will become president of the University of Arizona.

Temple University has tapped current provost and long-time administrator Richard M. Englert to serve as acting president while the search for a permanent successor continues. Englert, also senior vice president for academic affairs, will become acting president on July 1 upon the exit of current president Ann Weaver Hart, Temple Board President Patrick O'Connor said Wednesday in a telephone interview. Trustees plan to officially ratify Englert's appointment at their June 21 board meeting, O'Connor said.

Temple University has tapped current provost and long-time administrator Richard M. Englert to serve as acting president while the search for a permanent successor continues. Englert, also senior vice president for academic affairs, becomes acting president on July 1 upon the exit of current president Ann Weaver Hart, Temple Board President Patrick O'Connor said Wednesday morning. The university is in the middle of a national search to replace Hart, who has served as president for six years and will become president of the University of Arizona.

Philip B. Schaeffer was an adventurous sort. As a teenager, he enlivened two summers by hopping freight trains from Pennsylvania to Yosemite National Park. "One of those sojourns," daughter Nevin said in a Wednesday interview, "yielded a close encounter with a bear that he escaped by jumping on the running board of a passing car. " Good experience, perhaps, to ride herd later over a newsroom. On Thursday, March 15, Mr. Schaeffer, 94 city editor of The Inquirer from the early to late 1960s and then assistant to three presidents of Temple University from 1969 to 1989, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Courtside Cottages, a facility in Vacaville, Calif., that defines itself as a memory support community.

Temple University has agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settles claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and a trio of plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Dr. Joseph J. Kubacki, former Chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed federal agencies more than $1.5 million claiming he had performed services at the hospital performed by residents when he wasn't there.

Temple University launched its search for a new president shortly after Ann Weaver Hart announced in September that she would depart at the end of the academic year. Eight months later, after a national search, the university remains without a new president - and that's not likely to change by the time Temple holds its commencement next week and sees much of the campus depart for break. Temple still could be without a president at the end of June, when Hart leaves for her new job as president of the University of Arizona.

What had been a dormant trend of robbers targeting college drug-dealing operations around Philadelphia resurfaced Sunday night, when - a block from Temple University - armed men robbed a student rowhouse from which marijuana was being sold, police said. The four Temple students home at the time had left the front door unlocked, allowing the three men believed to have been watching the house to walk right in, police said. With handguns trained on them, one of the students took a robber upstairs, where the student handed over an unspecified amount of cash and drugs.

BEVERLY FLOURNOY loves the clean, well-kept North Philadelphia block where she has lived with her mother for five years. Small gardens enclosed by wrought-iron fencing thrive in front of dozens of new and renovated rowhouses on 15th Street near Susquehanna Avenue. Slender trees sprout lavender blooms or budding green leaves. Children ride scooters on the sidewalk, their playful squeals providing a soundtrack for a family-oriented community where, Flournoy says, "everybody looks out for everyone else's kids.

WHEN THE University City District (UCD) was being organized in 1997, then-Penn Executive Vice President John Fry said that planners decided against setting up a neighborhood- or business-improvement district that would have forced landowners to pay up. "We wanted to do something that was more collaborative in spirit," said Fry, now Drexel's president. "We didn't want to force anyone to do something they didn't want to do. " Most improvement districts assess an additional tax of between 7 percent and 10 percent.

EVERY semester, without fail, this exchange happens. And every semester, I have to fight to convince the academic-advising staff that, indeed, I want to be on the four-year plan. Prior to enrolling, I had no idea that a different option existed. But as I, and many other college students, have come to find, the four-year degree is more of a crumbling façade than an attainable reality. In fact, four-year bachelor's degrees are becoming an abnormality, giving way to the far more pliable (and lucrative)

AN EXCITING transformation is taking place at Temple University, as an increasingly residential student population is drawn to Philadelphia's dynamic urban environment. As part of that transformation, Temple has committed to grow and develop within its current footprint, bringing new and improved facilities to its main campus and enhancing economic opportunities in our community. Perhaps the most prominent of our current projects is the student residential complex on Broad Street, one block north of Progress Plaza.