Photo Credit: Lauren Gross

The Academy of Natural Sciences’ hosted its very first “Overnight for Adults” event March 7-8. Propping open the Academy doors at 6:30 p.m., 96 attendees, their ages ranging from mid-20s to 40s, flooded in to live their dream of spending a night at the museum.

“We do sleepover parties for families all the time. It’s a great program. Families have a wonderful time. But we just decided to expand it to our adult audience. We decided that the adults deserve to sleepover too,” Christine Danowsky, an Academy employee who worked the event said.

“Without their kids!” Hollie Barattolo, another Academy employee added. “Or [it’s] for people who don’t have kids to get to do fun things.”

At a price of $165 for members and $190 for nonmembers, those in attendance were given the chance to take behind-the-scenes tours in the museum’s mammalogy, ichthyology and entomology departments given by the Academy’s curators. These tours allowed guests the chance to see artifacts and collections in custody of the museum but not currently on display, such as cases of preserved bugs that have been given to the museum by wealthy donors, as well as jars of preserved fish and mammal specimens.

One attendee, Otis Wells, opted for the mammalogy tour and found it to be his favorite part of the night by far. “I liked the animals in the jars, like the monkey and the two-headed cat. That was for me the best part of the trip. I got to pick up a bat and I got to hold a walrus penis in my hand,” Wells said.

Also included in the night’s perks were a build-your-own-fajita station in the Academy’s cafeteria, an endless supply of coffee and tea, and a Science Live Bar supplied by 12th Street Catering.

In between eating and going on tours, adults wandered throughout the museum in pairs completing various activities. Guests enjoyed listening to employees tell ghost stories about how each taxidermy animal came to be at the museum, drawing on glass in front of a zebra and antelope display in the African wing and viewing live animals that had been posted around the museum. One of the more interesting attractions of the night was painting with hissing cockroaches. Here, employees allowed visitors to place various colors of nontoxic paint onto a piece of paper, over which the cockroaches would run, creating unique paintings.

At 11 p.m. the Academy held a live animal show in the auditorium to teach the crowd a little more about two animal residents — a porcupine and a turkey vulture.

The night wrapped up with a midnight movie, after which the adults scattered around the museum placing air mattresses and yoga mats beside exhibitions where they wished to hunker down for the night.

In the morning breakfast was served promptly at 7:30 a.m.; the visitors then packed up their things and returned to their daily lives.

The next “Overnight for Adults” event will be cryptozoology-themed, focusing on the study of legendary animals. Several attendees already indicated their excitement for the next sleepover throughout the night.

“Typically, people who come to our events know that we don’t traditionally repeat activates. So it’s not like if you come once and you come again you’re going to do the same things. We try to expand on what we did and if we do repeat something it’s because people said they really enjoyed it,” Danowsky said..

The date for the next “Overnight for Adults” has already been set for Oct. 3 and is in the process of being planned.

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Photo Courtesy: Moorestown High School

Drexel University lost Taline Nicole King, 18, on the morning of Feb. 28. King was found deceased in her room in Myers Hall. Police arrived at about 12:30 p.m. to investigate the scene and students in Myers were reportedly informed about King’s death around 4 p.m. that day.

“I was unaware of the event until Saturday afternoon, when Rob Phipps, the residential director of Myers, informed us of Taline’s passing,” Anonymous wrote in an email, speaking as both a resident of Myers Hall and a graduate alongside King in Moorestown High School’s class of 2014.

“My friend next to me already knew, since she has friends on the first floor; I assume [most of the people on that floor] knew of the event before the rest of the building,” Anonymous wrote. While the police determined that there was no sign of foul play, the official cause of death has yet to be determined by the medical examiner’s office.

As a freshman of Drexel University College of Computing and Informatics, King had only been on campus for about six months and had yet to get involved with any of the University’s clubs. However, in high school, she was reported to be quite a bright “A” student with broad interests ranging from photography to physics and mathematics. She was also part of many organizations, such as the robotics club, the band and the photography club.

“I did not know her too well. I remember we were in the same calculus class, and I remember being amazed by her skill and passion for the subject,” Anonymous wrote of her awe at King’s academic ability.

King’s peers from Moorestown High School described her as a kind, thoughtful and passionate individual.

Maia Mirchandani, a senior at Moorestown High School, said that King was a quiet but very sweet girl. Mirchandani recalled a time when she saw King’s fun-loving and competitive side at a laser tag event for the school’s robotics club: “She ended up beating nearly everyone at laser tag, including some of our mentors, when our robotics team went to play. She was surprising that way, in other areas too, like her knowledge of physics. She had an easy laugh, and was a good listener.”

Another one of King’s friends, Lindsay Sergi, now a freshman at Georgetown University, illuminated King’s benevolence. “Taline was one of the sweetest people I knew. She was always willing to help you out when you needed it and give you a hug when you were having a bad day. She was extremely passionate about subjects like photography and physics in a way that would make anyone jealous.”

Andrew Seibel, principal of Moorestown High School, released a written statement on behalf of the school district concerning King’s death as well. “We are deeply saddened to learn about the passing of Taline over the weekend,” Seibel wrote. “While at Moorestown, she was a valued member of the band, robotics team and photo club. Her talents were special and she will be dearly missed by all those who were fortunate enough to have shared time, conversation and friendship.” The statement continued, echoing Moorestown’s feelings of grief over the loss of King as a past student and community member.

King’s friends and family have established The Taline King Charitable Fund as a New Jersey nonprofit corporation in her memory. In lieu of flowers at King’s funeral service on March 7, the family asks for contributions to this nonprofit. The Fund is currently $1,945 into its goal of $5,000. Donators to this fund can help to support organizations for young adults focusing on arts, science, technology and engineering in King’s name.

The post Remembering Taline King appeared first on The Triangle.

Taline King, a Drexel University freshman in the College of Computing & Informatics, was found deceased in her room in Myers Hall on the morning of Feb. 28.

The University police and the Philadelphia Southwest Detectives examined the scene and found no evidence of foul play. President John A. Fry sent a statement to the University community expressing his sincere condolences to King’s family and friends. He encouraged King’s friends and those who knew her on campus to visit Drexel’s Counseling Center and Office of Religious and Spiritual Life for help dealing with this loss.

To reach counseling professionals students can call 215-895-1415 during normal business hours or 215-416-3337 outside of normal business hours.

The post Myers resident found deceased in room appeared first on The Triangle.

Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia

Drexel University facilities are currently working to eliminate asbestos insulation that was identified around pipes in the office of professor Rachel Reynolds. Her office sits on the eastern side of the Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology building. The building has historically had problems with asbestos, so when Reynolds was talking with a colleague and mentioned she thought the insulation might be degrading, the two thought it best to have the situation checked right away.

“We called facilities and they sent somebody over right away to run a check on it and it is,” Reynolds said.

“Upon hearing about the debris, we sent someone from the Office of Environmental Health and Safety to inspect it, find its source and immediately cleaned the debris up. Air quality tests were also conducted that showed the office was safe for re-occupation,” Jon Chase, Drexel facilities’ executive director of health and safety wrote to The Triangle.

“As an added precaution, the University will have the asbestos insulation on all pipes removed. The abatement will begin after the 10-day notification period that is required by law. During this time, the City and Commonwealth will also inspect the building and the removal plan,” Chase’s statement continued.

The pipes in the PSA building stretch from the building’s floor to ceiling, enclosed in insulation containing asbestos. The building was acquired by Drexel in 1977, when asbestos was a mineral still widely used as a fire-resistant and insulating material. Chase noted that it is common for most buildings that were renovated or built before 1980 to contain forms of asbestos as a building material.

Photo Courtesy: Pumbaa80 Wikimedia

Asbestos is a silicate mineral that that does not pose a health hazard to humans, unless in particulate form. Inhaling asbestos particles can cause diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. When asbestos materials are largely intact, they pose no inherent health hazards. The insulation around the pipes in the PSA only began to pose a hazard as it degraded and released asbestos particles into the air.

“At Drexel, our first priority is a safe and healthy environment for our students, faculty and staff. The debris found in professor Rachel Reynolds’ office came from loose pipes within her office,” Chase wrote. “There is no health risk from asbestos as long as the materials that contain it remain undisturbed.”

The PSA building has faced problems with asbestos in the past. A portion of the basement has been sealed off to contain high asbestos particulate matter. It is also known to be the site of a 1947 radium spill when the building was occupied by the American Oncologic Hospital. Due to poor cleanup efforts on behalf of the hospital, some areas of concrete in the PSA building are still exhibiting signs of radium contamination, though the low levels are less than or equal to Philadelphia’s standards for chemical radiation.

In order to keep the building’s occupants safe and unexposed to any asbestos, all abatement is scheduled to occur on nights and weekends, when the building is vacant. After the abatement is complete, Chase said that the health and safety department will repeat air quality tests to ensure there is no trace of asbestos in the air within the building.

Greg Niedt, a graduate student at the University, goes to the PSA building every day. He saw health and safety workers testing for asbestos a few weeks ago while he was in the building but said it was comforting to know Drexel was taking the matter seriously.

“I was here when they were testing for asbestos one day so while I feel obviously concerned about any potential health risk it’s good to know that they’re at least addressing it. I have confidence in their ability to handle the situation,” Niedt said.

“I’m happy with Drexel’s response they didn’t drag their feet,” Reynolds said on the subject.

Chase indicated that the University is taking every step it can in order that the building can continue to be a safe place to work.

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Photo Courtesy: FindMePhilly

FindMePhilly began with a simple idea that fostered into a game of citywide hide and seek — well maybe not so much hide. Under the alias Benjamin Franklin, one man offers Philadelphia residents the chance at $100 if they piece together where he is from his Instagram photos before his timer goes off in 13 minutes.

A few weeks ago FindMePhilly came to Drexel University. Scrolling through the Instagram account, one can see pictures of sites he visited around campus looking for winners. The Main Building, the infamous Anthony J. Drexel statue that resides outside of Gerri C. Lebow Hall and the “Running Free Horses” sculpture behind the Daskalakis Athletic Center all appear. However, the only winner found on Drexel’s campus was not a Drexel student but student from the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

It’s now been about a month since the game began Jan. 17 — Benjamin Franklin’s birthday. That day the Instagram account FindMePhilly, posted multiple pictures from Ben Franklin sites around the city — from Benjamin Franklin’s grave on Independence Avenue all the way to the infamous Ben-Franklin-on-the-bench statue on University of Pennsylvania’s campus.

For the sake of the game’s integrity, the man behind FindMePhilly wishes to remain anonymous, but he got together with The Triangle to talk about what the game means to him — excitement, generosity and the overall betterment of the Philadelphia community.

“I want to start a discussion now about giving and about giving back, whether it’s time or money,” FindMePhilly said, conveying that the game was really about starting a movement more than anything. “I want to change the mood of this city.”

Each winner of the games gets a video taken in front of the landmark they’ve found FindMePhilly in front of, proudly displaying the $100.

“What are you going to do with the money?” FindMePhilly’s voice asks from off-screen.

Answers range from paying car-insurance and bills, to donating the money to the homeless, to indulging in some of the Philadelphia life’s more simple pleasures like buying pizza and beer.

The first winner of the game was a waitress who sprinted away from her shift at a bar to meet FindMePhilly at The Thinker statue, which greets visitors of the Rodin Museum on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. FindMePhilly smiled, recalling how the woman was out of breath when she got there a few minutes before the timer went off.

It was this first winner that decided she was going to give back to the Philadelphia community with the money and try and feed the homeless.

“She went out and bought a pizza and walked around the city and tried to give pizza to homeless people with all the money I had given her.” FindMePhilly recounted, “I was almost in tears when I saw that the next day. She posted it on Instagram and tagged me in it.”

FindMePhilly says that there’s no telling how long the game will last. He’s been using his limited personal finances to fund the game so far. He said that he has everything he needs in his life and wants to use this money give to others and inspire others to give in turn.

With any luck, FindMePhilly is hoping to partner with other individuals, companies or businesses that are also interested in the betterment and generosity in the Philadelphia community. With a little help from a few sponsors he said he could continue with the project for an extended amount of time.

“If I can get someone who has deeper pockets than I do, I will do this forever,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can do it, but I want to do it as long as I possibly can.”

The game gets people out into the city, encompasses all of Philadelphia and gets locals biking and running through the streets excitedly looking for certain landmarks, having fun and enjoying the city around them. Part of the game’s mission is also to get locals to indulge in, value and learn more about the very city they live in.

“I want to put people in a better mood. I want them to explore the city and I want them to appreciate the city. I want people to learn about these things that I’m taking pictures of,” FindMePhilly said.

FindMePhilly only carries $100 on him at a time so there can only be one winner per location but he stresses that the game isn’t really about the money at all.

“It’s not about winning $100 now. It originally was. But it can be so much more,” FindMePhilly said of his goals for the project. “I’m waiting for the next person to win to take that $100 and go give to a homeless person down the street. Someone to take that $100 and not even want it for themselves, just want to do good with that money.”

To get involved and play along follow FindMePhilly on Instagram and Twitter, but be ready to run, because once the picture’s posted you’ve only got 13 minutes.

The post FindMePhilly game puts extra $100 bills in your pocket appeared first on The Triangle.

Photo Credit: Allison Liu

Drexel University’s decision to introduce a $50 application fee for prospective students has brought applications for the class of 2019 down by more than 50 percent compared to last year. According to Drexel officials, the mere 27,424 applications received this year are all a part of Drexel’s latest admissions strategy — attracting a more serious applicant pool.

The addition of the $50 application fee came in tandem with the death of Drexel’s infamous “VIP fast application,” which offered potential applicants the chance to apply without essays, recommendations and essentially, without any added stress.

“It made it very easy for students to apply at the click of a button. Our applications over the last eight or nine years just skyrocketed,” Randall Deike, Drexel’s senior vice president for enrollment management and student success, said.

The “VIP fast application” brought Drexel over an increase of over 300 percent in applicants. With this rise in applications, Drexel faced a decrease in the percent yield of accepted students who actually enrolled. This led to the University accepting around 80 percent of its applicants just to enroll a class of 2,925 freshmen.

“If you’re a college and you exist, chances are that you’ve had this problem,”  David Hawkins said. Hawkins acts as the executive director for educational content and policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

“With the number of students applying, colleges have been much less certain as to which students will actually attend if they’re accepted,” Hawkins explained.

So when officials instated the $50 application fee last year, they made the conscious decision to have a smaller but what they believed would be a more informed applicant pool of students who had researched Drexel and were interested enough that they were willing to pay to apply.

By dealing with a more sincerely interested applicant pool, Drexel hopes to increase their percent yield between students who apply and students who enroll. The University is also hoping that this strategy will raise its six-year graduation rate from 67.3 percent to around 80 percent and escalate the freshman to sophomore retention rate from 84 percent to 90 percent.

According to U.S. News and World report, a popular media company that many families rely on to compare college statistics, Drexel’s acceptance rate is rather high and the University’s retention rates are not where they should be.

“They compute this index; they take pre-enrollment characteristics, like SAT scores and class rank and a couple of other things. They predict what they think our graduation rates should be and our actual graduation rate is under that,” Deike said.

“All of these steps we’re taking are really about making sure [they were] attracting and enrolling students that know us well and that we’re supporting them until graduation. Student success is the key. If our retention and graduation rates were higher, it would help us in the rankings. I mean, that’s a positive side-effect — we’re not doing it for that reason, but I’ll take it if that’s a part of the outcome,” Deike continued.

Drexel’s new admissions process also integrates the help of associate deans in implementing ‘holistic review’ — looking at not just GPA and SAT scores but all the credentials presented by a student. Associate deans are helping to determine the criteria for the respective colleges and programs they work with and gauging what characteristics make students successful in their schools. This means that potential students will be judged much differently depending on what major they apply under.

With all of these admissions changes taking place in only a year, there’s no way to predict exact results.

“The circumstance that Drexel is in, strikes me as a potential trend that we could be seeing more of. The solution they’re looking for — to stabilize their yield rates and to not generally disrupt the institutions profile. The response is simply to be looking for students who are really interested from the very start,” David Hawkins said.

Deike said that with all of these changes, there is no way to predict the exact enrollment yield, but he is confident it will be higher.

The post Drexel sees drop in applicants due to newly instated application fee appeared first on The Triangle.

A bowl is filled with a colorful assortment of prescription drugs. Teens pop handfuls into their mouths and swallow, often swigging the contents down with alcohol. The deadly new game of drug roulette is an upcoming fad called “pharming.” Although it may seem all in good fun, these medical combinations could result in stroke, heart attack or brain damage leading to death.

According to a recent study by two Drexel associate professors at the School of Public Health, Renee Turchi and Susan Solecki, such recreational use of prescription drugs is a growing concern. As prescription drug abuse continues to rise among teenagers, these parties are becoming more and more popular.

Turchi and Solecki recently authored an article about pharming in the journal Contemporary Pediatrics. Their article discusses the reasons why prescription medication abuse is becoming so frequent.

“Students report that prescription pills can often be bought for less than other drugs such as marijuana and cocaine,” wrote Turchi and Solecki in an email.

“Students can steal drugs from medicine cabinets of friends and relatives for virtually no cost,” they continued.

The professors’ article states that in 2010 alone, enough prescription medications were prescribed to keep every American medicated for a month straight. Of course, some of these prescribed medications often end up sitting around in medicine cabinets long after they’ve served their purpose — making them free and easily obtainable drugs for teens.

In fact, Turchi and Solecki’s report, citing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, states that prescription medicines are the secondly most common abused form of drug by people aged 12-24 (behind marijuana). The use of prescription drugs is greater than the use of drugs like cocaine and heroin.

The two claim these prescription medications are more than gateway drugs; they’re hard, addictive substances.

“Gateway drugs are drugs that are perceived to be mild in their effects but have potential to lead to taking other stronger drugs,” Turchi and Solecki explained.

“These kids are bypassing all of that and jumping right into the strong stuff, such as using  Vicodin, Xanax, Ritalin (all controlled substances) and mixing them together in unknown quantities. Even over-the-counter [drugs] have potential to cause severe adverse effects.”

Teen’s parents are often completely unaware of any addiction to assorted drugs until it’s too late.

“Recent studies suggest a child is using drugs wrongly for two years before his or her parents realize it, and parents usually don’t notice until it’s a heroin addiction. Also, most parents have no idea what a stamp bag (heroin) looks like,” Turchi and Solecki wrote.

The data in Turchi and Solecki’s report shows that more than 14 percent of high school seniors have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons at least one time. The two both state that in order to lessen prescription medication abuse, including pharming parties, it is important to raise awareness among health care practitioners, parents and, of course, teens themselves.

The post Drexel professors study teenage prescription drug abuse appeared first on The Triangle.

Photo Courtesy: Longjian Liu

In the competition for highest diabetes rate among the nation’s largest cities Philadelphia currently takes gold. Between the years 2002 and 2010, Drexel associate professors Longjian Liu and Ana Nunez, collected data monitoring the relationship between an individual’s neighborhood and its risk of contracting diabetes.

At first glance, it might seem strange to monitor entire communities for what seems to be an individual disease. But diabetes typically arises as a part of one’s lifestyle choices — namely diet and exercise. Local environment influences a great number of such day-to-day choices.

“We previously have looked at just individuals behavior to ask them to change their behavior,” Liu, lead author on the study, explained. “Stop smoking. Increase physical activity. Lifestyle changes.”

“If you just improve the location you can benefit all. Not just people who already have the disease,” Liu continued.

The research was published Nov. 6. Liu and Nunez’s conclusions found that living in an underprivileged community increases probability of developing diabetes an additional 12 percent compared to otherwise like individuals. As well, the frequency of adults 18 and older in the city developing diabetes significantly increased from 2002 to 2010.

They used a survey by the Public Health Management Cooperation to ask 17,000 participants living in 46 Philadelphia ZIP codes questions about their personal health. Things like: if they are overweight, what kind of physical activity do they usually get and how many servings of fruits and vegetables they have a day.

Nunez explained the composition of factors that might affect one’s chances of developing diabetes: “The composition is your genetics, your environment and how you live. Those are sort of the three things,” she said.

Where people live impacts their access to healthy food, exercise facilities and other factors that can dramatically impact their wellness.

“If you can go out for a walk or a bike ride you probably will. But if you live in a neighborhood where that’s really not safe then you’re probably not going to go out for a walk,” Nunez explained. “So the suggestion of ‘walk more’ to reduce your weight isn’t going to work based on where you live. Even some of the lifestyle options that people have to take care of themselves aren’t really feasible if they live in environments that can’t support doing those things.”

Liu and Nunez ranked each ZIP code they studied in Philadelphia based on a “Physical and Social Environment” rating. An area’s rating was based on people’s answers to the questions about various health issues.

The PSE rankings were wide-ranging. Depending on the PSE rating of the neighborhood, risk of developing diabetes increased or decreased correspondingly. The worse the PSE rating, the higher chance an individual had of developing diabetes.

“What this suggests is that people who have borderline risk of having diabetes who are in environments that have that drag, are going to have earlier diabetes or get diabetes compared to someone who doesn’t necessarily have that same environmental influence,” Nunez said.

Changing an area’s access to fresh produce, exercise facilities or improving the neighborhood’s overall safety as to provide a safe outdoor environment could improve the health of the entire community.

“In an ideal world collectively as citizens we have to say, ‘look we want our population to be healthy and so we have to have healthy communities. We have to invest in terms of having places where people can walk and exercise. Safe lighting, [other] things like that. As well as opportunities,’” Nunez continued.

Focusing on the health of the community rather than the health of the individuals within it could improve overall health. Simply increasing living conditions could lower health care costs long term.

“As a government you want to think about health, not business. You want a healthy Philadelphia. Not a sick Philadelphia,” Liu said.

The study supports that reducing risk at the community level would show a great deal of promise in terms of reducing risk of diabetes and other diseases that are often lifestyle dependent.

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Photo Credit: William Hanrahan

Drexel Law student William Hanrahan filed a lawsuit Nov. 6 against Dechert LLP claiming its hiring process violated the American with Disabilities Act.

Of the three law schools in Philadelphia proper — Drexel University, Temple University and University of Pennsylvania — Drexel enrolls the greatest proportion of disabled students. At the time of Hanrahan’s application to the company, Dechert consistently only hired UPenn and Temple law students. Hanrahan makes the claim that Dechert engaged in disparate impact discrimination by doing this — that their preference for Temple and Penn had a discriminatory effect since most students with disabilities go to Drexel Law.

Hanrahan is currently 26 and in his third and final year of law school at Drexel. Over the summer of 2013, he interviewed for a summer associate position at Dechert — an international law firm with a myriad of top ranking practices. Hanrahan, at the time, ranked fourth in his class and had one prior legal internship under his belt.

“Summer associates are usually paid at about the same rate as first year associates and perform some of the same tasks that first year associates do. Most large law firms usually give most or all of their summer associates offers to return as associates after graduation,” Hanrahan explained in an email.

However, in September, Hanrahan was informed he had been turned down for the job.

Around 15 years ago, Hanrahan was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a disorder which falls on the autism spectrum. Those with Asperger’s often have difficulty with nonverbal communication and social interaction. When a condition substantially limits “major life activities,” it qualifies as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Over the 2013-2014 school year, three percent of the total 420 students at Drexel’s Kline School of Law were classified as having a disability, while the same was true of two percent of Temple’s 769 students and 0.1 percent of UPenn’s 774 students.

This means that Drexel Law enrolled 14 out of the 32 disabled law students attending law school in Philadelphia County.

“It is not a secret that most large law firms hire disproportionately  from highly ranked [by U.S. News & World Report] law schools,” Hanrahan wrote.

This preference in itself is not a problem, but Dechert may be inadvertently discriminating against disabled students.

The lawsuit also claims that the Law School Admissions Council, administrator of the Law School Admission Test, has a long history of neglecting to give disabled students the accommodations they are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act and of divulging to law schools which students had been accommodated.

The complaint further states that such discriminatory practices lead to students with disabilities going to law schools with lower national rankings. In this specific case, Drexel was ranked No. 126 out of all law schools in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report rankings, compared to UPenn at No. 7 and Temple at No. 56.

“By utilizing the policy or practice of hiring disproportionately from among the students and graduates of highly ranked law schools…Defendant uses a hiring practice or policy that screens out or tends to screen out disabled candidates,” the case file stated.

Ideally, Hanranhan hopes the outcome of the case will lead to a declaration that Dechert’s hiring practice violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and an injunction that would perpetually prevent Dechert from hiring disproportionately from higher-ranked law schools.

He also wishes for Dechert to send him a job offer like those who held the summer associates job during the summer of 2014 received, or alternatively $145,000 — the amount a typical associate gets paid in one year — in compensation.

Dechert declined to comment on the case.

The post Law student takes Dechert LLP to court over Alleged ADA violation appeared first on The Triangle.

Photo Courtesy: Drexel University Communications

With Governor-elect Tom Wolf’s recent election comes the announcement of the transition team who will help to bridge Tom Corbett’s policies and administrative staff with Wolf’s own. Wolf released the line-up of his transition team Nov. 13 —teeing off with Drexel’s very own President John A. Fry as transition chair.

Fry’s role as transition chair will involve overseeing of the appointment of Wolf’s administrative positions and department heads before the Governor-elect’s inauguration in January 2015. He is on this team with other experienced professionals such as vice chairs Kim Bracey, York, Pennsylania’s first African-American mayor; Jim Brown, Sen. Bob Casey’s previous general services secretary; and Cynthia Shapira, a renowned community activist in Western Pennsylvania.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fry released a statement, saying, “I’m honored to chair the Transition Steering Committee and work with so many outstanding leaders.”

Fry has been working in the field of higher education and consulting for nonprofit companies for his entire professional career. Currently, Fry is working on transforming Drexel into a “modern urban university of the future” and, at that, one of the foremost in the nation.

Before coming to Drexel from 2002 to 2010, Fry also served as the president of Franklin & Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There, he brought about unparalleled campus growth development and community involvement as he formed partnerships with local businesses and neighborhoods. The college’s national rankings improved vastly during this time.

Fry has established himself as one of the most prominent leaders in the Philadelphia region, by redeveloping universities and their surrounding communities. He has aided them in their states of transition and development and is expected to do the same for Wolf’s administration as chair of his transition team.

– Updated November 18 at 5:54 p.m. –

President John A. Fry is no stranger to the commonwealth. In 2002, during his time at Franklin & Marshall College, Fry worked as co-chair of former Gov. Ed Rendell’s transition team.

He also worked with Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration, traveling on trade missions to countries such as Germany, France, Brazil and Chile to expand trade opportunities for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

According Brian Keech, senior vice president of the Office of Government and Community at Drexel, Gov.-elect Tom Wolf noticed how well Fry had done these jobs and thought he would make a good member of his transition team. He further expanded that Fry has built up a vast network of people who he’s connected with during his lifetime and career in many different industries through the University. His connections in fields such as healthcare, economic development, infrastructure, community engagement and, of course, education are advantageous for Wolf.

Keech commented on the similar issues that both universities and the commonwealth face: “These are organizations that are sort of deeply entrenched in the community and the commonwealth. [Universities are] highly regulated environments by both the federal government and the state government so there’s a level of engagement with the government elected officials at a variety of different levels.

“I think John is viewed as a visionary leader: a strategic thinker, someone who’s innovative, creative and is really about solving problems. People who run these organizations like Drexel or the University of Pennsylvania or Franklin & Marshall or any other large organization are faced with very significant challenges everyday,” Keech said.

In other words, the problems Wolf will be working through as he transitions to governor will be very similar to those that Fry has seen on a daily basis at universities.

“These are all the things that university presidents are really equipped to handle,” David Wilson, vice president of the Office of Government and Community, expanded, “and Gov.-elect Wolf thinks that John’s really the guy who does it the best.

“This is not just to support you know Republicans or Democrats. This is really just to support the commonwealth,” Wilson continued.

Fry’s prior work experience has given him connections throughout the state in all different areas and experience mediating between people in different fields. The ability to bring different people from different areas together to discuss problems facing the commonwealth in integral in the transition chair position.

“This is really not about John, this is about the Governor and Gov.-elect Tom Wolf seeing in John someone who has the ability to reach out to a broad audience of people. John is a convener of people,” Keech said.

“These are going to be some tough conversations and not everyone is going to agree, but that’s the point is to sit down at the table and work through those issues and try to find common ground to move the commonwealth forward,” Keech continued, expanding on Fry’s ability to mediate.

The specific roles Fry will serve as transition chair have yet to be determined. Wolf has yet to delegate tasks to his team and divvy up roles and responsibilities.

Wilson talked on the specific position Fry would serve in the transition teams, “When they do the real small groups, by being [transition] chair he’s going to be in every one of those groups.”

Keech commented on the general specifics of being on the transition team, “You’re going to be diving deep and really dissecting all the agencies and departments in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and looking at how things work and determining how you’re going to improve and make those things better than they currently are.”

The level of involvement of the vice chairs and other co-chairs on the team will impact Fry’s time commitment. However, serving as chair of the board will only be about a two –and-a-half to three-month commitment until Wolf’s transition to governor is complete. He has said that his role on the team will not detract from his priority role as president of Drexel University.

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