Philadelphia has a very unique system for electing its city council, but there are not many resources explaining how it works. At best, sources point to the use of a system called limited voting without explaining how exactly it is applied to Philadelphia, or reference the reserved minority seats won by the Working Families Party without explaining how that upset was able to happen. To make use of and improve democracy at the municipal level, Philadelphians need to understand how it works and why.

Philadelphia City Council seats 17 council members. The city is divided into 10 geographic districts with roughly equal population, and each district elects its own council member. Residents of every district also collectively vote on seven at-large council members using a system called limited voting. Every voter selects up to five different candidates, less than the seven elected, which is where the system gets its name. All votes are tallied and the seven candidates with the most votes are awarded seats.

Each party may only field a total of five candidates for at-large seats, usually picked in a primary. This means at least two of the seats must go to a different party than the other five. Since the Council has seven total at-large members, even if all of one party’s candidates won seats, minority parties still have an opportunity with the remaining two seats. By limiting the amount of votes each voter gets as well as the amount of candidates each party can nominate, the City Council is more representative of the entire diverse population of Philadelphia.

Historically, Philadelphia’s City Council, in its 236-year history, has always had more council seats than it does today, despite the smaller population, peaking at 190 seats at the start of the 20^th century. In 1951, however, the Home Rule Charter was adopted, establishing the current system as described above. Limited voting as well as limited nomination were built into the system so that “minority representation is assured,” as the charter’s authors annotated in 1952.

The charter was written by an independent committee appointed by the previous Republican mayor and Council president during a period when Republicans were losing ground to reformists within the Democratic Party. Either because the commission decided that complete political turnover would be bad for the city, or because of its bias toward Republicans as a Republican-appointed body, a provision was made to ensure Democrats could not completely take over City Hall.

Intentional or not, the charter’s minority representation system was used by the old guard to cling onto power and maintain the two-party system. However, those same reservations are now used by reformists, in the form of the Working Families Party, to allow new ideas into City Council. Limited voting tries to give the entire population of the city, not just the majority, some proportion of representation, and that is inherently positive. However, there are more modern systems of proportional representation being implemented across the United States that do not entrench party politics or require long articles to explain their use and purpose.

Boston’s municipal government has a similar structure to Philadelphia’s, except party affiliation is not part of the election and there are no reserved minority seats. Boston’s City Council recently passed legislation to start implementing a form of ranked choice voting for electing the city’s mayor, nine district council members and four at-large council members. The change to RCV would allow Boston voters to rank, in order of their preference, up to four candidates.

Any at-large candidates with more than 20 percent of first-choice votes are immediately awarded a seat. Any votes above 20 percent are redistributed to the voters’ second choices, ensuring voters who back popular candidates still get appropriate representation. If four candidates have not reached the threshold, and extra votes have already been redistributed, the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to their second choices. This repeats until all four seats have been filled, giving voters more opportunities to get a representative that they personally voted for.

If Philadelphia were to adopt a similar system, it would not only maintain but also enhance proportional representation. Instead of fixed seats guaranteed to minority parties, if any candidate backed by more than 12.5 percent of the electorate wins a seat, nearly every single voter would have a council member that they voted for. Such a system would also maintain the current number of districts and at-large members. However, with every voter ranking candidates for seven seats, there might end up being 20 or more candidates, potentially confusing voters. Currently, even if all three major parties in the city field the maximum of five candidates, the city would only have 15. The city could maintain the policy of limited nomination to counteract this or reduce the number of at-large seats.

Portland, Oregon has already started using RCV to proportionally elect their city council and mayor in 2024. Portland opted to overhaul their entire municipal government by replacing four district council members with 12 council members, each elected from four multi-member districts. This meant that voters in each district elected three candidates using a mini-version of Boston’s proposed at-large elections. This ensured local representation for each district as well as proportional representation of the diverse voters within that district.

Implementing multi-member districts with ranked choice voting in Philadelphia would be a drastic change, but it would also be much more balanced for the size and geography of the city. Philadelphia has a lot of diversity between neighborhoods, especially in terms of income levels, but it also has a lot of diversity within neighborhoods, and such a system would represent all of that on City Council. A larger council already has precedent from pre-1951.

It would also solve the contentious councilmanic prerogative: an unwritten rule suggesting that matters of land-use be deferred to the council representative of the district containing that land. Only four of 730 land-use bills reviewed by PlanPhilly and Pew did not pass unanimously. Critics say this gives the district council member unrestricted power and point out the six corruption convictions since 1981 that stemmed from it. If each district had multiple council members, they would check each other’s power while maintaining local control. It would also be an opportunity to codify the rule.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania law currently bans the use of RCV for municipal elections, so neither of these reforms would not be allowed. However, there is a growing appetite for it in the public and the legislature. In 2021, mayoral candidate Derek Green called for the city to adopt RCV in some form. March on Harrisburg, an organization “fighting to get money out of politics in Pennsylvania,” continues to campaign for a bill lifting the state’s ban. Until then, you can at least confidently understand and use our current system.

An estimated 80,000 people gathered at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on June 14 to stand for democracy and protest against tyranny. On that same day, Donald Trump held a $40 million military parade in Washington, D.C., coinciding with Flag Day and his birthday. Similar rallies condemning the parade’s exorbitant price tag and Trump’s authoritarian policies were held in cities across the nation under the “No Kings” slogan, bringing out between 6 and 12 million people. The events were sponsored and organized by Indivisible, an organization “with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.”

At noon, protesters started marching from Love Park towards the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The organizers lead chants such as “no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” and “hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go.”

The most repeated chant was “show me what democracy looks like,” to which the crowd would reply, “this is what democracy looks like,” referring to themselves and the protest taking place. Different parts of the large crowd followed different chants, often started by a random protester. Some chanted, “no ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,” and “no justice, no peace.”

That last chant echoed the sentiment of a large group of the protesters, who held signs that said, “resist the fascist police state,” and, “when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” 

Property damage and police violence at recent anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests, especially in Los Angeles, California, has made non-violence a major concern for organizers and supporters. “No Kings” protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, and notable acts of violence were perpetrated by counter-protesters, such as in Virginia and Utah, or as part of seemingly unrelated acts of political violence, as in Minnesota. Many have said the attention on non-violence distracts from the message of the protests, and some claim disruption of business is a valid method of protest.

The day coincided with Flag Day, so organizers handed out small American flags, and some people arrived with their own flags. People also brought signs, many of them bearing the crossed-out crown symbol that represents the “No Kings” campaign. 

Other signs read: “If there’s money for a parade, there’s money for Medicaid,” “due process is a right, not a privilege,” and other similar messages rejecting Trump’s policies and branding him a tyrant and an aspiring king.

Many signs specifically targeted the mass raids on immigrants being carried out by ICE, one claiming “they blame immigrants so you won’t blame billionaires” and another stating, “prison without due process is just a concentration camp.” 

One protester wrote that they “will trade racists for refugees.” Others wrote, “no human is illegal,” and, “protect people, not borders.” The Spanish “chinga la migra” (“f*** immigration police”) appeared on multiple signs.

Philadelphia’s rally was the flagship event of the initiative, as it featured a stage of high-profile speakers whose speeches were broadcast nationwide. Many protesters brought their Philly pride to the event, with taglines like, “ICE agents are Cowboys fans,” and, “the only ICE we want in Philly is wooder ice.” 

A protester brought a sign which, on one side, said, “stop ICE,” and on the other, “Go Birds!” Another wrote, “Philly is an immigrant town.” One sign read, “let Penn show us Trump’s grades,” poking fun at the president’s time spent in Philadelphia.

Several local organizations, including the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace Philadelphia, Penn Against the Occupation, and Fridays at Fetterman’s organized an independent “Palestine contingent” to join the rally. 

“The same forces that bomb Gaza are the ones backing Trump’s return and sowing division at home,” posted the Philly DSA on their Instagram. 

A large portion of attendees could be seen wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress, and adorning Palestinian flags while holding signs condemning ICE and fascism. A few protesters stood in the middle of Benjamin Franklin Parkway holding signs decrying American and Israeli aggression against Iran, and Israel’s alleged genocide in Gaza.

The “Palestine contingent” gathered a group in front of the stage and made occasional chants while speeches were ongoing. They chanted, “talk about Gaza,” at Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman, who acknowledged them and said, “all of this comes after we watched a genocide unfold in Gaza for almost two years, while our elected officials cheered it on or gave mealy mouthed reasons of why they couldn’t oppose the atrocities that we paid for.” 

The group held a banner that read, “solidarity has no borders,” and another that read, “workers demand – stop the genocide in Palestine.”

Earlier in the day, around 2:00 a.m., a Democratic lawmaker and their spouse had been killed. Later investigation revealed that the suspect, Vance Boelter, had been planning the murders for months and had intended to kill other politicians, including US Representative Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Several rudimentary, non-promotional flyers with “No Kings” written on them were found in his car, prompting organizers and state authorities to warn against demonstrating.

As the speeches ended and some protestors were marching back to City Hall, a man repeatedly yelled at the passing crowd that “two Democrats have just been murdered in Minnesota by a No Kings protester, because they didn’t vote for healthcare for illegal immigrants.” 

Protesters continued to march towards the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center to protest ICE arrests in the city. Several people had marched on the building earlier in the week, on June 10, which resulted in 15 arrests. While police presence was limited to just road closures for the rest of the “No Kings” rally, over 30 officers on bicycles and motorcycles tried to disband this march. Three people were arrested, and one person was hospitalized, after which the crowd was forced to disperse.

As the academic year comes to a close, Drexel University’s Undergraduate Student Government Association and Graduate Student Association are welcoming in a new slate of representatives as well as new leadership. The incoming and outgoing boards, along with members of Drexel’s administration, held their annual transition dinner at the Academy of Natural Sciences on June 1 to celebrate.

The night began with an awards ceremony honoring the students, staff and faculty who have made an outstanding impact on the Drexel community in the past year. For the first time, GSA joined USGA in recognizing its own recipients for each award. Georgina George and Nolan Wazni were awarded the Father Charles Brinkman Award. Kayode Oluwasegun and Zarina Morgan were awarded the Dianna C. Dale Emerging Leader Award. Amber Bolli and Tasneem Taifa were awarded the Constantine Papadakis Award. Victoria Villarreal and Rohit Varma Nadimpalli were awarded the Anthony T. Caneris Award for Outstanding Leadership.

The Honorary Dragon Award was granted to Jen Tifone, Director of the Student Organization Resource Center, by USGA and to Chris Spahr, Executive Director of the Dornsife Center for Community Partnerships, by GSA. USGA cited Tifone’s contributions in advancing student life at Drexel through the resources and support that SORC provides to student organizations. Spahr joined Drexel in April 2024 and in the year since has expanded the Dornsife Center’s programming for the community and engagement with student organizations. GSA lauded his efforts to uplift the community and foster collaboration.

Ash Karale, the late President of GSA, was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Leader Award for his contributions to the graduate student community at Drexel. Karale unexpectedly passed away in April, passing leadership of GSA onto Anil Karapa for the rest of the year. He was described as “a dedicated leader and a valued member of [their] community.” During his term, GSA expanded its reach and increased its collaboration with USGA, which resulted in the joint dinner and award ceremony.

“This year we have brought student orgs together, brought student governments from across Philly together, and most importantly brought people together,” remarked Katie Moorcones, outgoing Vice President of USGA. Moorcones, along with Joelynne Jacob, outgoing President of USGA, worked on re-forming the Philadelphia Student Government Assembly during their term in partnership with the student governments of other Philadelphia schools. The pair signed PSGA’s charter on April 5th before leaving their position.

Their successor, Sanjna Srinivasan, told the Triangle that during her term as USGA President she hopes “there’s a lot more collaboration” that stems from the PSGA. She also addressed recent uncertainties in the Drexel community: “I think right now there’s a lot of changes going on at a university level, at a nationwide level, so obviously there’s a lot of nervousness around that… but I think now is also a time to kind of embrace that change and go right into it head on and do what we can.”

Much of Drexel’s academic transformation was spurred by dropping enrollment, which has impacted the university’s finances and directly lowered the activity fees which SAFAC distributes to student organizations. With USGA being a recipient of one of the largest portions of that budget, Srinivasan said they “do recognize that, you know, funds are definitely an issue, especially with, you know, university-wide budget changes, and so we do hope to better support student organizations as best as we can.” She emphasized her goal to create partnerships across the university as well as outside of it, which she says USGA has been experimenting with in the past year.

Present at the dinner was another incoming Drexel leader: president-to-be Antonio Merlo. Merlo is still serving as Dean of NYU’s Faculty of Arts & Science until July 1, but has moved to Philadelphia in preparation for his new role. He intends to be present at the ongoing graduation events and ceremonies, including commencement.

When asked about him, Srinivasan says “he’s very open to working with students… so I think in a student life aspect there should be a lot more changes coming through.” Kayode Oluwasegun, incoming Executive Vice President of GSA, told the Triangle that “he’s been described as a prolific fundraiser, so he knows how to bring the money.” He hopes Merlo can “do more to bring grants and more resources for faculty and also for the grad students.”

Oluwasegun says he plans to “do more advocacy for students, and get to know more of the basic needs of students” during his term. He specifically identified food, health insurance and campus safety as concerns. He says that “GSA now is pretty much an open space for everyone to come. You know, send us information… and we can take all of that to the people in the highest authorities.”

Rohit Varma Nadimpalli, incoming President of GSA, remarked that the transition “feels a little sad… because I think my board is going,” but was hopeful because they “want to do something great this year, too.”

Drexel University prides itself on its designation as an R1 research institute. Many students come to Drexel because they see it as a hub of innovation, stemming from its unique experiential education program and support for research. This unique blend marries the experimental and the practical to result in new technologies and discoveries that the Drexel community can take pride in. Over its 134 year history, Drexel students and faculty have made many notable inventions, some of which you likely use every day without realizing their origins.

Whenever you go to the grocery store, you can thank Drexel alumni Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland that your checkout is not much slower. Before the 1970s, cashiers would tally item prices on a cash register, then manually add them up to get a total. Silver and Woodland were both teaching at Drexel in 1948 after completing their undergraduate education here when they started working on a solution for automated scanning of product information. Woodland quit teaching in 1949 to work on the technology full-time, and they both filed a patent for the first version of the barcode that same year. In 1951, Woodland started working for IBM and urged them to develop the concept. However, it was deemed infeasible for the technology at the time.

Commercial computers as well as laser technology were becoming more and more sophisticated at the time, and Woodland had the foresight to realize that they would enable a robust and powerful identification system. He continued refining the concept at IBM, and when the necessary technology caught up, he helped George Laurer to write his Universal Product Code proposal which would become the standard for barcodes that we still use today. In 1974, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio became the first to successfully deploy the technology. In 1994, with the advent of digital cameras and image processing, the same idea behind Woodland’s original barcode was employed in two dimensions to create QR codes.

If you have ever tried to use bold or italic text in a YouTube comment, Discord message, Reddit post or Notion document, you have unknowingly stumbled upon a digital standard known as Markdown. Just like the barcode standard, Markdown has been implemented in different ways for different use cases but remains recognizably unique. The web was originally developed to run on HyperText Markup Language, which encodes text formatting (markup) in a way that makes it easy for browsers to render, but not for humans to read the code itself. John Gruber, after studying computer science at Drexel, set out to create a standard that makes markup accessible to any user with just a few sensible keystrokes, like putting asterisks around a phrase to make it bold.

Gruber’s efforts to develop a universal, human-readable markup language were aided by comments and suggestions from Aaron Swartz, a programmer and activist who also helped develop many other digital standards and shaped the digital world as we know it. On his blog, Gruber says that “Markdown is much better thanks to Aaron’s ideas, feedback and testing.” Swartz founded the forum and news aggregation website Reddit in 2005, and it became one of the first adopters of the Markdown standard, allowing users to write all posts and comments using it. Swartz, in 2013, was facing up to 50 years in prison and $1 million of fines in a politically motivated case when he committed suicide by hanging. Gruber described Swartz as having “an enormous intellect — again, a brilliant mind — but also an enormous capacity for empathy.”

Drexel students, faculty and alumni are also responsible for some of the technologies that hold up the back-end of the Internet, and while we may not think of them often, they are crucial to our everyday lives. Paul Baran graduated from Drexel in 1949 and went to work on UNIVAC computers, the first commercial computers in the United States that were invented in Drexel’s backyard at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1959, he joined the RAND Corporation and was tasked with creating computer networks that were robust enough to maintain communication even in the event of nuclear attack. He came up with packet-switching, a technique to split communications up into chunks that are individually sent along possibly different routes and reassembled at the destination.

Baran’s invention enabled huge, volatile networks like the global Internet running on WiFi to be possible and stable. More recently, in 2015, researchers at the Drexel Wireless Systems Lab developed a WiFi antenna technology that is now standard in enterprise-grade WiFi access points and has enhanced their speed greatly. This “smart antenna” is capable of dynamically optimizing which direction it transmits signals to achieve the best performance possible. Its immediate commercial application is a testament to Drexel’s role as a bridge between industry and research.

Drexel University prides itself on its designation as an R1 research institute. Many students come to Drexel because they see it as a hub of innovation, stemming from its unique experiential education program and support for research. This unique blend marries the experimental and the practical to result in new technologies and discoveries that the Drexel community can take pride in. Over its 134 year history, Drexel students and faculty have made many notable inventions, some of which you likely use every day without realizing their origins.

Whenever you go to the grocery store, you can thank Drexel alumni Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland that your checkout is not much slower. Before the 1970s, cashiers would tally item prices on a cash register, then manually add them up to get a total. Silver and Woodland were both teaching at Drexel in 1948 after completing their undergraduate education here when they started working on a solution for automated scanning of product information. Woodland quit teaching in 1949 to work on the technology full-time, and they both filed a patent for the first version of the barcode that same year. In 1951, Woodland started working for IBM and urged them to develop the concept. However, it was deemed infeasible for the technology at the time.

Commercial computers as well as laser technology were becoming more and more sophisticated at the time, and Woodland had the foresight to realize that they would enable a robust and powerful identification system. He continued refining the concept at IBM, and when the necessary technology caught up, he helped George Laurer to write his Universal Product Code proposal which would become the standard for barcodes that we still use today. In 1974, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio became the first to successfully deploy the technology. In 1994, with the advent of digital cameras and image processing, the same idea behind Woodland’s original barcode was employed in two dimensions to create QR codes.

If you have ever tried to use bold or italic text in a YouTube comment, Discord message, Reddit post or Notion document, you have unknowingly stumbled upon a digital standard known as Markdown. Just like the barcode standard, Markdown has been implemented in different ways for different use cases but remains recognizably unique. The web was originally developed to run on HyperText Markup Language, which encodes text formatting (markup) in a way that makes it easy for browsers to render, but not for humans to read the code itself. John Gruber, after studying computer science at Drexel, set out to create a standard that makes markup accessible to any user with just a few sensible keystrokes, like putting asterisks around a phrase to make it bold.

Gruber’s efforts to develop a universal, human-readable markup language were aided by comments and suggestions from Aaron Swartz, a programmer and activist who also helped develop many other digital standards and shaped the digital world as we know it. On his blog, Gruber says that “Markdown is much better thanks to Aaron’s ideas, feedback and testing.” Swartz founded the forum and news aggregation website Reddit in 2005, and it became one of the first adopters of the Markdown standard, allowing users to write all posts and comments using it. Swartz, in 2013, was facing up to 50 years in prison and $1 million of fines in a politically motivated case when he committed suicide by hanging. Gruber described Swartz as having “an enormous intellect — again, a brilliant mind — but also an enormous capacity for empathy.”

Drexel students, faculty and alumni are also responsible for some of the technologies that hold up the back-end of the Internet, and while we may not think of them often, they are crucial to our everyday lives. Paul Baran graduated from Drexel in 1949 and went to work on UNIVAC computers, the first commercial computers in the United States that were invented in Drexel’s backyard at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1959, he joined the RAND Corporation and was tasked with creating computer networks that were robust enough to maintain communication even in the event of nuclear attack. He came up with packet-switching, a technique to split communications up into chunks that are individually sent along possibly different routes and reassembled at the destination.

Baran’s invention enabled huge, volatile networks like the global Internet running on WiFi to be possible and stable. More recently, in 2015, researchers at the Drexel Wireless Systems Lab developed a WiFi antenna technology that is now standard in enterprise-grade WiFi access points and has enhanced their speed greatly. This “smart antenna” is capable of dynamically optimizing which direction it transmits signals to achieve the best performance possible. Its immediate commercial application is a testament to Drexel’s role as a bridge between industry and research.

Drexel University prides itself on its designation as an R1 research institute. Many students come to Drexel because they see it as a hub of innovation, stemming from its unique experiential education program and support for research. This unique blend marries the experimental and the practical to result in new technologies and discoveries that the Drexel community can take pride in. Over its 134 year history, Drexel students and faculty have made many notable inventions, some of which you likely use every day without realizing their origins.

Whenever you go to the grocery store, you can thank Drexel alumni Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland that your checkout is not much slower. Before the 1970s, cashiers would tally item prices on a cash register, then manually add them up to get a total. Silver and Woodland were both teaching at Drexel in 1948 after completing their undergraduate education here when they started working on a solution for automated scanning of product information. Woodland quit teaching in 1949 to work on the technology full-time, and they both filed a patent for the first version of the barcode that same year. In 1951, Woodland started working for IBM and urged them to develop the concept. However, it was deemed infeasible for the technology at the time.

Commercial computers as well as laser technology were becoming more and more sophisticated at the time, and Woodland had the foresight to realize that they would enable a robust and powerful identification system. He continued refining the concept at IBM, and when the necessary technology caught up, he helped George Laurer to write his Universal Product Code proposal which would become the standard for barcodes that we still use today. In 1974, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio became the first to successfully deploy the technology. In 1994, with the advent of digital cameras and image processing, the same idea behind Woodland’s original barcode was employed in two dimensions to create QR codes.

If you have ever tried to use bold or italic text in a YouTube comment, Discord message, Reddit post or Notion document, you have unknowingly stumbled upon a digital standard known as Markdown. Just like the barcode standard, Markdown has been implemented in different ways for different use cases but remains recognizably unique. The web was originally developed to run on HyperText Markup Language, which encodes text formatting (markup) in a way that makes it easy for browsers to render, but not for humans to read the code itself. John Gruber, after studying computer science at Drexel, set out to create a standard that makes markup accessible to any user with just a few sensible keystrokes, like putting asterisks around a phrase to make it bold.

Gruber’s efforts to develop a universal, human-readable markup language were aided by comments and suggestions from Aaron Swartz, a programmer and activist who also helped develop many other digital standards and shaped the digital world as we know it. On his blog, Gruber says that “Markdown is much better thanks to Aaron’s ideas, feedback and testing.” Swartz founded the forum and news aggregation website Reddit in 2005, and it became one of the first adopters of the Markdown standard, allowing users to write all posts and comments using it. Swartz, in 2013, was facing up to 50 years in prison and $1 million of fines in a politically motivated case when he committed suicide by hanging. Gruber described Swartz as having “an enormous intellect — again, a brilliant mind — but also an enormous capacity for empathy.”

Drexel students, faculty and alumni are also responsible for some of the technologies that hold up the back-end of the Internet, and while we may not think of them often, they are crucial to our everyday lives. Paul Baran graduated from Drexel in 1949 and went to work on UNIVAC computers, the first commercial computers in the United States that were invented in Drexel’s backyard at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1959, he joined the RAND Corporation and was tasked with creating computer networks that were robust enough to maintain communication even in the event of nuclear attack. He came up with packet-switching, a technique to split communications up into chunks that are individually sent along possibly different routes and reassembled at the destination.

Baran’s invention enabled huge, volatile networks like the global Internet running on WiFi to be possible and stable. More recently, in 2015, researchers at the Drexel Wireless Systems Lab developed a WiFi antenna technology that is now standard in enterprise-grade WiFi access points and has enhanced their speed greatly. This “smart antenna” is capable of dynamically optimizing which direction it transmits signals to achieve the best performance possible. Its immediate commercial application is a testament to Drexel’s role as a bridge between industry and research.

Drexel University prides itself on its designation as an R1 research institute. Many students come to Drexel because they see it as a hub of innovation, stemming from its unique experiential education program and support for research. This unique blend marries the experimental and the practical to result in new technologies and discoveries that the Drexel community can take pride in. Over its 134 year history, Drexel students and faculty have made many notable inventions, some of which you likely use every day without realizing their origins.

Whenever you go to the grocery store, you can thank Drexel alumni Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland that your checkout is not much slower. Before the 1970s, cashiers would tally item prices on a cash register, then manually add them up to get a total. Silver and Woodland were both teaching at Drexel in 1948 after completing their undergraduate education here when they started working on a solution for automated scanning of product information. Woodland quit teaching in 1949 to work on the technology full-time, and they both filed a patent for the first version of the barcode that same year. In 1951, Woodland started working for IBM and urged them to develop the concept. However, it was deemed infeasible for the technology at the time.

Commercial computers as well as laser technology were becoming more and more sophisticated at the time, and Woodland had the foresight to realize that they would enable a robust and powerful identification system. He continued refining the concept at IBM, and when the necessary technology caught up, he helped George Laurer to write his Universal Product Code proposal which would become the standard for barcodes that we still use today. In 1974, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio became the first to successfully deploy the technology. In 1994, with the advent of digital cameras and image processing, the same idea behind Woodland’s original barcode was employed in two dimensions to create QR codes.

If you have ever tried to use bold or italic text in a YouTube comment, Discord message, Reddit post or Notion document, you have unknowingly stumbled upon a digital standard known as Markdown. Just like the barcode standard, Markdown has been implemented in different ways for different use cases but remains recognizably unique. The web was originally developed to run on HyperText Markup Language, which encodes text formatting (markup) in a way that makes it easy for browsers to render, but not for humans to read the code itself. John Gruber, after studying computer science at Drexel, set out to create a standard that makes markup accessible to any user with just a few sensible keystrokes, like putting asterisks around a phrase to make it bold.

Gruber’s efforts to develop a universal, human-readable markup language were aided by comments and suggestions from Aaron Swartz, a programmer and activist who also helped develop many other digital standards and shaped the digital world as we know it. On his blog, Gruber says that “Markdown is much better thanks to Aaron’s ideas, feedback and testing.” Swartz founded the forum and news aggregation website Reddit in 2005, and it became one of the first adopters of the Markdown standard, allowing users to write all posts and comments using it. Swartz, in 2013, was facing up to 50 years in prison and $1 million of fines in a politically motivated case when he committed suicide by hanging. Gruber described Swartz as having “an enormous intellect — again, a brilliant mind — but also an enormous capacity for empathy.”

Drexel students, faculty and alumni are also responsible for some of the technologies that hold up the back-end of the Internet, and while we may not think of them often, they are crucial to our everyday lives. Paul Baran graduated from Drexel in 1949 and went to work on UNIVAC computers, the first commercial computers in the United States that were invented in Drexel’s backyard at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1959, he joined the RAND Corporation and was tasked with creating computer networks that were robust enough to maintain communication even in the event of nuclear attack. He came up with packet-switching, a technique to split communications up into chunks that are individually sent along possibly different routes and reassembled at the destination.

Baran’s invention enabled huge, volatile networks like the global Internet running on WiFi to be possible and stable. More recently, in 2015, researchers at the Drexel Wireless Systems Lab developed a WiFi antenna technology that is now standard in enterprise-grade WiFi access points and has enhanced their speed greatly. This “smart antenna” is capable of dynamically optimizing which direction it transmits signals to achieve the best performance possible. Its immediate commercial application is a testament to Drexel’s role as a bridge between industry and research.

Need to find your course materials? Need to register for classes? Need to (despite how much it makes you gag) look at your university bill? Most things you will need in your career as a college student can be accessed on the web through one of Drexel’s many online services. You have used at least some of them already, but there are others you have not had to use yet or have not completely explored yet. Here is a quick run-down that will get you familiar with the most common online systems at Drexel.

Logging In:

Once you have set up your Drexel account, you will log into through Microsoft, using the same login page as your email. All of Drexel’s online services will redirect you to the Microsoft login page, where you can put in your email and password as well as two-factor authentication, where it will redirect you back to the service you were trying to access. 

The Hub:

The first portal students get access to and use, alongside their email, is DrexelOne. One is the hub that connects all other services, and is a lot like the directory of a company. You will usually get to all other online services through DrexelOne, and if you are trying to find something, you will look for it on DrexelOne in one of the six tabs:

– Home lists the urgent items that need to be attended to, as well as some common links.

– The Academics tab will show you where to access anything related to participating in, registering for or planning out your courses.

– The Billing+Financial Aid tab will link to your e-bill on TouchNet and provide an overview of awarded financial aid, loans and estimated cost of attendance.

– The Co-op+Career Services tab provides all the resources students need to succeed in their co-ops and also in their career after graduation.

– Employee will be a tab you only touch if you have a work study, or you get a student job at Drexel and need to access employee resources like time reporting, HR and compensation.

– Campus+Community primarily connects you with residence and dining services on-campus, but also has other resources for making the most of the Drexel community.

Coursework:

The go-to platform for everything related to classes or coursework is Blackboard Learn, which most people refer to as Drexel Learn, BB Learn or just Learn. You might have already used Learn for placement exams, and in that case you will have experienced what a lot of your tests and exams going forward will look like. Each class’s Learn page is accessible by clicking on that course’s name in the Academics tab of DrexelOne, and they are all structured differently according to which instructor is teaching it. Learn has downloadable course materials, quizzes of various types, discussion board forums, assignment submissions, groups and even video conferencing for online classes.

Another important platform used in classes is Kaltura, Drexel’s video hosting platform. Most of the time it is used embedded directly into Drexel Learn (for lecture recordings, video materials, etc.) so you do not notice its presence. Occasionally professors link to Kaltura itself, or encourage you to use it for hosting your own videos. Since it’s hosted by Drexel itself, it can be more flexible and faster than something like YouTube.

College of Computing and Informatics students also have access to Echo Video, a platform that stores full recordings of every class you take at CCI. All CCI classes link to their Echo Video page from their BB Learn page. These recordings can be an invaluable resource when you’re studying and need to have a concept explained again or be reminded of a question asked in class.

Registration:

Once the time comes, you will need to plan out your schedule and register for the classes you need. You will want to have a plan prepared — for your long-term career as a college student as well as the current year and upcoming term. Drexel Degreeworks gives you an overview of your program and the classes that are required of you as well as the options you need to pick from. In Degreeworks you can make a plan of study that outlines which classes you want to take and in which order. Of course most people never adhere to their initial plan, but it is extremely important to have one so you know where you’re going.

Once you have a long-term plan, you can use Banner Web to plan out the exact sections to register for before your time ticket opens. The Plan Ahead features shows all available courses and sections, and what a potential schedule would look like. Then, as soon as your time ticket opens, you can finalize those registrations or opt for a plan-B if you could not get the schedule you wanted.

Co-ops:

SCDC or the Steinbright Career Development Center is the one stop shop for all things co-op at Drexel. As a first year there are a lot of questions that might exist around SCDC and co-op. The good news is that Drexel has thought of that. Drexel has a class called COOP 101 that you take at least one quarter before your co-op slot, and it will explain all about cooperative learning at Drexel. SCDC Online is the portal that you will learn to use to apply, manage and accept or rank co-op opportunities. The portal only opens during your designated time slot, so do not worry about that yet, and if you have any questions, ask your co-op advisor, who can be contacted via the “co-op and career services” tab on DrexelOne. 

Conclusion: 

Drexel is a large school, and it can easily feel overwhelming or confusing. Understanding Drexel’s on demand online resources is a great first step to success while at Drexel. A lot of the processes for simple tasks can all be done online, avoiding a long wait to talk to an advisor or professor. Hopefully with this guide, as well as what you will learn in University 101 (UNIV), you will be ready to start (or continue) your journey as a tech savvy Drexel Dragon!

An encampment in solidarity with Palestine was established at Drexel University’s Korman Quad late Saturday afternoon. This comes a day after an attempted occupation of the University of Pennsylvania’s Fisher-Bennett Hall.  

Protesters first gathered at City Hall at 4 p.m.  on Saturday, May 18 in memory of the 76th anniversary of the Nakba in Palestine. After a few speeches, the crowd of 200 to 300 people began marching westward along Market Street. Philadelphia Police cars and bikes trailed behind them, while 15 to 20 bikes cleared the area in front of them.

Around 4:30 p.m., Philadelphia Police along with Penn Police brought a truck full of metal barricades to 34^th & Walnut Streets, seemingly expecting a final destination and escalation at Penn’s College Green, which was the site of the UPenn Gaza Solidarity encampment that was taken down by police on Friday, May 10. The raid on the camp resulted in numerous arrests of Penn students, faculty and community members.

As the Nakba march, organized and led by the Philly Palestine Coalition, neared the Market Street bridge over the Schuylkill river, groups of people began gathering inside the Korman Quad with tents and other supplies. Around 6 p.m. the march, consisting of about 200 people, reached the Dragon Statue and stopped for a couple of speakers to make statements. Since 5:30 p.m., one DUPD car had been parked at the Dragon Statue, anticipating the protestors to pass through, and about five DUPD and Public Safety officers had been standing around it, separate from those surrounding the protest.

The march moved south on 33^rd street, and at the same time tents started getting staged at the elevated green space directly across from the Korman Center and above the hallway connecting Stratton and Disque Halls. Around 6:30 p.m., march-goers looped back around the Quad on Chestnut Street, then continued into it along Woodland Walk. They kept police, most of which seemed focused on the march and protecting Penn’s College Green, outside of the Quad and away from the campers.

As they entered the Quad, some protestors started locking arms and formed a human chain of about 100 people around the entire elevated green area. As part of a movement at universities across the nation and internationally, a Gaza Solidarity Encampment was declared. 

The barricades previously set up at 34th and Walnut were placed across Woodland Walk and between Disque and Gerri C LeBow Halls. Food and water deliveries are being allowed across the barricades, and legal observers have also been allowed in.

Soon after, Drexel University instated a campus lockdown, making all Drexel buildings “open only to those with clearance from Drexel’s Public Safety,” according to an email sent out at 9:30 p.m. and signed by President John Fry, Vice President for Public Safety Mel Singleton and Senior Vice President for Student Success Subir Sahu. They also announced that no outside persons may be signed into Drexel residential halls, and all events previously scheduled have been canceled.

Around midnight, the campers reached an agreement with Singleton to also allow in medics that have been “marked with a red cross.”

“Drexel Police and Public Safety are closely monitoring this demonstration to ensure that it is peaceful and non-disruptive to normal operations, and that participants and passersby will behave respectfully toward one another,” said Fry, Singleton and Sahu in their joint statement to the university community. “We will be prepared to respond quickly to any disruptive or threatening behavior by anyone.”

For the months of February and March, Drexel University is participating in the Campus Race to Zero Waste ^TM, a recycling competition aiming to “inspire, empower, and mobilize colleges and universities to benchmark and improve efforts to reduce or eliminate waste.”

130 institutions from across the USA and Canada are competing in 15 different categories for exclusive bragging rights, awards made of recyclable materials and the right to host that category’s trophy for the next year. Another 21 institutions, including Drexel, are just benchmarking their results and not competing in the official rankings. Managed by the National Wildlife Federation, the program provides tools and guidelines for campuses to measure their waste production and diversion, which is then publicized on a live scoreboard for “a fair and friendly competition.”

From 2016 to 2021, while it was included in the complete report, Drexel had a steady increase from 23 percent to 39 percent of waste that was diverted from landfills to recycling, i.e., the recycling rate. Last year’s highest recycling rate was achieved by Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California with a rate of 77 percent. As of writing this article, Seattle University is leading this year’s competition with a current rate of 72 percent. Last year, participating campuses diverted an amazing 29.4 million total pounds of waste.

Drexel is continuing its tradition of focusing on the electronic waste category, which will have its rankings released in April. As the main push of the campaign, Real Estate and Facilities will be hosting one e-waste pickup at each campus from March 19 to 21. The exact schedule is available on Drexel’s webpage for the campaign. 

Students, faculty and staff will be able to bring any “electronics, computer equipment, old and used up toner and ink cartridges and batteries of all kinds” to be recycled as e-waste. 

It should be noted that only computers that have been properly wiped of all data will be accepted.

Bo Solomon, executive director of Drexel Climate & Sustainability, stated, “this e-waste collection has been [their] focus [for the CR2ZW] since 2016, with more than 17,000 pounds collected in 2023.”

Drexel departments year-round are able to put old electronic equipment up for auction through Drexel Surplus Property, but Solomon says many items, such as “hard to sell, older electronics that have gone past their useful lifecycle” need to be recycled as e-waste instead. 

This yearly collection serves to fill in that gap.

E-waste is one of the most dangerous and under-recycled forms of waste, despite being the fastest growing form of solid waste. According to the International Labor Organization and World Health Organization, there are millions of women and children at risk of exposure to toxic e-waste pollution across the world. Millions more are exposed to the harmful effects of rare earth element mining for the manufacture of new electronics.

 E-waste recycling, which according to Solomon “has always been a large part of Drexel recycling efforts,” is a small but important step towards more ethical and sustainable electronics consumption.

Competing institutions in the CR2ZW record complete waste production and diversion measurements every single week of the eight-week competition.

 As a team of only “two FTE employees and a co-op student,” Solomon explained that such comprehensive reporting was outside the scope of possibility for them, which is why Drexel focuses on a specific category. 

The small team handles a surprisingly large number of events and initiatives throughout the year, which Solomon said include “AASHE STARS reporting, the Climate Action Plan, working with EcoReps, holding [their] annual Songwriting competition, hosting EarthFest, manning the Buy Nothing Depot and helping to reduce plastic water bottle usage.”