Despite the circumstances, the state of Pennsylvania will still be holding a primary election on Tuesday, June 2. The election, originally meant to be on April 28, was pushed back by Gov. Tom Wolf as the COVID crisis ramped up, along with voter registration deadlines. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, state and city leaders have made various decisions to cut back on polling places and staff while ramping up mail-in ballot efforts.

According to the Inquirer, The Philadelphia Board of City Commissioners released a plan that would cut up to 77 percent of polling locations in the city, with a total of 190 locations. The decision to severely cut polling places was partially made because fewer people are willing to risk their health as poll-workers.

In elections across the country, cities are having trouble filling working positions and finding locations that are able to fulfill social distancing requirements.

However, the consolidation of polling sites poses greater health risks as large amounts of voters will be crammed into fewer locations. It can be presumed that the polling location changes will create further confusion and disenfranchise voters who can no longer simply walk to their local site. As per usual, people will be able to vote from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day.

At the same time, the state’s new mail-in ballot initiative has become a solution for many Pennsylvanians who want their voices heard but also do not want to risk their health. This election is the first time where all voters are eligible to request an absentee ballot and will serve as a test run for the general election in November.

As of Wednesday, over 145,000 people in Philadelphia have requested a mail-in ballot, and it seems that the numbers will continue to grow rapidly. While the date to register to vote has passed, people who are already registered can request an absentee or mail-in ballot up until May 26 through an online application.

Ballots must be received by the 8 p.m. deadline on June 2, so it is imperative that voters mail their ballots with plenty of time to spare. It is also important to note that Pennsylvania holds closed primaries, meaning you can only vote for the party you are registered with.

With that being said, here’s a quick voter guide to what will be on the ballot:

Ballot Questions:

Philly voters will have the opportunity to vote on two proposed changes to the city’s charter.

Question 1: Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to revise rules pertaining to prohibited activities of appointed City officers and employees, to generally allow such officers and employees to volunteer for state and federal political campaigns outside of work time and without using City resources; to continue to prohibit participation in any political campaign for a City office or Philadelphia-based state office; and to revise penalty provisions pertaining to such restrictions and prohibited activities generally?

As of now, City employees cannot volunteer for any partisan political campaigns, whether that be on the local, state or federal levels, a decision made back in the 1950s when Philly officials were dealing with various corruption scandals. Philadelphia is one of few municipalities to have such stringent rules on employee political activity. While employees are able to outwardly express support for their favored candidate, they are unable to take paid positions on political campaigns.

This number of employees includes over 25,000 people. Should the vote be passed, most City employees would be allowed to campaign for federal and various state campaigns but would still be restricted from participating in local campaigns or for state representatives that Philadelphians would see on the ballot.

Question 2: Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to create a Department of Labor, headed by a Cabinet-level Director, to enforce City laws that protect Philadelphia workers; to oversee labor relations, such as collective bargaining, with the City’s unionized workforce; to investigate compliance with worker protections set forth in City contracts; and to manage programs concerning City employees; and to create a Board of Labor Standards to review and adjudicate matters arising from such work?

During his administration, Mayor Kenney created a Department of Labor which has served as an organization tool for enforcing worker laws as well as protecting their rights. However, the office stands to be easily eliminated in 2023 once Kenney leaves office. Voting yes would mean, in turn, that Philly’s Home Rule Charter would be modified to permanently include the Department of Labor and expand its power with a seven-person board and a director.

President of the United States:

The race for the President of the United States has essentially narrowed down to incumbent Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden. Many of the following names remain on the ballot regardless of the candidates having dropped out. However, one of the candidates who still has a stake in the election is Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is encouraging his supporters to still vote for him. The more Sanders racks up his delegate count, the more sway he will have over Biden’s platform at the Democratic convention.

Democratic Primary

• Joe Biden: Former Vice President during the Obama administration, former Delaware senator
• Bernie Sanders: current Senator of Vermont, former Mayor of Burlington
• Tulsi Gabbard: current state representative from Hawaii, veteran

Republican Primary

• Donald Trump: (incumbent) current President of the United States
• Roque de la Fuente: former Democratic candidate for president in 2016, dropped out
• Bill Weld: former Governor of Massachusetts, dropped out

Delegates to the National Conventions: 

Voters will be able to select delegates to attend the Democratic or Republican convention. Based on your party registration, you will be able to choose several of the delegates to go represent your preferred candidate in the race. Democrats will be able to vote for up to 14 delegates out of 25, and Republicans will be able to vote for four delegates (who are all committed to voting for Trump.) The Democratic delegates are either committed to Sanders or Biden.

PA Attorney General:

The state’s Attorney General is tasked with handling the legal matters of the state, split up into four main divisions — handling civil, public protection, criminal cases, among other responsibilities. Serving as the largest prosecutor in Pennsylvania, the Attorney General position is a powerful role in the state government.

Josh Shapiro is the current PA Attorney General and seeks to keep his position in the upcoming election. Shapiro is best known for prosecuting the case against the sex abuse scandals occurring within the Catholic Church. The attorney general exposed the 300 priests involved in abusing around 1,000 victims, blaming the archdiocese for a lack of action. Shapiro is also known for a scandal involving The Philadelphia Inquirer back in late 2019, in which he encouraged the local paper to be more critical of Philly District Attorney Larry Krasner. Of course, this scandal represents a challenging power dynamic between the two leaders as Krasner has advocated against mass incarceration, much to the behest of Shapiro.

Heather Heidelbaugh, his Republican competitor, has called Shapiro a “show dog” only willing to take on cases that would raise his profile. As a Pittsburgh attorney and former council member, Heidelbaugh is Shapiro’s sole competitor in the race.

Democratic Primary

• Josh Shapiro (incumbent)

Republican Primary

• Heather Heidelbaugh

Auditor General:

The Auditor General of the state generally serves as the fiscal, government spending watchdog. As a seat for the position has opened up, plenty of Democrats and Republicans are vying for the spot.

Democratic Primary

• Christina Hartman: Nonprofit consultant, former candidate for congress
• Rosie Davis: Long time public accountant
• Scott Conklin: Current representative of PA’s 77th District
• Nina Ahmad: Former deputy mayor for public engagement, former president of Philly’s National Organization of Women chapter
• Michael Lamb: Current Pittsburgh City Controller
• Tracey Fountain: Drexel alum, currently serves as the Audit Bureau Director for the auditor general’s office

Republican Primary

• Timothy DeFoor: Recently elected to second term as Dauphin County Controller.

Pennsylvania Senate

For the PA Senate, there are four senators up for re-election, only one of whom is being challenged in the 1st District. Progressive Nikil Saval is challenging incumbent Larry Farnese in what seems to be a tight race. Saval is a champion of progressive politics, having co-founded Reclaim Philly and organized for the Sanders campaign in the past. Running on policies like a Green New Deal for PA, rent control and affordable housing, Saval’s platform represents a breath of fresh air in Philly politics. Incumbent Larry Farnese has been in office since 2009, having been successful in advocating for affordable housing, a PA run on renewable energy and advocacy for women and LGBTQ groups.

1st District

• Nikil Saval
• Larry Farnese (incumbent Democrat)

3rd District

• Sharif Street (incumbent Democrat)

5th District

• John Sabatina Jr. (incumbent Democrat)

7th District

• Vincent Hughes (incumbent Democrat)

Pennsylvania House of Representatives:

There are more open seats in the House of Representatives as these positions are up for reelection every two years. Philly has 26 districts that are represented in the House, and there are too many candidates running for office to list, so here are some election highlights:

182nd District
This district faces a three-way race as incumbent Democrat Brian Sims battles Marisa Shaaban and Drew Murray. Sims is currently seeking a fifth term, having a long history of being outspoken on LGBTQ rights but also being involved in a viral scandal last year. Shaaban, also a Democrat, has focused her platform around issues of public education and healthcare. Republican Drew Murray is running on anti-Kenney policies, such as repealing Philadelphia’s position as a sanctuary city and preventing the implementation of safe injection sites.

184th District
Republican Lou Menna IV is running against incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Fielder in the South Philly district. Fielder is a former WHYY reporter and has also embraced progressive positions in her previous term, introducing the Fair Workweek Bill to give workers predictable schedules and pays. No information is out about Fielder’s competitor, Lou Menna.

188th District
The 188th District represents West Philly and University City, where Drexel is located in particular. The district faces a competitive race as three people are running to push out Democratic incumbent James Roebuck.

Among the contenders are Democrats Gregory R. Benjamin, Rick Krajewski and Karen Dunn. Congressman Roebuck has represented the district since 1985, becoming one of the longest serving Congress members in the city. Roebuck can be considered as part of the state’s Democratic establishment, being propped up financially by many fellow leaders. Benjamin has been involved in community affairs at the West Philadelphia Mennonite Church and promises to address issues of community safety, mental health and economic improvements.

Rick Krajewski, like Nikil Saval, has roots in the 2016 Sanders movement in Philadelphia, where he organized with Reclaim Philly. His platform consists of criminal justice reform, a Green New Deal for PA and addressing the city’s opioid crisis. Karen Dunn has been involved in her district through incumbent Roebuck’s office for the past 20 years and supports housing reforms, prison reforms and a Green New Deal as well.

For more information on the many other candidates running for office, check out the Committee of Seventy’s website for an expanded voter guide.

As the resident news editor for The Triangle for over 13 months, it has been my task to find stories, events, issues, updates, protests and more to write about. It was my task to fill the front page each week, given by the Editorial Board and our former Editor-in-Chief, Nick Camarata.

While our new Editor-in-Chief, Ben Ahrens, has stepped into the role, there is no front page for me to fill right now. I am in charge of finding whatever angle might be deemed worthy of a good read and content that people want to see on our website during the quarantined spring.

What can fill a news section of a newspaper if there is almost no news? How can my writers write about events and people when everyone has to stay at home?

Thankfully, some parts of life still go on. Primary elections are moving forward; research teams across Drexel, Philadelphia and the country are tirelessly working to help; the restaurant scene is slowly starting to gain traction again — more information will be coming about that in due time — and there are organizations doing amazing work to help feed, nourish and comfort the Philadelphia community.

While all of these are wonderful things to write about, I felt that as a news editor for Drexel University’s student newspaper, there should be a new angle in which to write about my university during this time.

Despite this thought and this desire, almost no ideas were coming to me — well, nothing I liked. Thankfully, other people can turn on the light bulb for you — you just have to see the right thing at the right time.

As I was scrolling through my Instagram feed on the evening of May 15, I tuned in to see a fellow Drexel student — Nicholas Paparo — sharing information about the famous architect Juan Marcos Arellano y de Guzman. Unbeknownst to me, Arellano had graduated from the Drexel Institute with a bachelor’s degree in architecture after transferring from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Paparo was “pretty disappointed” that someone so extraordinary such as Arellano — who was the primary architect in the colonial Philippines as a consulting architect — was not one of Drexel’s distinguished alumni.

“Just looking at the list of distinguished alumni a lot of names pop out… Bossone, Lebow, Rittenhouse, Pennoni. All big donors / notable Philadelphians. Granted, Arellano did graduate well over 100 years ago and left Philadelphia long after, but you would think someone with his list of architectural achievements would be enough to retain a point of pride for the place that formally trained him in architecture in the first place,” explained Paparo.

Arellano constructed the famous Legislative Building in the Filipino capital of Manila, along with the city’s Metropolitan Theater and the current US Embassy Building. He designed the massive Manila post office and the Jones Bridge, along with many other famous buildings in his country in many cities and towns.

Sure enough, I checked Drexel’s website. Under the list of notable alumni, there was no one even from the decade in which Arellano graduated — the 1910s. How could an entire decade of Drexel graduates not be worth noting, Arellano especially?

And thus the idea came to mind — are there notable Drexel alumni that we simply don’t know about? Who else is out there with a phenomenal and odds-defying story, just waiting to be read about, that passed through Drexel University’s campus before we did?

After chatting with Paparo about this, he was able to forward me information about Arellano from the book he originally posted on Instagram with: “How to Hide an Empire” by Daniel Immerwahr.

Arellano was born in Tondo Manila, Philippines in 1888, and grew up there with an extraordinarily talented family. His brother, Arcadio, was the first Filipino architectural advisor to be hired by the United States; his cousin, Jose Palma, wrote the national anthem still used today in the Philippines; and another brother, Manuel, was a highly regarded photographer. But Arellano’s beginnings, like many people’s, weren’t where he ended up.

Arellano was a painter first and led the charge for Filipino impressionist painters at the turn of the 20th century as a teenager. In 1907, he submitted a painting of his to the Jamestown Exposition and traveled to the United States, but he himself became the attraction — a strange-looking man who could speak fluent English.

While being on display brought in the money Arellano needed, he wanted to study. He went to Philadelphia and became the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ prized student, winning the academy’s best painting award. However, as he went to compete in international competitions, he wasn’t allowed due to his lack of U.S. citizenship.

And so, Arellano gave up painting in light of architecture, transferring to Drexel Institute in the process before graduating. From there, he went on to New York City for work before returning to his country and doing the diligent work that he is known for.

One might look at the fact that Arellano went to Drexel as a trivial piece of information, but it served as the critical stepping stone in Arellano’s life. After his love for painting burnt out, he wanted to dive into architecture while remaining in Philadelphia. Drexel offered the perfect opportunity for him.

Without Drexel, Manila would be unrecognizable today. Without Drexel, the architect of the early 20th century Philippines wouldn’t exist.

In the coming quarantined weeks, more Drexel alumni will be featured and focused on in an attempt to shed some light onto the untold stories of former Dragons. Their histories are worth reading about.

As the resident news editor for The Triangle for over 13 months, it has been my task to find stories, events, issues, updates, protests and more to write about. It was my task to fill the front page each week, given by the Editorial Board and our former Editor-in-Chief, Nick Camarata.

While our new Editor-in-Chief, Ben Ahrens, has stepped into the role, there is no front page for me to fill right now. I am in charge of finding whatever angle might be deemed worthy of a good read and content that people want to see on our website during the quarantined spring.

What can fill a news section of a newspaper if there is almost no news? How can my writers write about events and people when everyone has to stay at home?

Thankfully, some parts of life still go on. Primary elections are moving forward; research teams across Drexel, Philadelphia and the country are tirelessly working to help; the restaurant scene is slowly starting to gain traction again — more information will be coming about that in due time — and there are organizations doing amazing work to help feed, nourish and comfort the Philadelphia community.

While all of these are wonderful things to write about, I felt that as a news editor for Drexel University’s student newspaper, there should be a new angle in which to write about my university during this time.

Despite this thought and this desire, almost no ideas were coming to me — well, nothing I liked. Thankfully, other people can turn on the light bulb for you — you just have to see the right thing at the right time.

As I was scrolling through my Instagram feed on the evening of May 15, I tuned in to see a fellow Drexel student — Nicholas Paparo — sharing information about the famous architect Juan Marcos Arellano y de Guzman. Unbeknownst to me, Arellano had graduated from the Drexel Institute with a bachelor’s degree in architecture after transferring from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Paparo was “pretty disappointed” that someone so extraordinary such as Arellano — who was the primary architect in the colonial Philippines as a consulting architect — was not one of Drexel’s distinguished alumni.

“Just looking at the list of distinguished alumni a lot of names pop out… Bossone, Lebow, Rittenhouse, Pennoni. All big donors / notable Philadelphians. Granted, Arellano did graduate well over 100 years ago and left Philadelphia long after, but you would think someone with his list of architectural achievements would be enough to retain a point of pride for the place that formally trained him in architecture in the first place,” explained Paparo.

Arellano constructed the famous Legislative Building in the Filipino capital of Manila, along with the city’s Metropolitan Theater and the current US Embassy Building. He designed the massive Manila post office and the Jones Bridge, along with many other famous buildings in his country in many cities and towns.

Sure enough, I checked Drexel’s website. Under the list of notable alumni, there was no one even from the decade in which Arellano graduated — the 1910s. How could an entire decade of Drexel graduates not be worth noting, Arellano especially?

And thus the idea came to mind — are there notable Drexel alumni that we simply don’t know about? Who else is out there with a phenomenal and odds-defying story, just waiting to be read about, that passed through Drexel University’s campus before we did?

After chatting with Paparo about this, he was able to forward me information about Arellano from the book he originally posted on Instagram with: “How to Hide an Empire” by Daniel Immerwahr.

Arellano was born in Tondo Manila, Philippines in 1888, and grew up there with an extraordinarily talented family. His brother, Arcadio, was the first Filipino architectural advisor to be hired by the United States; his cousin, Jose Palma, wrote the national anthem still used today in the Philippines; and another brother, Manuel, was a highly regarded photographer. But Arellano’s beginnings, like many people’s, weren’t where he ended up.

Arellano was a painter first and led the charge for Filipino impressionist painters at the turn of the 20th century as a teenager. In 1907, he submitted a painting of his to the Jamestown Exposition and traveled to the United States, but he himself became the attraction — a strange-looking man who could speak fluent English.

While being on display brought in the money Arellano needed, he wanted to study. He went to Philadelphia and became the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts’ prized student, winning the academy’s best painting award. However, as he went to compete in international competitions, he wasn’t allowed due to his lack of U.S. citizenship.

And so, Arellano gave up painting in light of architecture, transferring to Drexel Institute in the process before graduating. From there, he went on to New York City for work before returning to his country and doing the diligent work that he is known for.

One might look at the fact that Arellano went to Drexel as a trivial piece of information, but it served as the critical stepping stone in Arellano’s life. After his love for painting burnt out, he wanted to dive into architecture while remaining in Philadelphia. Drexel offered the perfect opportunity for him.

Without Drexel, Manila would be unrecognizable today. Without Drexel, the architect of the early 20th century Philippines wouldn’t exist.

In the coming quarantined weeks, more Drexel alumni will be featured and focused on in an attempt to shed some light onto the untold stories of former Dragons. Their histories are worth reading about.

In an update to last week’s article, Sharing Love continues to do more and expand during this pandemic.

The merger of two local non-profits — The Sunday Love Project and Sharing Excess — continues their meal site, offering hot meal services and grocery box takeaways twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 3 to 5 p.m. In the past weeks, they have counted with donations from Soy Cafe, Peewee’s Ice Cream, Sofresco Juices and ElMerkury, and they are expecting more and more future collaborations with local restaurants of the Greater Philadelphia Area.

In order to avoid crowding and maintain health measures, they will follow a system of reservations with 75 reservations online and 75 reservations on a walk-up system. Evan Ehlers, founder of Sharing Excess and Drexel alumnus, was able to clarify how they plan on doing that in an interview with The Triangle. They will utilize sidewalk queueing guides to maintain safe social distancing with food distribution directly from the building’s entrance.

“There is a stigma with organizations like ours on ‘that we only feed the homeless’ and, of course, we’re going to do anything to we serve people who need it the most; but our goal with this project is to kind of break the stigma around ‘free food’ and just be able to help anyone who needs a meal,” Ehlers said.

Their website, sharing-love.com, is already live, and anyone interested in volunteering, donating or making a meal reservation can visit for more information.

In an update to last week’s article, Sharing Love continues to do more and expand during this pandemic.

The merger of two local non-profits — The Sunday Love Project and Sharing Excess — continues their meal site, offering hot meal services and grocery box takeaways twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 3 to 5 p.m. In the past weeks, they have counted with donations from Soy Cafe, Peewee’s Ice Cream, Sofresco Juices and ElMerkury, and they are expecting more and more future collaborations with local restaurants of the Greater Philadelphia Area.

In order to avoid crowding and maintain health measures, they will follow a system of reservations with 75 reservations online and 75 reservations on a walk-up system. Evan Ehlers, founder of Sharing Excess and Drexel alumnus, was able to clarify how they plan on doing that in an interview with The Triangle. They will utilize sidewalk queueing guides to maintain safe social distancing with food distribution directly from the building’s entrance.

“There is a stigma with organizations like ours on ‘that we only feed the homeless’ and, of course, we’re going to do anything to we serve people who need it the most; but our goal with this project is to kind of break the stigma around ‘free food’ and just be able to help anyone who needs a meal,” Ehlers said.

Their website, sharing-love.com, is already live, and anyone interested in volunteering, donating or making a meal reservation can visit for more information.

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Norma Bouchard, is currently serving as a chair of Drexel’s coronavirus task force. Along with Megan Weyler, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer; Alan Greenberger, Department Head of Architecture Design and Urbanism in the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design; Eileen Behr, Chief of Police and Vice President of Public Safety; Vince Amoroso, Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management and many others, Bouchard is actively working to determine Drexel’s best course of action for managing the coronavirus and what fall term will look like for the Drexel community.

This interview was edited for grammar and clarity.

The Triangle: Thank you for speaking with us, Dr. Bouchard. The situation in which we find ourselves is unprecedented. How is Drexel handling it and reaching the community with updates?

Norma Bouchard: Drexel University places the health and safety of the community at the forefront of all its activities. During the initial outbreak, Drexel began sending out communications to faculty, professional staff and students several times per week. Since January 24, some 30 messages have gone out to keep the Drexel community updated. We are now sending out weekly updates but will increase [the frequency] if there is something important and new information to share. In addition, the University established the COVID-19 [page on Drexel’s] website, which provides regular updates as more information becomes available.

TT: Does Drexel’s coronavirus task force, of which you are currently a chair, have a plan for fall term? What are the options? Has Drexel spoken with other colleges?

NB: Over the past month, the Fall 2020 COVID-19 Task Force has been working diligently to develop a series of scenarios in order to find the safest way for the Drexel community to return to campus. The three potential scenarios include:

• Drexel’s fall term would begin and remain on campus as is typical, with recommended social distancing protocols in place.
• Drexel’s fall term would continue to operate solely online, similar to the current spring [and] summer academic calendar, with the University campus remaining closed.
• Drexel’s fall term would run as a hybrid program with varying elements online and in-person.

The task force is made up of over 40 individuals from various units across the University, bringing a deep bench of expertise and knowledge to the table. By creating an interdisciplinary team, the University aims to reach a decision that will benefit the multi-dimensional needs of a university as large and diverse as Drexel.

We are continuing to monitor, collaborate and meet regularly with academic colleagues, government entities and industry partners, as well as experts and researchers in order to ensure that all considerations are taken which are dynamic, innovative and in-line with best practices.

Above all else, our final decision about whether we can reopen campus will be rooted in the safety of our students, faculty and professional staff, while maintaining Drexel’s commitment to educate and serve our community.

TT: Many students argue that their learning has been negatively impacted by virtual classes. How is the coronavirus task force responding to this issue?

NB: Even with only two weeks to pivot to online teaching for the spring term, we have [seen] mostly positive experiences. But we know there are improvements that could be made for the summer term, and we expect to improve the student experience even more for fall. We are reviewing more than 1,200 survey responses we received from students, parents, faculty and professional staff, and are also collecting best practices from the deans and faculty and adapting their ideas of improved methods for course delivery and faculty engagement with students. Video focus groups will [also] be held with students to get more in-depth feedback.

This unprecedented time has not been easy for any of us. That [being] said, if any community can come out of a situation such as this stronger and better, it is the Drexel community. We are sincerely taking the feedback that we are receiving and mapping it back to what is being asked of the University from the local and state authorities to find the best solution for our community.

TT: What does the future for incoming freshmen, specifically, look like? How will their first-year experience be atypical?

NB: We are thrilled to [be welcoming] a very talented freshman class to Drexel University in the fall. While decisions are still being made regarding the mode and composition of what the fall may look like at Drexel, freshmen and all students can rest assured that their health and safety is our top priority, and our goal is to ensure they have a high-quality experience at the University. Now more than ever, we are committed to finding innovative ways in which students can connect with one another to create lasting memories, while also keeping them and other members of our community safe. Final plans for the fall term are still being developed, and we will communicate those to the Drexel community as soon as possible.

TT: Is Drexel equipped at this time to handle bringing members of the community back to campus? What steps are being taken to ensure Drexel can handle it when the time comes?

NB: Yes. Drexel University has a wide range of medical, scientific and technical expertise from our faculty to inform our decision-making. We are proud that three of the seven members of Philadelphia’s Board of Health are on our faculty and that we have a deep bench of talent from the College of Medicine, the Dornsife School of Public Health, the College of Nursing and Health Professions, the College of Engineering, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Westphal College for Media Arts and Design. Because of our collective expertise, we have the critical information necessary to ensure a safe return. We have an in-house system to address the tracing, testing and quarantine needs of our community, for example.

As always, our first priority remains the health and safety of our community. During the upcoming weeks, we will begin rolling out a campus-wide initiative that will start with our essential personnel currently on campus.

To mitigate the risk of spreading [COVID-19], we plan to track, prevent and immediately handle situations that do arise. Drexel’s ability to do so in-house includes producing [personal protective equipment], required training and education, a Drexel health tracking app to evaluate symptoms and provide physician guidance with contract tracing, self-isolation and on-campus testing.

TT: How can members of the Drexel community share their input or suggestions with the coronavirus task force?

NB: A survey was sent out to the entire Drexel community on May 1 requesting input on items that were deemed critical to the Fall 2020 COVID-19 Task Force’s goal of making the best possible decisions for fall term. The survey can [still] be accessed online. The survey has received over 1,200 responses from faculty, staff, students and parents. A summary of the responses to date was provided during the weekly communication on May 15. In addition, anyone interested in sharing their thoughts or feedback for the Fall 2020 COVID-19 Task Force can communicate with Anna Koulas, Vice President of the Drexel Solutions Institute, at as326@drexel.edu.

TT: Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your insights with us, Dr. Bouchard. All the best to you. Please stay safe and healthy.

In an email sent to the Drexel community on March 16, President John Fry announced that all non-critical on-campus research activities would be suspended by March 18 due to the stay-at-home orders. Additionally, most students, professors and staff moved out of campus facilities due to spring and summer quarters being moved online and most co-ops being held remotely.

Regardless, around 20 urgent action research and development projects focused on COVID-19 are being held by university staff after the Office of Research and Innovation developed Drexel’s Rapid Response Research & Development Fund.

Some projects are being held remotely while others need equipment and materials on Drexel’s laboratories, and since they are classified as critical research, they are allowed.

The projects awarded in this fund encompass different areas including diagnostics, vaccines, therapies,  personal protective equipment, public and mental health as well as social and economic implications.

Developing a PPE Facemask and Validating Its Removal Efficiency

Due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, PPE face masks are in short supply for frontline healthcare workers and the public, with manufacturers unable to keep up with demand. To help overcome the shortages in supplies, Professor Genevieve Dion from the Drexel Center for Functional Fabrics is developing PPE face masks that can be manufactured and supplied to Philadelphia and the surrounding areas. Associate Professor Michael Waring is working with Dion to test the filtration efficiency of different mask designs.

“Mask removal efficiency quantifies how effectively it keeps particles (that can contain coronavirus) from being in the air you breathe. A good mask is N-95, meaning it filters out 95% of small particles,” Dion wrote in an email. They are working on the production of these masks at CFF.

Biocontainment Intubation “Tent”: Design Refinement, Testing and Deployment

A team of faculty and Ph.D. students from civil, architectural & environmental engineering, materials science & engineering and biomedical engineering are developing a containment chamber that covers a patient’s head during intubation procedures. This creates protection for the medical professionals from the aerosol the patient releases during that procedure.

The research team is regularly conferring with a group of physicians who conduct these procedures to get their input on our design for functionality, durability and ergonomics. In parallel, some of the faculty teams are doing simulations and lab-based studies to predict and measure the movement of aerosols within the chamber to confirm the ability of the device to minimize the release of aerosols.

This project also counted with collaborative input from other institutions such as Stanford University, University of Iowa and Portland State University.

Design-Build of “AJflex Shield” For Hospitals and Health Systems in the Philadelphia Region

A collaboration between three professors and five colleges of Drexel has come together to make face shields for healthcare workers who struggle to obtain necessary protective equipment. They are working on campus at the Innovation Studio at 3103 Market Street.

The “Drexel AJFlex Shield” project is working with Amy Throckmorton from the School of Biomedical Engineering, Michele Marcolongo from the College of Engineering, Ellen Bass from the College of Computing and Informatics and College of Nursing and Health Professionals, with additional significant contributions from the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design.

“We are in production mode! We have now made over 3,500 face shields and have doubled production every week since early April,” Marcolongo said. Thus far, they have distributed their AJFlex Masks to around 15 hospitals and centers including Penn Medicine, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, Beverly Hospital in Boston and more.

Inexpensive, Rapid, Field-Usable Genetic Test to Detect COVID-19 in Asymptomatic Individuals

Another shortage issue amid the pandemic has been trying to acquire tests. When the pandemic started hitting the country, there simply were not enough tests to see how many people were infected. Now the production levels of the tests are slowly increasing, but the methods are still taking up to two weeks to know if the person is infected, according to The New York Times.

A group formed by professor Wei-Heng Shih of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering with Dr. Christian Fromm, Dr. Joseph Herres and Dr. Elisabeth Datner are working on their project “Inexpensive, Rapid, Field-Usable Genetic Test to Detect COVID-19 in Asymptomatic Individuals.”

The initial results were very promising. The test could indeed detect COVID-19 at typical viral loads of nasal swabs and saliva samples in 30 minutes,” Shih concluded.

Macrocyclic and Small Molecule Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Entry

In a laboratory at New College Building at Drexel’s Center City campus, a group from the Department of Biochemistry integrated by Simon Cocklin, Adel Rashad, Alexej Dick and Megan Meuser are conducting a project titled “Macrocyclic and Small Molecule Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Entry.”

“Viruses infect people by attaching and entering their cells, which in turn makes them sick. We are looking to find small drug-like molecules that will specifically stop SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease) from doing this,” Cocklin said. “We are looking for two types of these compounds — one that physically blocks the virus from interacting with the host cell, and another type that alters the shape of a critical protein on the virus such that the virus can no longer enter the cells. These types of inhibitory molecules are very exciting as they could be given to ‘at risk’ populations as a preventative measure, while we are waiting for an effective vaccine.”

They began this project due to a collaboration with a Chinese group at Shandong University that was highly affected by the virus. The Drexel team wanted to help much earlier in 2020, but the project took some time to get started and began their research in late March.

Irreversible Inactivation of SARS-Cov-2 by Spike Protein Targeting

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Professor Irwin Chaiken from the College of Medicine is working on his project titled “Irreversible Inactivation of SARS-Cov-2 by Spike Protein Targeting.”

The goal of this research is to test ideas initially developed from HIV-1 research to explore ways to irreversibly deactivate the 2019-nCoV virus that causes COVID-19 and stop 2019-nCoV cell infection, Chaiken said. His laboratory has been working on HIV-1 and noticed some similarities between the structures of the HIV-1 spike protein and the spike of the 2019-nCoV virus. Both viruses use their spikes as protein machines to get into cells and inactivating these spikes can stop the infection.

“In work that was initiated in a collaboration of my Lab in the College of Medicine with that of Prof. Cameron Abrams of Drexel’s Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, we had previously discovered genetically engineered proteins that can inactivate the HIV-1 Env spike by triggering changes in the metastable spike assembly. So, I wanted to try out the idea that this class of inactivators, that we now call lectin-DLIs (Dual-action Lytic Inhibitors), might work with 2019-nCoV,” Chaiken wrote in an email.

With the help of Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student Aakansha Nangarlia, they were able to make SARS-CoV pseudoviruses. They have already obtained promising initial pseudovirus results and are still investigating the binding interactions of lectin-DLIs, antibodies and other proposed SARS-CoV-2 spike protein antagonists.

Adenosine Deaminase-1 Enhances Efficacy of A DNA Vaccine Encoding SARS-Cov-2 Spike Glycoprotein S1 through Modulation of T Follicular Helper Cells

Also in the New College Building, Michele Kutzler and Elias Haddad from the College of Medicine are working on a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, focusing on the spike surface S1 glycoprotein using a DNA vaccine platform, which uses a nucleic acid to encode the S1 protein.

“As the coronavirus S glycoprotein is surface-exposed and mediates entry into host cells, it is the main target of neutralizing antibodies upon infection and thus, will be the antigenic focus of the DNA vaccine proposed in this project,” Kutzler said.

They are also testing an innovative vaccine adjuvant developed in Haddad’s lab called Adenosine Deaminase-1. ADA-1 is an enzyme critical for the maintenance and function of the immune system. Their study will test how ADA-1 can be used as an adjuvant to a DNA SARS-CoV-2 S1 vaccine to enhance immune responses to this virus.

Their research is in a preclinical phase and they have preliminary data that the ADA-1 adjuvant boosts the quality of the antibody response to DNA Vaccines and the team is optimistic that further studies will confirm these early data.

SARS-Cov-2 Infection and Sensing in Primary Human Macrophages

Sonia Navas-Martin and Julio Martin-Garcia, both also from the College of Medicine, study host responses to viral infections and their contribution to the innate immune system in both viral infections and sterile inflammation. Additionally, among the viruses under Navas-Martin’s expertise are coronaviruses.

Their current proposal is aimed to understand how the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects human macrophages. “These cells are very important in the lung, as well as in other tissues. Macrophages are key to fight infection in the lung, but they can contribute to disease and mortality too,” Navas-Martin wrote in an email.

Using several experimental approaches in cell culture, they are going to investigate the signaling pathways that the macrophage activates in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, how the virus may also inhibit some of these responses and compare responses in “normal” vs. “aged” macrophages.

Their long-term goal is to use our discoveries for therapeutic interventions.

Implementation of an Online Peer Support Community to Assist Women with Substance Abuse Disorder during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Study

Just as there are essential research projects during this pandemic that are carried on laboratories at Drexel, there are research projects that are able to be held remotely and follow social distance guidelines just like the Psychiatry Department’s “Online Peer Support Community to Assist Women with Substance Abuse Disorder during the COVID-19 Pandemic” which is a branch of their Caring Together Program.

They are launching a Facebook group for women in Caring Together that will allow them to connect with each other for support at a time when therapy groups are restricted because of self-isolation.

Their project team is composed by David Bennet from the College of Medicine; Chris Yang and Stella Liang, from the College of Computing and Informatics; Barbara Schindler, the Medical Director of the Caring Together Program; Sharlene Irving, the Program Director of the Caring Together Program; Richard Pointer, a therapist in the program; and Annie Glenney, a Drexel medical student. Additionally, Caring Together Program staff will be monitoring the online community to post information, provide inspirational messages and to help facilitate group discussions.

Chronicling the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Physical and Mental Health and Telehealth Care Delivery: Perspectives from Providers and Older Adults

Social distancing declared an unprecedented change in the way people live, work, study, socialize and manage their health – especially with older adults and those with chronic conditions are at-risk for COVID-19.

This research led by Professor and Assistant Dean in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili, aims to understand the impact of social distancing on physical and mental health and healthcare delivery through telephone interviews with community-dwelling older adults, and those with chronic wounds.

Eventually, they also intend to develop programs to improve the health and well-being of this population since many physicians, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, nurses, physician assistants, mental health practitioners, dietitians and physical therapists are now delivering care remotely via telehealth or telemedicine for the first time.

Improving Spatial Surveillance for COVID-19 Cases While Accounting for Errors in Testing

Public health surveillance efforts provide the underlying data for understanding and responding to the pandemic. However, the surveillance is not perfect: there are many cases missed in the population at large and this is defined as “measurement error,” said Neal D. Goldstein from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Dornsife School of Public Health.

Therefore, Goldstein and Igor Burstyn from the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health are interested in improving the measurements of public health surveillance efforts to provide the underlying data for understanding and responding to the pandemic through their research. They are working with external collaborators David Wheeler from the Department of Biostatistics at Virginia Commonwealth University and Paul Gustafson from the Department of Statistics at The University of British Columbia.

These “measurement errors” can happen from two distinct processes. First, individuals may be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and not seek healthcare. Second, individuals who are sick and seek healthcare may be misdiagnosed, for example, due to an incorrect test. In both cases these individuals who are in fact sick but not diagnosed are not “officially” counted through surveillance, Goldstein explained.

“Our research mathematically adjusts the surveillance data obtained from various health departments, including Philadelphia, to better reflect reality. Our hope is that these improved estimates can provide the health departments with a better understanding of the burden of disease in their community, and thus better allocate resources,” he said.

They have already generated preliminary results showing how measurement error can quite dramatically affect COVID-19 surveillance and now they seek to expand these earlier efforts to map Philadelphia to demonstrate that the impact from COVID-19 is not uniform across the city, but disproportionately affects certain areas.

Understanding the Disproportionate Impacts of COVID-19 on Low-Income, Minority Communities

A project titled “Understanding the Disproportionate Impacts of COVID-19 on Low-Income, Minority Communities,” conducted by Allison Groves from the Dornsife School of Public Health alongside with colleges from Yale University and American University aims to explore how the pandemic further affects the economic health and social well-being of low-income residents of predominantly minority neighborhoods in New Haven, CT.

This forms part of a project that Groves and her colleagues have been conducting for two years with these communities studying the “social determinants” of health, focusing on how mass incarceration and housing instability result in health inequities. However, now they are focusing their study on the effects of this pandemic in these populations and they are conducting their interviews virtually and gathering the information remotely.

RAPID Assessment of First Responder Mental Health

The COVID-19 RAPID Mental Health Assessment is an interdisciplinary program conducted by Jennifer Taylor and Andrea Davis from the Dornsife School of Public Health; and Christian Resick from the LeBow College of Business. This project aims to study the effects on mental health among first responders in the midst of the pandemic, including issues like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts, demotivation in their workplaces and others.

The RAPID assessments project is not new. They began this project in 2017 when they were conducting annual assessments to study these factors among first responders, but now with COVID-19, they changed their structure and are holding monthly assessments and are in the preparatory phase of the data study.

COVID-19: Slow Disaster

The Rapid Response Research & Development Fund also awarded Professor and Head of the Department of History, Scott Knowles’ project of a history podcast “COVID-19: Slow Disaster.” This podcast is intended for a general audience and serves as a vehicle for translating the intertwined histories of epidemiology, public health and geopolitics into a narrative form for use by the media, the research community and educators.

“This project chronicles the history and development of the global COVID-19 pandemic, using historical research and first-person interviews. The finished narrative podcast will unfold over the life of the pandemic,” Knowles wrote in an email.

The project intersects with Knowles’ “COVID-Calls” project, a live daily interview webinar broadcasted on YouTube Live. COVID-Calls is a method of connecting disaster science to the media and educators in a rapid mode.

Non-profit organizations Sunday Love Project and Sharing Excess have come together to create “Sharing Love,” a meal site offering hot meal services and grocery box takeaways twice a week beginning May 9 at a Gifted Event space in the South Street/Queen Village district.

The Sunday Love Project is a mission to share food and build a community within the homeless community, where many Drexel students volunteer to fulfill their civic engagement requirements. On the other hand, Sharing Excess is a food recovery nonprofit born in Drexel.

Usually, Sunday Love Project serves dinner every Sunday and Tuesday, with brunch every Monday, at the basement of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rittenhouse Square. However, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they changed their structure.

For the first two months after the stay-at-home orders, Sunday Love Project still hosted their traditional services at the church by providing pick-up meals on Sundays and Tuesdays, as well as distributing hundreds of meals daily in Kensington — the neighborhood where the program’s founder Margaux Murphy lives, which has some of the highest heroin use rates in the nation.

Now, they are adding Sharing Love to their repertoire.

Meal preparation will happen on-site and will be packed and distributed like the weekly grocery boxes on a walk-up pick-up service at Counter Culture, the event space located at 514 South Street, on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 3 to 5 p.m.

“We look forward to supporting our community for years to come by hosting great events. In the meantime, we’re thrilled our space can be used to support our neighbors in a meaningful way,” shared Amanda Sands, event manager for Counter Culture, in a press release.

Sharing Love’s initial plans are to serve up to 150 prepared meals and 100 boxes each day, following strict use of PPE and temperature check protocols for volunteers in an elevated effort to protect community health. Additionally, they will utilize sidewalk queueing guides to maintain safe social distancing with food distribution directly from the building’s entrance.

This service will be open to anybody interested; not only the homeless community that Sunday Love Project generally serves, but also people who have lost their jobs, are struggling financially, or any Philadelphian in general, Murphy shared in a late-March interview.

“For us, joining forces to ‘Share Love’ feels like the perfect union. Sharing Excess has always been about doing the most good and using our agility and partnerships in order to get food product to a distributor like Sunday Love, one who treats food service with an exceptional level of dignity and care, is just a fantastic combination. I am excited to see what we can achieve,” Evan Ehlers, founder of Sharing Excess, said in a press release.

Frequent Sunday Love collaborator chef Lauren Hooks, a ten-year Philly restaurant vet and restaurant consultant for mission-based food businesses, will lead the daily operations of Sharing Love.

“In addition to the food supply chain we are building with Sharing Excess, one of our goals through this will be to support local restaurants by raising funds to purchase meals for community members in need. By means of an example,” Hooks said. “An early contributor, Peace Advocacy Network, has raised $1000 which will in turn sponsor 100 meals from Soy Cafe as our first restaurant partner. Peewee’s Ice Cream will also be offering free ice cream cones for guests during our first week – as a way to brighten spirits.”

A soon-to-be-live website will be hosted at www.sharing-love.com and social updates forthcoming via @sharinglovePHL.

If you have seen headlines from Philadelphia news sites within the past 24 hours, Drexel University is once again front and center in the city news spotlight. However, instead of the news being something negative, it is highlighting the results of a Drexel study.

And boy, are the results good.

As Pennsylvania is in the midst of its ninth week of stay-at-home orders — and with the Philadelphia region remaining that way until at least June 4 — the restlessness has most certainly set in for many. The monotonous days and weeks are becoming a blur, and the need for social interaction and some semblance of normalcy is increasing. Many are questioning the point of everything, and some people are even ready to risk their lives if it means living normally and working in their office again.

This is why public health researchers working at Drexel University’s Urban Health Collaborative took to analyzing the estimated effects that the stay-at-home orders had on big cities. As Marie McCullough reported in her May 12 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the team used an “interactive model developed by the New York Times.”

After looking at around 30 big cities — Philadelphia, of course, included — the team was effectively able to estimate how many hospitalizations and deaths were prevented with the city’s shutdown.

The numbers are staggering, as all the news sites are showing the results loud and clear: around 57,000 hospitalizations and 6,200 deaths were estimated to be prevented by the 45 days of lockdown.

The estimates show that as Philadelphia will continue through May 22 — which would mark day 60 of the shutdown — there will be an estimated additional 9,000 hospitalizations and 900 deaths prevented.

News stations like ABC6 went into detail regarding the effects of city-wide shutdown in other cities, and in New York City the Drexel research team results show that over 25,000 deaths were estimated to have been prevented.

City officials report that as of 1 p.m. on May 14, the city of Philadelphia has surpassed 19,000 confirmed cases and 1,000 deaths due to COVID-19. To think that the death toll could be 600 percent bigger than it already is had no restrictions been put in place is humbling.

While the city’s economy desperately needs phased reopening of businesses, Philadelphia is set to look at a couple more weeks of stay-at-home orders. These next weeks will be in hopes of bringing the number of cases per 100,000 persons down to the necessary 50 for progressing to the yellow phase of Pennsylvania’s reopening plan.

With Drexel researchers showing the importance of the stay-at-home orders, many Philadelphians feel that they’ve played a part in helping their community. This information will hopefully have come at the right time, and can potentially keep residents motivated to continue to be aggressively socially distancing themselves and following protocols.

The following crimes occurred on or near campus and were reported to The Triangle by the Drexel University Department of Public Safety between April 28 and May 11. All information included in this report is taken from law enforcement or Division of Public Safety incident reports.

Sex Offense (1)

April 30, 1400 Wood Street

A Drexel staff member reported that they observed a male sitting on the sidewalk exposing and indecently touching his genitals.

Robbery (1)

May 2, 10:10 a.m., 3400 Market Street

SEPTA Police reported an unknown male snatched a cell phone from the complainant and was last seen fleeing on foot north on 34th Street.

Theft (5)

May 4, 3300 Arch Street

A Drexel affiliate reported an unknown person took a delivered package from their front porch.

May 6, 7:58 a.m., 3500 Race Street

A Drexel affiliate reported an unknown male jumped a fence and took the complainant’s bicycle from the yard.

May 6, 3:15 p.m., 400 North 35th Street

Drexel Police arrested a male after they observed him take a bait package from the front porch.

May 7, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., 3000 Market Street

Unknown person(s) took a bicycle that was secured to a bike rack with a U lock.

May 7, 6:10 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., 3300 Powelton Avenue

Unknown person(s) opened a delivered package and removed the contents.

Vandalism (1)

May 2, 9:15 p.m., 2900 Queen Lane

An unknown male driving a vehicle intentionally drove into and damaged the access gate to the parking lot.

POLICY VIOLATIONS (0)

During the period from April 28 to May 11, there were zero Policy Violations for Alcohol and zero Policy Violation for Drugs. The reports were sent to the Office of Student Conduct for review.