Profiling International Students and the Temple Office that Supports Them

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During the past year I handled a number of extremely interesting projects for Temple University’s Office of International Affairs (OIA). Besides running  the university’s 1,100-student study-abroad program and its international campuses (in Rome and Tokyo), OIA also recruits and supports the nearly 3,000 international students who come to Temple’s main campus as undergraduate and graduate students, exchange students or non-degree students.

Last fall, my first assignment involved helping the office complete International Insight, a 16-page newsletter/annual report whose goal was to heighten campus awareness of the office and the extensive support services that it provides to international students. Most of the report had already been written by various staff members, but I edited the copy—in some cases, extensively—to make it read more uniformly and to adhere to Temple’s style, which primarily follows the AP Stylebook.

More importantly, I helped organize the story lineup—including  an introductory story which I wrote in order to give readers (even if that’s all they decided to read) a much greater sense of the office’s role and impact.

Click here to see a full PDF of the International Insight newsletter.

After the newsletter was completed, this spring I conducted phone interviews and then wrote 400-word profiles of 15 international students, including Temple students from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Venezuela. The profiles were soon used by OIA staffers, who traveled to many of those countries to recruit more international students, and were also posted on the office’s Temple website.

Click here to see the international student profiles.

I also wrote about the trip of the OIA’s director of international admissions to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to present full scholarships to several distinguished Vietnamese students. Finally, in one of the most enjoyable writing assignments I have had in a long time, I spent a delightful hour interviewing four of the 29 English teachers from Brazil who spent six weeks this past winter at Temple. They were enrolled in an intensive six-week course designed to improve their skills in teaching English as a second language. The program was offered by the office’s Intensive English Language Program.

Click here to see a full PDF of the Brazilian English teachers story.

Admissions Brochure for 4th Most Popular Medical School

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For each of the past two years I have been heavily involved in the production of the 24-page admissions brochure of the Temple University School of Medicine which—based on the number of applications that floods the school each year—is the fourth most popular medical school in the country. This year my major responsibility involved interviewing six students and two professors in order to create profiles that illustrate the types of students the school attracts. Given their impressive past and current accomplishments, such as their research, global medicine and community service endeavors, the challenge was to limit the features to about 180 words each.

One of my favorite student profiles highlighted now third-year student Kathryn Anne Stockbower, who spearheaded an effort to create the Science in Philadelphia Schools (SIPS) program. It involves Temple med students helping 8th-graders at a nearby, resource-strapped public school conduct hands-on science experiments two afternoons a week. During my interview with her, she modestly told me that she had played tennis and basketball while at Swarthmore College. Did she ever! When I happened to mention her name to a friend who lives in Swarthmore and is familiar with the college, he told me she might have been the best woman to ever play basketball there. Checking it out, I discovered that Kathryn Anne was an Academic All-American who set the NCAA Division III women’s basketball for the most double-double games (both points and rebounds in double figures).

My assignment also included turning disparate text submitted by the school’s five different clinical rotation sites into a more uniformed whole and giving most of the rest of the 24 pages of text a quick edit and some slight revisions.

Click here to see a full PDF of the Temple University School of Medicine admissions brochure.

From Robotic Opera to Fossil-Poaching Detection, Temple Science Undergradate Research on the Cutting Edge

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For the latest issue of Outlook, the alumni magazine of Temple University’s College of Science and Technology (CST), I contributed more than 40 percent of the editorial content—including the cover story and the other major feature story. I love writing about science, and the diverse topics that these stories encompassed is why I love writing for CST.

The cover story focused on research opportunities afforded to the college’s undergraduates. One of the challenges was to create a cohesive story about the collaborative research that undergrads in a wide range of majors are engaged in with their professors. These included: an opera performed by robots programmed by CST computer information majors, in collaboration with both their sponsoring professor and a professor and students from Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Drama; sophisticated software programs that audit the security of cloud data-storage technology; chemical research into the effectiveness of toxic titanium as an anti-cancer agent when modified by ascorbic acid; and the development of two sophisticated techniques to detect the chemical fingerprints of fossilized bone—which could become a powerful tool in the National Park Service’s efforts to prosecute and prevent poaching in Badlands National Park in  South Dakota.

The other feature story involved interviews with a total of eight geology graduates or soon-to-be graduates who, after completing their classes, had all undertaken what is a rite of passage for all geology majors: a month-long or longer field camp at various locations in the West or Alaska to map massive geological formations. Due to the length of some of the camps, I was under an extremely tight deadline—a deadline I met.

I also wrote three one-page profiles of CST graduates: insurance industry software pioneer Christopher Gali, MS ’94; copper mine hydrogeologist Todd Keay, BA ’83; and George and Marion Evans, a couple who both graduated with chemistry degrees in 1950 and married a year later.

Finally, I wrote about a Department of Mathematics Saturday enrichment program for 5th– through 8th-graders that is led by undergraduate math majors.

Click here to see a full PDF of Outlook magazine.

 

 

Magazine & Two Newsletters Showcase College of Education

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During the past year I’ve served as the writer and project manager for all of the content of the Temple University College of Education’s alumni publications, which are available both in print and online. Beginning with early last fall, the publications have included: 

The 24-page Educator magazine, which included both the introductory message from Dean Gregory M. Anderson, the college’s new dean, and a feature on alum Kent Paredes Scribner, MEd ’92, PhD. He is the superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District, the largest such district in Arizona—and a district whose students are 94 percent minorities, with more than 80 percent living at or below the poverty line. The story highlighted how this national figure regarding Hispanic education is successfully tackling the “deficit mindset” that used to plague his district. The story developed, as many of them have, out of a brief alumni note about Scribner’s appointment to the President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. 

To complete the story, I met with Scribner in Washington, D.C., during one of his commission meetings. I also spent hours on the phone interviewing him and others familiar with his work in Phoenix—administrators, teachers, students and educational experts. I also spoke with both of his parents: Jay Scribner, the former dean of Temple’s College of Education and his Mexican-born mother, Alicia Paredes Scribner, BS ’77, MEd ’82 & ’87, PhD ’89, who earned four Temple education degrees.

Click here to see a full PDF of the Educator magazine. 

During the past year I also wrote and project managed the publication of two issues of the EdBulletin, which are eight-page supplements to the Educator. The Fall 2013 edition included stories about:  several new leadership positions created by the new dean; a 2013 graduate who was spending the 2013-14 academic year teaching English in Spain as a prestigious Fulbright grantee; and an alumna-funded exchange program that annually brings together education students from Temple’s urban campus and rural Iowa’s Simpson College. 

Click here to see a full PDF of the Fall 2013 edition of the EdBulletin.  

The Spring 2014 EdBulletin highlighted four alums who are award-winning teachers, including a third-grade teacher at a charter school in Philadelphia’s Chinatown; a third-grade teacher in the Hatboro-Horsham School District who was a finalist for the state teacher of the year award; and two participants in the college’s Career & Technical Education Program—one a plumbing instructor, the other a baking and pastry chef instructor—who won national awards for technical education. The issue also profiled the college’s two new department chairs and a graduate who now is an associate professor of education at the University of Delaware whose research focuses on the education experiences of Puerto Rican students. 

Click here to see a full PDF of the Spring 2014 edition of the EdBulletin.

Innovatively Designed Brochure Highlights Temple University’s Growing Research Endeavors

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One of the more interesting projects I worked on during the past year was Research With Results, the first university-wise report on Temple University’s growing research enterprise since 2008. Designed to both bolster grant applications and encourage philanthropic support, the innovative design package devised by the university’s talented Creative Services graphic design team incorporates a tri-fold folder that  contains two inside pockets. The first pocket holds a 16-page overview of Temple’s research efforts. The second pocket contains–depending on the intended audience–up to six 8-by-10-inch, double-sided cards that highlight particular research centers and/or endeavors. I was responsible for the latter copy, including interviewing the chief researchers and writing the text. The greatest challenge was boiling down a lot of fascinating material into tight copy.

Featured are Temple’s: Center for Advanced Photonics Research, which is investigation the use of lasers to locate explosive devices; the Water and Environmental (WET) Center water treatment laboratory; the Cardiovascular Research Center and heart-related Center for Translational Medicine; the Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology and the Fox Chase Cancer Center; the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research; and the university’s robust Undergraduate Research Program, which pairs professor researchers with promising undergraduates, allowing them to conduct the type of research most students don’t experience until graduate school.

Click here to see a full PDF of Temple’s latest research report.

 

Educational Innovation Highlights Temple Engineering Alumni Newsletter

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The latest issue of Temple Engineering, a biannual 12-page newsletter that Temple University’s College of Engineering distributes to its alumni, features the college’s increasing emphasis on innovative, hands-on teaching methods. The main story—about 2,200 words with several sidebars—highlighted a series of educational innovations ranging from a hands-on introductory course that now involves teams of freshmen building and racing remote-controlled hovercraft and portable circuit board “laboratories” that allow electrical and computer engineering students to conduct required lab experiments anywhere and anytime.

The story had a lot of complex parts. To report it, I interviewed a dozen administrators and professors. But I firmly believe in highlighting end-users as much as possible. It’s another example of show, don’t tell. That’s why I interviewed more than a dozen students to make the educational advances more concrete.  It is one thing to read a professor’s thoughts on the benefits of the hovercraft competition, but quite another to read freshman Taylor Million’s reaction: “When I first learned we were going to build a hovercraft I thought it was insane because we’re freshmen and we didn’t really know anything. But the assignment really pulled together everything we worked on throughout the semester.”

Or consider Raven Hooper’s experience: “When we got to see our hovercraft actually move, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I built that!’”

This is the fifth issue of Temple Engineering that I have written since the spring of 2010. By relying on the services of a professional writer, what once had been a challenging ordeal for the college’s alumni office has now become a turnkey operation. After meeting with the college’s director and assistant director of development to create an editorial outline, I conduct all of the interviews—including, the dean, faculty, staff, students and alumni—and deliver highly readable, professional copy on or before the agreed-upon deadlines.

Click here to see a full PDF of the spring 2012 issue of Temple Engineering.

Life Along the Delaware Bay Published by Rutgers Imprint

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Life Along the Delaware Bay: Cape May, Gateway to a Million Shorebirds has been published by Rivergate Books, an imprint of Rutgers University Press.  I copy-edited the entire text, which explores the unique ecosystem of the Delaware Bay and the struggle of migrating shorebirds, particularly the red knot, to continue to survive. Their main threat: a decline of horseshoe crabs precipitated by overharvesting, which has dramatically reduced the amount of horseshoe crab eggs available on the bay’s sandy beaches.  As the birds’ primarly food source, the eggs enable the red knots to successfully refuel en route from their wintering grounds in South America to their Arctic breeding grounds.

The book was written by three renowned New Jersey biologists: Larry Niles, a scientist with Conserve Wildlife of New Jersey; Joanna Burger, a distinguished professor of biology at Rutgers University; and Amanda Dey, a principal zoologist for New Jersey’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program, which Niles formerly directed.

The handsome book also includes more than 300 full-color photographs by Jan Van De Kam, a Dutch wildlife photographer.

Besides ensuring a consistent style and adherence to a uniform grammatical style, I also worked with Niles to write all of the book’s captions. Previously, with Niles I co-edited (and partially wrote) another Rutgers University Press title, Endangered and Threatened Wildlife of New Jersey. He was also the main eagle biologist featured in my own book, Eagle’s Plume: The Struggle to Preserve the Life & Haunts of America’s Bald Eagle.

Temple College of Education newsletter: Educational equality key to reversing U.S. students’ academic achievement decline

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After using only a magazine for the past six years to reach out to its alumni and other key audiences, the Temple University College of Education has ramped up its publication schedule. Beginning this year, the college plans on annually producing and distributing a magazine and two EdBulletin newsletters.

The initial 8-page newsletter highlights a lecture by Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor who headed Pres. Obama’s 2008 educational policy transition team. Darling-Hammond, who earned her EdD at Temple in 1978, stressed the importance of educational equality for minorities if the U.S. is ever to reverse the decline in its students’ academic achievements. Given its emphasis on improving urban education, that’s a key message for Temple’s College of Education.

Except for one article written by a graduate journalism student, I wrote and/or edited all the copy, including: an interview with the interim dean; profiles; several news items; and profiles of a professor, a staff member and an alumnus.

That last short profile, of Bill Cosby, was particularly enjoyable. Cosby, who owns a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, left Temple to pursue his wildly successful comedic and acting career before he could complete his degree in physical education. But for years he has been a staunch supporter of Temple University, particularly of the College of Education, to which he has given generously both of his time and his financial support. I had the opportunity to speak with him over the phone about that support.

But I also couldn’t resist revisiting two of my favorite Cosby comedy routines: 1963’s “Noah,” in which God tries to convince a skeptical Noah to build an ark, and 1966’s “The Playground,” in which neighborhood parents turned a “perfectly good playground” littered with bricks, rocks and broken glass into an under-aged killing field by installing monkey bars, a merry-go-round and see-saw. “Oh, yes,” said Cosby, remembering the latter routine perfectly, “When I was a child the grownups were trying to murder us …”

Needless to say, the interview was a joyful pleasure.

Click here to see a PDF of the entire Spring 2012 EdBulletin newsletter.

Community report celebrates Brandywine Health Foundation’s 10th anniversary

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Brandywine Health Foundation releases 10th anniversary community report

As the editorial director of Twist’nShout Editorial and Design Services, since 2006 I have been working with Twist’nShout’s founder and design director, Amy Pollack, on various communication projects for the Brandywine Health Foundation. Over the years, we have told many stories about the work that the foundation does to improve access to health care in the greater Coatesville area of Chester County, Pa. Since it was launched in 2001, the foundation’s endowment has climbed from $19 million in 2001 to $26 million—while it awarded $10 million in direct grants and scholarships. Incredible accomplishments.

The challenge this 10th anniversary year was to present these achievements – along with the stories of the grantee organizations, those who they assist and the donors and volunteers who help to make it all happen – in a distinctive, succinct community report. We had just eight pages and two covers to do it all.

Amy had already created a 10th anniversary logo. At about the same time as the release of the report, the foundation was to unveil its new web site. We decided that since storytelling is at the core of all nonprofit messaging, we would tell the story of the foundation by utilizing: photos of the faces of those connected to the foundation; brief, inviting text that primarily focused on the highly personal, moving stories of the end-user beneficiaries of services the foundation supports; a timeline depicting milestone accomplishments; and extended flaps on the covers with nuggets of impressive data.

Since the stories had to be brief due to space limitations, we invited readers to not only read expanded stories on each of the service beneficiaries on the new web site, but to also view video interviews of them— interviews that were based on the written stories we developed first through extensive reporting. The web site’s home page also features photos from the report and multiple links that help the visitor make the connection between the printed report and its electronic partner. To tie the package together even further,  the report—mailed in late November to coincide with end-of-year charitable giving—arrived in an envelope that begins to tell the story using the same enticing sentence printed on the community report’s cover:

“Ten years ago, if you were under- or uninsured and you were sick or your teeth hurt…”

To integrate the theme even more, the foundation used the same prose as the initial sentence in the donation-request letter that accompanied the mailed community report.
In early December, the foundation hosted a party for those stakeholders deeply engaged with the organization–donors, grantees, board members, volunteers, school board members, government officials—the community report was displayed and distributed and the logo designed by Amy made some prominent (and playful!) appearances—including as the decoration for a celebratory cake.

Click here to see a PDF of the full report.