New Head Coach for Drexel Men’s Basketball
Zach Spiker, former coach of the Black Knights of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Army West Point), was named the new men’s basketball coach at Drexel in March. Spiker, who led Army West Point to its most wins in more than 30 years, is the 26th head coach in Drexel history and the sixth since the school became a Division I member.
Spiker replaces former head coach James “Bruiser” Flint, who coached the Dragons for 15 years.
“Zach has unbelievable energy and will bring an excitement to the Drexel fan base,” says Drexel Director of Athletics Eric Zillmer. “His personality and playing style fit the aspirations of our University as a creative, fast-paced and innovative place of higher education.”
During seven seasons as head coach of the Black Knights, Spiker won 102 games and tied with Naismith Hall of Famer and legendary coach of the Indiana Hoosiers Bob Knight for second all-time at Army West Point. This season, Spiker led the Black Knights to a 19-14 record, tied for the best overall mark in the NCAA’s Patriot League basketball tournament. The team earned Army’s first postseason appearance since another Hall of Famer, Mike Krzyzewski, head men’s basketball coach at Duke University, led them to the National Invitation Tournament in 1978.
Spiker is the only coach in Army history to win 15 or more games in four consecutive seasons, a mark the program has not achieved — even under multiple coaches — since the 1920s.
Capturing the Secrets of the World
Studying abroad is supposed to change your perspective, and no one knows that better than junior biomedical engineering major Cory Quigley, the winner of Drexel’s 2016 Study Abroad photo contest. His winning entry, a stunning bird’s-eye panorama of the mountains of Cappadocia, Turkey, taken from a hot air balloon, wasn’t just a snapshot of a pretty foreign vista; it literally changed the way he looked at the planet.
“Sites like Cappadocia force me to throw my worldly preconceptions in the trash,” Quigley says. “It broadened my conception of what the natural world could create and brought to my attention that ‘secrets’ like this are hiding all around the world.”
Record Financial Aid
Drexel anticipates investing approximately $243 million in financial aid this year, which would be the largest amount in University history and includes an increased commitment to need-based aid.
The decision to increase financial aid supports the University’s strategic goals of recruiting a highly talented freshman class and improving undergraduate retention and graduation rates.
The University will also increase total undergraduate charges for 2016-17 by 3.6 percent, the fourth straight year that the growth in charges has been kept under 4 percent while financial aid increased. And, the University has reduced expenses by approximately $58 million over the past two years while continuing to grow financial aid and student support.
“We’re focused on putting resources where they’ll best support the success of our students, and no investment has more impact than financial aid,” President John A. Fry says. “We remain committed to controlling the cost of a college education while increasing its value.”
Healthy Mouths in West Philly
In the same North Philadelphia neighborhood where Drexel’s Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services Center operates, more than 45 percent of adults have not had a dental visit in the past year, and 27 percent of children have received no preventative dental care.
A new expansion to the health center’s dental clinic will address this gap and provide the community with much-needed access to oral health services.
When the 11th Street center opened its dental practice in 2004, it almost immediately approached capacity and then quickly surpassed it. Last year, the facility received 6,805 dental visits, and the waiting list for care for a non-emergency appointment was four weeks.
In the fall, Drexel unveiled an expansion to the center, which was made possible by a $2.5 million gift from the Sheller Family Foundation. In addition to a new two-story wing, the center’s dental clinic also received a significant update.
Now, the 12-year-old dental facilities have been remodeled, and four state-of-the-art treatment rooms have been added to the existing five. This expansion, which nearly doubles its capacity, is a collaboration between Drexel and Resources for Human Development’s Family Practice and Counseling Network.
Turn-of-the-Century Yoga
Most Drexel students have a fuzzy memory of the elegant and historic A.J. Picture Gallery in Main Building — during orientation, the gallery is a stop on the campus tour.
Now, the space is open regularly to the University community to enjoy the ambiance of Drexel family portraits and antique furnishings while exhaling a “Namaste,” thanks to a new lunch-break yoga class open to students, faculty and staff. The first class was held during Welcome Week for freshmen and was so popular that a class is now held every month.
Crime is Down at Drexel
On-campus crime dropped 25 percent over last year, according to year-end stats from Drexel’s Department of Public Safety. Department Chief Eileen Behr says the drop is due to a team effort in three main areas: proactive patrols, community awareness and reporting. Drexel security officers provided over 1,800 escorts last year, and the 15 dispatchers in the department’s communications center answered 55,000 calls, up from 43,000 the previous year and 33,000 in 2013. The center is covered with monitors that cycle through the 543 cameras that provide 24/7 surveillance of Drexel’s campus.
Sorry! Out of Beans
When the Graduate College revealed its new suite on the third floor of Main Building in February it announced free coffee to all who visited — and the students swarmed. The office’s initial supply of 3,000 coffee cups was meant to last an entire month, but was gone in just four days. The coffee beans were the next to go. By the second week, all that was left was a sad sign taped to the coffee machine, “Sorry! We are out of coffee beans.”
The grand opening followed months of demolition of former classrooms, out of which was carved Main 301 to house the staff of Graduate College.
The college was newly established last summer to provide support for graduate students and graduate programming across campus.
Before the big move, Graduate College staff members worked in three different offices.
“The new space is a huge improvement,” says Bonnie Shea, program coordinator in the Graduate College. “Operations are smoother because students, faculty and staff are able to find us all in one place for anything they may need.”
“We have ambitious plans for the college, and this beautiful space sets the stage for realizing these goals,” says Executive Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate College James Herbert.
Now, if they can just get the coffee order right.
New West Philly School Opens
The School District of Philadelphia, Drexel and Inquiry Schools announced that Science Leadership Academy Middle School (SLA-MS) will open to fifth-grade students this fall in a temporary location at Drexel’s Dana and David Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships.
SLA-MS is a new district middle school based on the Science Leadership Academy model that will open with 90 students and ultimately serve 360 students in grades 5-8. The school will have no admissions requirements and will serve as the neighborhood catchment school for Samuel Powel Elementary.
“We’re excited to bring the quality of a magnet school education to a neighborhood school setting,” says Timothy Boyle, who will lead the new school.
For at least two years, the school will rent a portion of the Dornsife Center. Both SLA-MS and Powel intend to eventually operate in a building located on the Drexel-owned parcels of the former University City High School site.
Planning this school has been an ongoing community process for about three years, with a steering committee, working groups and many public meetings. The new school will have the full support of Drexel’s School of Education, whose faculty will work with the nonprofit Inquiry Schools and the SLA-MS teachers and administrators on curriculum development.
Startup and planning costs to open the new school are supported by a $1.8 million grant from the Philadelphia School Partnership.
Drexel Prof to Map a Galaxy Far, Far Away
In astronomy’s modern history, large-scale work was almost exclusively done at institutions with giant observatories and expensive computers and equipment. But a new approach to work in the field now has Drexel faculty playing a key role in what could be the most expansive approach to mapping the universe.
In a joint project between the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education that also includes dozens of higher learning institutions, a super-powerful telescope featuring an 8.4-meter mirror will be constructed in the Cerro Penchón ridge in Chile.
– Photo Courtesy of LSST Corporation
Called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the device will be capable of mapping the entire night sky every three days and will conduct an active and continual survey of the universe for 10 years — producing massive amounts of new big data on the universe.
“Astronomy has kind of undergone a significant shift in the last 20 years or so,” says Gordon Richards, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences who will be part of the team shaping the way the study will be conducted when it begins in 2022.
“Before, everything was done by the top five institutions because they were the only ones who had the money for the big toys. The advent of collaborative projects has changed that.”
Essential Social Services for All
Philadelphia is home to hundreds of programs, agencies and organizations that exist to help low-income and marginalized people find housing assistance, job training, legal help, food access, college planning and more. But, accessing these resources and opportunities can be a challenge.
Enter the navigators.
Through a new Drexel initiative called UConnect, students and other trained volunteers will act as “navigators” who meet with community members one-on-one to assess needs, set goals — from finding employment to housing and education — and then connect those in need with vital community resources. The service doesn’t stop there. Afterward, the navigators will continue to track clients’ progress until their needs have been met.
The center will be staffed by students from a criminal justice course taught by Cyndi Rickards, senior assistant dean for community engagement and assistant teaching professor in the Department of Criminology & Justice Studies.
“By supporting their neighbors in navigating the complex landscape of opportunities, students will learn first-hand, in a very personal and human way, about knowledge application and real and pervasive issues of social justice,” says Rickards. “We hope that students will take the UConnect experience with them back into their homes, classrooms and professional lives, becoming the civically engaged change agents our communities need.”