For the past three years, Drexel University College of Engineering, led by Dean Joseph Hughes, has been working on plans to repurpose 3101 Market Street. The building is undergoing renovations that will create new engineering lab spaces among other usages. The roughly 60,000 square-foot area was previously the main office for the Philadelphia Parking Authority until their relocation in 2013. When the building was vacated, it was purchased by Drexel University and converted into cubicle and office spaces.

Joe Kavanagh

Vice Dean of the College of Engineering, Bruce Eisenstein spoke of some of the University’s plans for the space on Market Street. About 20,000 square-feet will be used for a brand new Innovations Studio. This will be a space dedicated to student academic engagement.

“[It will] allow the students to design work and work on projects, as well as provide students with the equipment and space they need to work on projects,” Eisenstein said. This studio will be in the north part of the building, the side closest to JFK Boulevard.

The Innovations Studio is the biggest part of the plan confirmed to date. According to Eisenstein, it is likely that the studios will be opened in time for the incoming class of freshman in Fall 2015.

“[The studio is meant to provide] realization spaces where they can actually make things, not just design and lay it out but actually construct and make projects, and that’s very exciting,” Eisenstein said.

Joe Kavanagh

The rest of the building will be used for various enterprises. Part of the building will soon house relocated laboratories from the Bossone Research Center. The intended renovations for this building have changed several times over the course of planning for the space.

Eisenstein added, “Lab space is much more difficult to construct than open design space,” expanding to say that this part of the building will take longer to finish than the Innovation Studio. “The actual assignment of space is very fluid,” Eisenstein continued.

Drexel Planning, Design and Construction Office will be handling all of the physical construction; however a team of administrators from the College of Engineering, led by Hughes, has been in charge of assigning spaces, planning ideas and lab assignments for the building. Over the past three years of planning, the needs of the college have changed, noted Eisenstein. So, the uses for the building have also changed accordingly.

The renovations will hopefully be done by the end of the 2015-16 school year.

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Edited by Jeremy Snyder

Schedulr, located at getschedulr.com, is a web app that Nishtha Dalal, an informatics and information systems major, and Tushar Soni, a computer science major, created after recognizing the need for a more efficient and global method Drexel students could use to help plan their new schedules each term.

The web app was launched July 26 at midnight. Dalal and Soni shared the link to Schedulr on Facebook just before scheduling time tickets for Fall Quarter 2015 were to begin the next day. Throughout the night alone they received over 150 hits and within the next week that number rose to upwards of 1000.

The creators commented in an email that the entire project took less than two weeks of condensed time, though the total project was completed over a few months.

“The biggest challenge was to get the data for the courses and be able to update it frequently enough. Once we overcame that hurdle, we were able to power through the rest of it quickly,” Dalal and Soni wrote in an email to The Triangle.

Schedulr is simple to use and spits out all of the possible different combinations of a schedule one might be interested in. The classes one wishes to take are found by searching for a course code or title, added to a list and finally compiled into a variety of unique schedule options the student may flick through. Each option comes equipped with a unique corresponding list of Course Registration Numbers that the student can easily copy down. The app also links students directly to the pages that are listed for individual courses on the Term Master Schedule, allowing students to check the enrollment numbers.

Victoria Smith, a sophomore, found the app one morning and immediately told several of her friends about it. “You [don’t] have to look at the term master schedule, ever,” Smith said. “It gives you 300 options and the CRN’s all at once.” She noted several key features of the web app.

Other students are just as enthralled with the easy-to-use forum that Schedulr provides. Chemistry sophomore Gina Vitale commented on the app saying, “It makes scheduling enjoyable.”

Due to the immediate success of the app, Dalal and Soni are planning to update the interface for each consecutive term following the end of the registration periods.

“There is no doubt that we will update it every quarter for the upcoming terms,” the e-mail continued. “However, students being able to plan their entire school year’s schedule is a whole new set of features.”

They went on to note that updating the app so that Drexel students could plan all their quarters throughout the year yields several hurdles. It would require accurate postings for the yearly schedule of available classes from the university. A feat which is difficult, the creators note, because the course offerings keep changing.

“We are also concerned that students would make their schedules and depend on it, only to find out that it’s not viable anymore due to these changes,” Dalal and Soni expanded in the e-mail. Additionally, they’ve begun working with Drexel Office of Information, Resources and Technology to see whether or not it’s possible to set up the app to let students plan out schedules for the entire year, rather than one term at a time.

These plans match a claim from some students that the app doesn’t do enough as it currently stands.

Rose Grieve, a sophomore chemistry major, said that the app falls short of scheduling expectations.

“It lacks the personal touch because it can’t automatically take into account preferences such as what time of day the student prefers to take classes,” Grieve complained.

Additionally, the high volume of possible schedule outcomes was off-putting to Grieve. “It can be a lot of effort looking through all the options to find a suitable schedule,” she commented.

Luckily, Dalal and Soni’s plans for fixing the app in the future seem to address most students’ complaints, including Grieve’s.

Many more new features are in the works for Schedulr. Dalal and Soni have plans to include pre- and co-requisite listings for classes, as well as a feature to let students narrow results based on individual preferences.

“Our main goal is to let the student find their perfect schedule,” Dalal and Soni’s email said. “This is simpler when the student has fewer possible schedules because finding the right one in thousands can be a tough task. Newer features will focus on solving this particular problem and giving students the power to narrow down their preferences further,” it continued.

Although the web app has proved to be mobile friendly to most users, so far there are no plans to expand the platform to a mobile app. The information running on the web app will apply to the Fall 2015 term until the current registration period ends in late August.

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Drexel’s Biological Actuation, Sensing and Transport Laboratory under head researcher MinJun Kim is now joining forces with an international research coalition led by the South Korean Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology. The research team includes 11 worldwide research labs led by the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technologies, which has put $18 million into the research. Drexel University is the only United States research team to enter the collaboration.

Through BAST Labs cooperation, the research of Kim and his doctorate student, now post-doctoral U Kei Cheang will be added to the global initiative led by DGIST. Their research focuses on using magnetic nanoparticles that can be remotely controlled through the manipulation of an external magnetic field. According to the research paper published by Kim and Cheang in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research, the objective of MPNs is to “particulate drug delivery by providing high accuracy at extremely small scales.” Now that the researchers have partnered with the global effort, another goal has emerged — there is now hope that these MNPs may be used for minimally invasive heart surgeries to clear out clogged arteries. Procedures in place now include angioplasties and the use of stents to solve these problems. However, minimally invasive use of the MNPs may provide more accuracy as well as a shorter recovery time according to Kim, quoted in a DrexelNow article.

The nanoparticles are essentially small magnetic spheres made of iron oxide that can join together in aggregates or in parallel chains. The materials making up the MNPs are degradable by the body over time, making them safe to use in surgery settings. In fluid systems, they may “swim” by rotating under the magnetic field’s influence in a spiral pattern. The spiraled movements propels the chains of MNPs along in a path. The movement is similar to spirillum bacteria and how they move throughout the body in the bloodstream.

Cheang spoke at length about the project through an email, detailing the team’s work thus far. Cheang has been on Kim’s research team for the past four years and became inspired by Kim’s work when he first joined. He noted that Kim had been initially been inspired by science fiction shows and movies, seeing the amazing use of micro and nanoscale technology in fantastical settings. Cheang wrote that as micro and nano-scale technology matures over time, “the ideas in those stories can finally be realized.”

Cheang also detailed what the research as a part of the global project will look like going forward. The team plans to “develop the core technologies which includes … the development of micro-robots, precision control systems and imaging systems. As we move forward, we will examine the applications of the core technologies and then go into system integration and prototyping. Finally, we will perform animal testing.” These goals are projected to be accomplished sometime within the next four years by DGIST.

The work cut out for the entire global team is sizeable and still very new to the world of micro and nanoparticle research, but the Drexel representatives seem excited. When asked about his biggest hope for the research project, Cheang responded, “This research is still in its infancy. We are currently working on laying the groundwork for future breakthroughs.”

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Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management and the Monell Chemical Senses Center have declared a formal partnership as of May 5. Two Drexel University students are working at Monell for their co-op jobs and approximately 10 students have researched there in the past year, according to Leslie Stein, director of science communications at Monell. The resulting partnership yields many opportunities for Drexel students in fields of science and food education.

Photo Credit: Allison Liu

The history between Drexel and the Monell Center has been an amiable one, though a formal partnership has never been attempted before. Jonathan Deutsch, professor and founding director at the Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, talked about the partnership, which will be concentrated within the food science master’s degree program at Drexel as well as the undergraduate culinary art and sciences program, in an interview. Deutsch explained how past relations between Drexel and Monell have manifested.

“We’ve had some co-ops there, we’ve had their faculty here for guest lectures and as adjuncts, we’ve toured there, we’d go to lunch together and talk about research, but we’ve never had really a clear partnership,” Deutsch said. With the formation of a formal relationship, both sides will benefit.

The Monell Center, recognized as an international leader in sensory science, is primarily a research facility. The faculty of Monell consists of chemists, biologists, neurologists and other specialized researchers. However, the main supporters of the center are food scientists and members of the fragrance industry. Drexel can offer Monell a pool of talented students in food science who can assist in broadening the vision of the Monell Center’s research to better suit the needs of the industries they seek to improve. Additionally, Monell does not only focus on applied research. The wide variety of research opens the door for skilled food science students from Drexel to help turn studies into industry-wide applications and advancements while working with staff from the Monell Center. Drexel’s commercial kitchen and academic bistro setting are both areas in which this type of application can take place. The use of facilities gives the Monell Center an advantage as they lack areas in which they can test research applications.

There are various benefits for Drexel’s culinary arts and food science programs as well. The food science program at Drexel is quickly gaining recognition from the academic community but is still a relatively small program within the University. The lack of lab space, faculty and funding place multiple limits the program. The Monell Center and its various resources are thus a valuable tool for Drexel students.

“Our students can earn credit by working in labs in Monell, which solves a big problem for us because we don’t have enough faculty and lab space to offer a great experience to every student; they do. We can hire their [post-doctoral students] and faculty to teach with us, which solves a nice problem for them because they’re not a school, they’re a research institute,” Deutsch explained. “This is a prime example of how the new partnership will flow both ways.”

The first generation of students to specifically benefit from this new partnership will be the graduate students in the food science program in the fall, according to Deutsch. They will be able to work with Monell through co-ops as well as research positions and through classes taught by Monell faculty as adjunct professors. Deutsch showed excitement about the possibilities that may stem from this partnership.

“To me, the headline is that this international leader in research which is right across Market Street. … We’ve been next to each other for decades and never done anything big, and now we have this great collaboration,” Duetsch said. Now, the two long-time neighbors will be able to reap the benefits of their proximity.

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Drexel University’s independent radio station WKDU 91.7 FM hosted representatives from approximately 15 different nonprofit organizations based in Philadelphia April 25. The station was providing assistance to the nonprofits by helping them to write and record public service announcements that will be broadcast on an hourly basis by WKDU.

The idea for the event began with Chris Burrell, the station’s electronic music director as well as an adjunct professor at Drexel. Burrell began working at the station as a student and has continued on into his post-graduate life. In all his time spent working with marketing and learning more about local nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area that needed a stronger voice, Burrell saw a possibility for partnership. He and the other leaders at the station decided to host nonprofit organizations’ PSAs during broadcasting times. When it turned out that many organizations did not have a pre-recorded or appropriately formatted PSAs, the station made another welcoming decision, opening their recording studio doors to those organizations.

Photo courtesy: Drexel Office of Communications

“[The workshop] seemed like a great opportunity. I mean we’re always obviously looking to make connections with local media outlets to help spread the word … and it’s great to have an opportunity to come in and record a professional PSA, but also to make new connections,” Elisabeth Flynn, senior communications manager of the Mazzoni Center, a participating nonprofit, said.

Some of the other nonprofits in attendance were the People’s Emergency Center, Rock to the Future, the Ahimsa Center, Women In Transition, Minding Your Mind and ArtWell. The range of styles in the PSA announcements was profound. While some were focused on giving statistics, information and help lines, others were lighthearted and upbeat, providing information about free or low-cost programs available for the Philadelphia community. The types of organizations were also varied. Women In Transition, for example, is focused on assisting women in repairing damaged lives and putting an end to domestic violence and sexual assault; while Rock to the Future provides a space for young people in the Philadelphia community to receive music lessons and join musical groups and performances.

The first step of the creation process was facilitated by Maren Larsen, the personnel director and event coordinator for WKDU, as well as a communications sophomore with a concentration in journalism. Larsen assisted the nonprofits in writing short and powerful messages to be read in their PSAs. The goal was to keep the PSAs between 30 seconds and one minute long. Larsen worked on several drafts with some of the representatives, and with others she merely helped revise a final draft that the representatives brought with them, prepared ahead of time. “It’s so cool to meet all of these community organizations that I’ve heard about. … It’s amazing what people do,” Larsen said. After getting their messages on paper, the representatives moved to the recording studio.

Esmail Hamidi, an electrical engineering junior who is also the station manager at WKDU and elected to be the upcoming general manager, operated the recordings and the final edits of each PSA. Hamidi mentioned that he has experience with radio announcements from co-op and used those skills to aid the recording process with the unexperienced speakers from the organizations. “Last year I did a co-op with iHeartMedia, and they have six radio stations in the area. So in my spare time … I was making commercials for the radio with my own voice. And I never did that before, so they coached me through it, so I learned all the tricks and brought that here,” Hamidi said. He sure had his work cut out for him and admitted that there would be a lot of extra time required to get the final edits together for the PSAs to be put on the air but that he was enjoying the task.

Computer science senior, WKDU general manager and president Peter Liu spent the day ensuring that the process went smoothly and discussing various genres of music with the visitors. Near the end of the day, Liu and Burrell discussed the success of the event. “It went smoother than anticipated, which rarely happens,” Burrell said. In the course of about six hours, 15 PSAs were recorded in the studio.

“We met so many awesome people today,” Burrell added. In order to get support and publicity for the event, Burrell used his connections to the several nonprofit representatives he teaches in his classes. “I used a few of my connections with nonprofits in [the] LeBow [College of Business]. … So [Lawrence Souder] knew a bunch of nonprofits, and he linked me up with a bunch of organizations and with the Lindy Center [for Community Engagement], so I [was able to] reach out to them also,” Burrell said. All the representatives of the organizations were very grateful for the assistance in being heard given by WKDU, and the fruits of the team’s labor — professional PSAs ready to be broadcast daily — can be heard hourly on WKDU 91.7 FM.

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Photo Credit: Ann Haftl

On the morning of April 13, the newly constructed Saxbys coffee house located on Drexel University’s campus hosted its grand opening at 65 N. 34th Street. Conveniently nested between the Daskalakis Athletic Center and the campus dorms, Saxbys was incredibly crowded for the opening, featuring notable figures of Philadelphia’s top business leaders. Local media and reporters were in attendance as well, with several entrepreneurs taking interest in the innovative student run business. Leading the activities and speeches throughout the event were Nick Bayer, the CEO of Saxbys, Drexel President John A. Fry, the Dean of Drexel’s Close School of Entrepreneurship Donna De Carolis and Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah. Mario the Magnificent, Drexel’s iconic mascot, was also in attendance much to the crowds delight.

The current manager of the cafe, Kelsey Goslin, a marketing major, was on site talking with marketing professionals from the area while also making free samples of sandwiches, bakery items and coffee available throughout the coffee shop. Having been in development for two years, Bayer was ecstatic to finally host the grand opening of his company’s first ever exclusively student-run location. Speaking about his desire to create a Saxbys location for students to use as an experiential learning opportunity, he discussed his history as an entrepreneur starting Saxbys.

“This is a lifetime journey for me, personally; I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 10 years. I started my business every way you shouldn’t start a business. … I figured that one day when my business could get some traction it would be… such an impactful thing for me to give back to the next generation of entrepreneurs to teach them how to do it way better than I could do it,” Bayer said.

Bayer’s plan was to create an environment for young people who were budding entrepreneurs. He wanted to create a space for those students to flourish while they still had time to learn, before entering the job market and the “real world.” However, Bayer encountered a problem while trying to find a university that was bold enough to trust its students in a business partnership such as the one Bayer was proposing.

“I came up with an idea to partner with a very entrepreneurial university that would take a chance on a company like Saxbys and a person like me to be able to open up a Saxbys and let it be exclusively run by students. Many, many schools, probably most schools, would never touch something like that; it’s just too risky. This is the one school that would take a chance on this,” Bayer said. Now, the Saxbys Drexel will be “run by students now, tomorrow, and forever.”

Fry also talked about his hopes for Saxbys Drexel and what it means for the University to have this new partnership develop. “[This partnership with Saxbys] allows us to continue to use this University for the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.” Fry also talked about the new Close School of Entrepreneurship and its importance for young people in our community. “Entrepreneurship is fundamental to the success of our University and to the heart of our mission,” Fry said.

Congressman Fattah also made a few comments about the importance of engaging youth in projects like those offered by Saxbys Drexel. Fattah and Bayer met a few years ago when Bayer came to him as a representative for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern Pennsylvania. The two have appeared to be on good terms ever since.

Fattah said that he is impressed at how much Bayer “has shown, in every way, his commitment to young people even while he’s building his business.” Fattah went on to praise the opportunities being offered to Drexel students able to work with Saxbys Drexel. “By being student run, [Saxbys Drexel] is teaching leadership and management skills that are going to be important for our young people as they take on the reins of leadership. … We need these young people to be able to step up, and this is where it starts,” Fattah said.

Goslin, now in her spring-summer co-op cycle and working as the manager for the cafe described what her co-op experience has been like so far. Goslin found the job listing, she said, among all the other co-op job listings, and her attention was caught by the company name. She had been to a Saxbys for the first time while visiting the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, and fell in love with the coffee there.

“I kind of researched online the company’s core values and stuff and that really spoke to me as well. … It’s to make the community better around them and also to make life better and I love that.” Goslin said she was surprised and nervous when she found out that she would be interviewing with Bayer himself. Goslin expressed that the interview was a great experience: “[For the majority of the interview] he asked me about my personal life, my family, really trying to get to know me, which is so nice. … That drew me in even further because I knew, ‘Wow, they actually care about their employees.’”

The caring and individualized actions of Saxbys are exactly what Bayer hopes to show the community about his company. Although the company is technically a chain due to their multiple locations, Bayer wants to ensure that Saxbys remains true to providing an individualized and unique experience at each of its locations and for all of its customers and workers.

Photo Credit: Ann Haftl

“There’s no Saxbys that looks like this, and there’s no Saxbys that will ever look like this because we design everyone to be unique. We try to solve problems that universities have and Drexel… waned an experiential learning where people could run their own business. It’s sort of a co-op program on steroids. … We could be that solution… and I’m honored to be able to give that to such a great school like Drexel,” Bayer said.

The decor and internal design of the new Saxbys addresses much of the student body’s needs. There is an abundant amount of seating inside, including large tables and smaller side tables and benches for both independent and group study. The cafe is well-lit and artistically decorated, providing bright and stimulating colors that aren’t overwhelming. Decorations include reclaimed pieces from the former University City High School that function as art and seating throughout the cafe as well as several pieces of student artwork. The hours of operation will also be key to making the Saxbys Drexel a popular study space for students: Mondays through Thursdays, the coffee shop will be open from 6:30 a.m.-11 p.m. and 7 a.m.-11 p.m. on Sundays, all prime study times.

In a separate interview with Bayer after the opening events, he exclaimed once more his excitement for having made his dream of an experiential Saxbys location possible. “This is like a dream come true… being able to partner with a university, being able to give students an opportunity that no student anywhere ever has gotten … before, and it’s rare that you get to be a part of something like that. … I’m so honored.”

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Drexel University’s professor Lisa McElroy of the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, is currently under investigation for having sent her students an email containing a link to a pornographic video. The email, sent out on the morning of March 31, read in the subject line “great article on writing briefs,” and the text in the body of the email was a link to a video she suggested that students watch, as it supplied tips on “brief writing.”

Images of the email were obtained by several news sources, including the Associated Press and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Drexel University released a press statement saying that federal law obliges the university to conduct internal investigations on any matter that relates to sexual content. The University reserves the right to put the professor under investigation on non-punitive leave, but it is not yet known whether or not McElroy will continue teaching during the spring term or not. McElroy has not yet released any statement on the issue.

Photo courtesy: Drexel.edu

McElroy graduated from Harvard cum laude with her J.D. and moved on to work in two Boston law firms, Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault as well as Gadsby & Hannah, LLP. She is currently an associate professor of law at Drexel. This term, she is teaching “Legal Methods II” and “Supreme Court Seminar.” She has worked at other schools in the past, including Roger Williams University School of Law and the University of Massachusetts School of Law.

McElroy has authored several publications in her field, such as “Coming off the Bench: Legal and Policy Implications of Proposals to Allow Retired Justices to Sit By Designation on the United States Supreme Court” with Michael Dorf in the Duke Law Journal, and “Sex on the Brain: Adolescent Psychosocial Science and Sanctions for Risky Sex” in New York University Review of Law and Social Change, among other papers and also children’s books about the supreme court and elected officials. She was a contributor to SCOTUSblog in the past, and now regularly contributes to the Motherlode blog of The New York Times. McElroy is married, and lives with her husband and two daughters in Philadelphia.

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Photo courtesy: Drexel Office of Communications

WKDU 91.7 FM, Drexel University’s entirely student-run and independent radio station, hosts a series of hourly public service announcements in place of commercials, just as every college radio station is allowed to do. However, the PSAs at WKDU have been running for quite some time, without the addition of new material. On April 25, the staff at WKDU will change that. The station will host a PSA workshop, inviting Philadelphia-based nonprofit organizations to come into the studio to write and record PSA announcements that will be put into WKDU’s automatic PSA playlist.

According to Chris Burrell, adjunct marketing professor at Drexel as well as the electronic music director at WKDU, the idea for the workshop came up among himself, General Manager Peter Liu, Station Manager Es Hamidi and Director of Public Outreach and Community Involvement Jon Plotkin. The group decided that a number of PSAs they broadcast were outdated and in need of refreshment. The group then discussed the types of PSAs that would mean the most to each of them, as well as relevant community listeners. Most of the group ended up valuing many ideals highlighted by Philadelphia nonprofits.

Burrell said that “there are so many nonprofits out there that could use our help and would also help us engage the community and our listener base. We’re always open to nonprofits sending us their public service announcements.”

The staff at WKDU began reaching out to nonprofits to encourage them to record and send in PSAs as MP3 files. “We wanted to find a way to engage as many local nonprofits doing amazing work as possible” Burrell said. However, this strategy did not work out so well.

Nonprofits do not often have the resources available to be able to record and send out their PSAs. WKDU thought that the best solution to the problem would be to provide the means for these groups to create their own PSAs. The workshop will allow nonprofits otherwise unable to broadcast their own PSAs a new opportunity to be heard. As a nonprofit marketing professor, Burrell noted that he has been able to see just how many worthy nonprofits exist in Philadelphia without a voice to help get them the support they need. He hopes that the workshop will be a resource for those nonprofits to raise awareness in the local community.

Burrell also said that the workshop would be a healthy networking opportunity, “We realized that in addition to getting new PSAs, [the workshop] would be a great way to start meeting some of these nonprofits and really building relationships with these nonprofits. … Building new relationships with nonprofits increases the opportunities we have to raise money and awareness for causes that our listeners are passionate about. We want to provide a voice for the community by broadcasting local nonprofit PSAs.”

The station has set up PSA recordings with at least six nonprofits so far. Burrell stated that they are looking to add another 10-15 organizations to the lineup. “The thing is that so many people know a nonprofit or know someone who works for a nonprofit, so we want all those people to get in touch with us and reach out,” he said.

WKDU will host the workshop in their studio, located in the basement of the Creese Student Center. The staff will be on hand to ensure that all the organizations’ representatives have someone to assist them. There are two basic steps, Burrell noted, to make a great PSA: Writing engaging and interesting text that will attract the attention of radio listeners, and then simply recording a voice reading that message. Once all of the PSAs have been recorded, they will be put into automatic rotation on the station. One PSA will be played every hour, amid other content the radio broadcasts, including music and free-format materials.

Student staffers at WKDU are trained and subjected to prerequisites before they can join the club. The club can accommodate students of any educational background, although the experiential learning gained in the club will be most beneficial to those students who are studying related topics.

“WKDU is a great way for students of many different majors to get hands-on experience related to their field. For example, students in marketing or digital media have designed our logos and flyers for events; engineering students have spent lots of time in our production room interacting with electronics; computer science students have helped to develop our website; and music industry students have received experience working with record labels and promoters. We believe our station is closely aligned with Drexel’s key competitive advantage: experiential learning,” Burrell said.

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Photo Courtesy: AleksandarCucu

In the upcoming spring term, the Drexel University Center for Hospitality and Sports Management will be offering an exciting new class, spirits and mixology, every Tuesday night. The class will be taught by the skilled Keith Raimondi, who is currently an adjunct professor at Drexel as well as the lead bartender for Townsend, a French restaurant just south of Center City that’s known for its food and fine wine pairings. The class was thought up by Jonathan Deutsch, director of the Center for Hospitality and Sports Management.

In the past decade or so, an emergent trend of serving trendy and specialty cocktails in top restaurants has appeared. Deutsch and his colleagues are helping students to prepare for the competitive hospitality career they have ahead of them with a new “beverage initiative” that will offer many classes focused on the preparation, pairing and serving of beverages, according to Paul O’Neill, the Center’s director of special projects.

“In the past, bar and beverage programs were placed on the back burner and left to be afterthoughts. The truth of the matter is that the restaurant should be thought of as the sum of its parts: Every component of the restaurant is uniquely integral. Every piece from the ingredients the chef uses, where he sources them … the wine, beer and cocktails offered is now under a microscope. The irony is, the bar program is where the largest operating profit margin exists, and for years it was left to dwindle devoid of any inspiration,” O’Neill said. He went on to explain that traditional bartending schools are now outdated and underwhelming.

The competition in Philadelphia’s restaurant scene today is intense; a well-developed beverage education is needed for someone looking to advance their career as a serious mixologist in this city. The beverage initiative is meant to provide an advanced education for anyone looking to get into the beverage industry, as a sales rep, business owner, bartender, distiller and more.

“We would like to help expand the knowledge for those looking to make their way into the field, whether it be a change of career to behind the bar, … or for anyone who has a real passion for the artistry and wants to learn proper technique with premium products,”  O’Neill said.

The goals of the course include teaching students not just how to make a classic cocktail, but also for the students to gain a deep understanding of cocktail and mixology fundamentals. Students will be expected to learn the histories of individual spirits, how and why they have been previously used, and to understand the various ways in which those spirits can be incorporated into more complex beverages.

Photo Courtesy: AleksandarCucu

Students will be reading “Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar” by David Wondrich as part of the course.

But perhaps the most unique and exciting aspect of the course is the list of patented, brand new and creative cocktails the students will craft as a part of their work. The students will also have to project estimated costs to make their specialty cocktails and detail the level of hospitality involved with serving such beverages to the public. O’Neill elaborated that, “anyone can be taught to make the drink and can master the execution, but if it’s done without genuine hospitality then it’s all for naught.”

Students age 21 and up will be eligible to take the course in the spring — the maximum enrollment listed on the term master schedule is 10 students. However, this class is also available in the spring to the public community. For $595, members of the surrounding community, not currently enrolled as Drexel students, can enroll in the class.

Currently, the course has sold out to non-student participants. The immediate high popularity of the course, O’Neill said, is leading the Center to discuss possibly opening the course again in the summer. Most likely the course will run again in successive terms. “The popularity within the Center and the quickness in which it sold out to the public let us know we have something special happening here,” O’Neill said.

Raimondi, the professor for the course, has been actively involved in the Center for Hospitality and Sports Management since first becoming an adjunct professor at Drexel. Raimondi’s history includes time working as an ambassador for Beefeater Gin, a bartender in Jose Garces’ restaurants — JG Domestic, Village Whiskey and Chifa — and also Lemon Hill and currently Townsend. He is known for bringing inventive cocktails to the forefront of restaurants’ reputations. In addition to his time working with mixology outside of Drexel, Raimondi has also been quite involved at the University. Chef Mike Traud, program director for Hospitality and Tourism Management at Drexel, brought Raimondi on as a relevant industry leader to help enhance the programs offered through the Center.

Raimondi was a panelist for the “Old Fashioned” demonstration in the inaugural Chef’s Conference, and also helped organize the second Annual Chef’s Conference, which took place this past January. Raimondi organized a two-hour panel and demonstration on distillation and fermentation at the conference and used his connections to the beverage industry to bring in several professionals to speak at the event, as well as sponsors.

Despite a lack of college-level formal teaching experience, Raimondi’s trade has exposed him to several teaching opportunities. O’Neill explained that “in the restaurant and beverage trade we are constantly teaching and attempting to stay ahead of the curve with new products, techniques, and better business practices.”

O’Neil said the course will award students “a certificate of completion when one finishes the classes required for the beverage institute that will be based on the formidable reputation we have been able to build in our short time as a Center for Hospitality within the restaurant industry.” Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management holds a reputation that is rapidly growing in renown in the culinary and hospitality industries. This reputation, coupled with completion of the spirits and mixology course, along with other beverage-focused courses will provide a formidable basis for students to take with them into the beverage and cocktail industry.

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An international team from Drexel University and Germany’s Technical University of Dortmund met Feb. 28 and March 1 to brainstorm ideas for revitalizing the Delaware River waterfront. Four Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design students were joined by 15 students from TU Dortmund plus some Dortmund faculty. The charette workshop led by Drexel architecture professor Harris Steinberg discussed the Lehigh Viaduct and Delaware Generating Station, and the surrounding Port Richmond area.

In the past, the Viaduct (containing the Port Richmond rail yard with 12 busy tracks) and the nearby Delaware Generating Station were symbols of the industrial power and innovation of Philadelphia. The Viaduct was built to be a wide throughway for the rails, used to connect local Philadelphia neighborhoods to the Delaware River and surrounding waterfront. Now, sitting largely neglected and unused, the viaduct is still home to two running railroads, but is closed off to nearby residents and covered with overgrown foliage. The power station sits nearly empty, taking up over 1,000 linear feet of the Delaware River waterfront, and is no longer an aesthetically pleasing structure. The 30,000-square-foot structure as it stands is a waste of space that could be turned into something new and relevant to the surrounding community.

Students were challenged to come up with plans that would respect the legacy of these old, semi-abandoned sites as relics of the great industrial age of Philadelphia, while transforming the area into a post-industrially relevant location that could foster the growth of a community of Philadelphia residents. The TU Dortmund students came to the project with a background in learning and researching the interactions between humans, technology and nature.

The Drexel students, three final-year thesis students and one in the fourth year of the program, brought their architectural knowledge along with their knowledge as local citizens. “Both the Americans and the Germans complimented each other in terms of professional education and background as well as the kinds of knowledge that they brought to the process. … Together, the teams applied their combined backgrounds and experience to create some powerful ideas for city building,” Steinberg said.

This project first began when Steinberg was contacted by colleague Shawn McCaney of the William Penn Foundation. McCaney works on the transatlantic projects sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The German Marshall Fund is a “nonpartisan, nonprofit” organization dedicated to bringing together thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic to collaborate on city building and repurposing outdated infrastructures in this post-industrial era in ways that are relevant to modern policymakers. McCaney brought the project ideas to Steinberg as he was entering the Drexel community, and Steinberg thought it would be a good way to get Drexel students involved in urban planning.

The project was hosted in joint effort by the Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation and the department of architecture and interior design. A two-day gathering was organized by the German Marshall fund Feb. 26-27 to hear from experts in urban planning about “case studies in the adaptive reuse of post-industrial infrastructure in Europe and the U.S. — with the objective being to help us dream big about the potential adaptive reuse of the Lehigh Viaduct and the Delaware Generating Station at Penn Treaty Park.”

“This work helped to set the stage for the student charrette over the weekend,” Steinberg explained. The first gathering was open to the public, but the charrette included only the student team and their leaders, the professors from both colleges.

The ideas developed in the charrette will be refined by the German students “as part of their academic work at TU Dortmund, and the results of the charrette will be published,” Steinberg said. He hopes that the ideas generated will be used as a starting point for “future collaboration between Drexel and the spatial planning program at TU Dortmund.” Additionally, when images and drafts of ideas are published, the team hopes that policymakers and companies invested in city design and planning will decide to act on the ideas presented in a physical way.

The charrette was, according to Steinberg, rather successful. “The ideas generated were very exciting and represented truly new ways to think about these forgotten parts of the city,” he said.

Some of the ideas generated included creating community centers, public gardens, camp grounds along the banks and swimming areas within the Delaware River. Students also proposed using the massive power station as a “community living room and arts venue” to make the space commercial as well as civically involved, according to Steinberg.

The students’ ideas and sketches from the charrette will be published for public viewing on the websites of Drexel, the German Marshall Fund and the William Penn foundation.

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