To the Temple community,

As we near the Thanksgiving holiday, we are grateful for all the members of our Temple family and continue to grieve with those who have been affected by the violence that impacts our city, region, and country, including members of our own community.

Earlier this year, I announced that I was creating a Task Force on Violence Reduction, and asked Provost Mandel and Vice President Harrison to be the executive sponsors of this important strategic initiative. We brought together representatives from our campuses and community—students, parents, faculty, staff, neighbors, and area businesspersons—to form a task force to review the university’s existing violence reduction efforts and consider other innovative violence reduction initiatives. Drawing upon existing research and best practices at other universities and organizations, the task force considered a broad range of violence reduction initiatives, including educational programs, research, and campus safety strategies.

The task force has issued its findings and recommendations in its final report, which is available at this new violence prevention website. You will see that the recommendations of the task force provide a pathway forward and range from enhancing campus safety efforts to developing a community engagement strategy and building our university’s capacity for research and assessment of violence reduction efforts in Philadelphia and beyond.

Many of the task force recommendations have already been implemented, or are in the process of being implemented, as we did not want to wait until final issuance of the report before starting on beneficial initiatives. Other recommendations are being reviewed and planned for implementation in the days and weeks ahead. Although much has been accomplished, there is still much to be done.

We encourage you to learn more about the task force and its work and to join in our campuswide efforts. Please join us in thanking the task force members for their tremendous work and for leading the way to provide a safer community for all.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jason Wingard
President

Gregory N. Mandel
Provost and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law
Co-Executive Sponsor—Task Force on Violence Reduction

Dr. Valerie Harrison
Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Co-Executive Sponsor—Task Force on Violence Reduction