The quality of Temple’s faculty is absolutely central to the quality of the university as a whole and to the educational experience it provides. Faculty members mentor and inspire students, shape the curriculum, drive the research program and bring recognition and funding to the University. They are responsible for the academic rigor that stands behind the value of a Temple degree.

An Exceptional Time
Temple is hiring faculty members at a rate unprecedented in its history and rare in higher education today—more than 300 senior faculty members hired since 2004. Many of these new arrivals are replacing retirees. Others are filling positions added in response to expanding enrollment. In every case, the university is conducting national searches to identify outstanding candidates. “The people we hire today will shape the future of the university,” says President Ann Weaver Hart. “We set out to find the very best, and we are succeeding.”

Impressive Credentials
Temple is adding faculty at all ranks, from newly minted Ph.D.s to highly regarded senior faculty leaving tenured positions at other institutions. These institutions include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Chicago, as well as great public research universities such as Michigan, Berkeley and Wisconsin.

The Power of Endowment
Endowed professorships stand out as particularly powerful tools for recruiting excellent faculty, and essential ones for attracting candidates at the very top of their fields. Historically, Temple has had relatively few endowed positions, just 35 compared with approximately 130 at the University of Pittsburgh and nearly 300 at Pennsylvania State University. For this reason, adding new endowed professorships and chairs is a central campaign goal.

Designed with Healing in Mind

In the new Simmy and Harry Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, students are hard at work, studying for medical credentialing exams, working collaboratively in the facility’s study rooms and tackling the rigors of research and medical education.

The gleaming new facility, located in the new Medical School and Research Building at 3500 N. Broad Street, opened in June and has quickly become a central hub for studying and socializing among students across several of Temple’s health science disciplines. There they can do everything from check their email to access surgical texts from a previous century.

The library is named in memory of the parents of Dr. Howard Ginsburg, a 1971 Medical School graduate who donated $2.5 million toward its construction.

The Ginsburg library brings together services and resources formerly housed separately at the Kresge and South libraries, serving the schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, the College of Health Professions and the Temple Hospitals. (The School of Podiatric Medicine continues to be served by the Charles E. Krausz Library of Podiatric Medicine at the school’s Center City campus).

According to Health Science Libraries director Mark-Allen Taylor, the new facility was designed specifically to meet the needs of those deeply engaged in the study of patient care.

“Over the past 20 years, health sciences libraries have transformed from print-oriented collections of journals and books into electronic information centers,” said Taylor. “The Ginsburg Library provides online access to the tools necessary to meet the diverse needs of our community of caregivers.”

The library has seating for more than 1,000 students and includes 30 study rooms, 10 collaborative learning “smart” rooms that students can use to work on various projects and two health science classrooms. There are also “quiet” study rooms that allow students the solitude needed to concentrate on anatomy textbooks or study for demanding exams, Taylor said.

The building provides wireless network access and includes 75 public computer workstations for students to use. In addition, the library has 175 public computer workstations and a collection of rare medical textbooks, including journals such as MD Consult, Natural Standard, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.

While the Ginsberg Health Sciences Library was built for service, Taylor says the building’s aesthetics were also given careful consideration. Just inside the first floor entrance from the Medical School and Research Building, there are several modern computer workstations and a spacious seating area where library patrons can overlook Broad Street through floor-to-ceiling windows. A sweeping spiral staircase leads to three floors filled with books, magazines and medical journals.

There has never been a greater demand for a Temple University education. In recent years, Temple has seen unprecedented growth in applications for admission. This growth has coincided with steady improvement in the academic profile of entering students, as Temple has emerged as a college of choice. The affordability of a Temple education stands out among the factors most important to sustaining this success and is critical to the university’s ability to fulfill its mission of educational opportunity.

Student Need
An exceptional number of Temple students demonstrate financial need compared with those at other public universities. More than 70 percent of Temple’s full-time undergraduates have documented need, versus 50 percent at Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh. As a result, the University faces enormous demand for financial aid. Many alumni assume that Temple’s appropriation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania funds this need. In fact, Commonwealth support meets only about 20 percent of the University’s total revenue requirements.

Student Debt
A key goal in funding financial aid is to reduce the burden of debt Temple students face. The average undergraduate leaves the university more than $27,300 in debt, compared with $23,500 at Pennsylvania State University and $17,051 at the University of Pittsburgh. An average Temple law student still carrying undergraduate loans leaves Temple with $110,000 in debt, the average medical student, $140,000.

Student Quality
In addition to providing educational opportunity, support for students advances the University in its pursuit of educational excellence.  Scholarships and fellowships strengthen Temple’s position as it competes to enroll highly qualified and highly motivated applicants. These often include individuals attracted to Temple’s programs but offered more generous financial awards by other institutions.

Each gift to the Access to Excellence Campaign means new possibilities for Temple.  Your gift can make an impact for students, faculty, research, facilities, community programs, or as unrestricted support to the University.

You may designate your gift to any school, college, program, or purpose within Temple University or may make unrestricted gifts, a form of investment particularly useful and valuable to the University.
These gifts include all of the following:

* Commitments to endowment priorities such as endowed scholarships, professorships, and programs
* Commitments to capital projects, such as construction of new facilities
* Gifts to fund term academic, research, and community programs
* Annual giving over the course of the campaign

Make Your Gift to the Campaign Today

Give Online Now at myowlspace.com

There are many ways to support the Access to Excellence campaign. Gifts can be made now through our secure online giving center or as pledges over a five-year period. They can also be paid in many forms: through cash, securities, real estate, personal property, or any other instrument or commodity of value.

Temple’s Institutional Advancement staff is ready to offer any assistance you might need in evaluating the tax implications of your gifts and identifying the optimal forms they can take. The staff is also pleased to discuss naming opportunities and other forms of recognition, a broad range of which are available and paid in a variety of ways. Please contact Institutional Advancement at 215-926-2500 or giving@temple.edu to learn more.

double your gift

If you or your spouse or partner work for a company with a matching gift program, please take advantage of it by enclosing your employer’s matching gift form with your contribution.

In 2002, Temple University embarked on its first comprehensive fundraising campaign and set an ambitious goal to raise $350 million by Dec. 31, 2009.

Since then, unprecedented numbers of Temple’s alumni, friends, foundations and corporate partners have come forward to support Access to Excellence: The 125th Anniversary Campaign for Temple. This generosity has transformed Temple’s campuses, boosted scholarship funds for students, propelled the university’s research enterprise, increased resources for faculty and enhanced community initiatives.

As we near the successful completion of Access to Excellence, the campaign demonstrates that a new tradition of sustained investment by Temple supporters has begun. I am deeply grateful to all those who make our success possible.

Temple University will continue to thrive in the years to come due to the financial support and dedication of our alumni and friends. If you have not yet joined with us, please make your campaign commitment today.

Ann Weaver Hart,
President