Diamond Marching Band performance ranked No. 1 by USA Today
The Boyer College of Music and Dance’s Diamond Marching Band (DMB) continues to earn the national media spotlight. Less than a year after being cited by Rolling Stone and appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, DMB’s performance of “She Looks So Perfect” by the band 5 Seconds of Summer was ranked No. 1 on USA Today’s list of 5 College Marching Band Covers You Absolutely Have to Hear. The piece was written by Chynna Mela, a senior journalism student at Temple, and originally appeared on the website Surviving College. “It is clear from the cheers that playing the hit was a total crowd pleaser,” wrote Mela after hearing DMB’s halftime performance at the Navy game on Sept. 6. “Way to go, Temple Owls, and we can’t wait until your next performance.”
USA Today | Sept. 15, 2014

Film prof Erickson’s app tells story of World War II’s “top-secret Rosies”
“The Computer Wore Heels," a new "book app" created for the iPad by LeAnn Erickson of Temple’s Department of Film and Media Arts, tells the story of a group of young female math whizzes from Philadelphia who were hired by the government during World War II to help perform military calculations. The multimedia work is a suspenseful, novelistic treatment, designed to appeal to a young audience. Erickson—who created a documentary, Top Secret Rosies, on the same subject—made the app to target school-age girls with an interest in math and science. “I thought if we hit them with these role models, then [the girls] might stick with it,” she said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer | Sept. 17, 2014

Fox’s Keuffel tells AP why drugstores are diving deeper into immunization market
The nation's biggest drugstores and other retailers are grabbing larger chunks of the immunization market, giving customers more convenient options outside the doctor's office to protect themselves against the flu, pneumonia and other illnesses. Nearly half of all flu vaccines provided to adults are now administered in nonmedical settings like drugstores and worksite clinics. "The vaccine is, I think...a good marketing tool to bring people in," said Eric Keuffel, a health economist at Temple’s Fox School of Business, in a widely distributed Associated Press story.
ABC News, Business Week, The Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Minneapolis StarTribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Charlotte Observer, many more    | Sept. 17, 2014

Mendelson on ISIS’ use of beheading videos as PR
In the past, agents of evil—from the Nazis to the Khmer Rouge—sought to hide their crimes. ISIS broadcasts them. "We have to think of [the videos of beheadings] and the related social media as part of a strategic communication campaign, a public-relations campaign," said Andrew Mendelson of Temple's Journalism Department. Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu proposed using spies to plant false information to create fear and confuse the enemy. In today's world, social media are those agents. "It's a tool for establishing terror and fear," Mendelson said, "to show they are as strong and deadly as they say they are."
The Philadelphia Inquirer | Sept. 12, 2014

Offensive on purpose? Mudambi explains Urban Outfitters’ infamous sweatshirt
Urban Outfitters came under fire recently after releasing—and quickly apologizing for—a "blood-stained" Kent State sweatshirt, a nod to the 1970 shootings that left four dead and a nation reeling. Another day, another controversy for the retailer, which seems to release controversial products on purpose to spark public outcry and gain traction in social media. “One reason Urban Outfitters has been a successful company is that they like to home in on a particular target market customer—understand what they find funny and home in on it,” said Susan Mudambi of Temple’s Fox School of Business. “In fact, part of the appeal is doing products that other people find offensive.”
Philadelphia Business Journal | Sept. 16, 2014

Why would teens attempt a risky detention center escape? Steinberg in The Guardian
Nearly half of the teenage inmates recently escaped from Woodland Hills, a high-security Nashville detention center. Why would adolescents risk an escape despite knowing the long-term consequences? “Based on our research on risky decision-making, that adolescents would generate a much shorter list of possible risks than adults would, so their assessment is more likely to be incomplete,” said Temple psychologist Laurence Steinberg. “Adolescents also make decisions more impulsively, so they probably would not spend as much time thinking through the risks and, more important, thinking about how best to avoid them.”
The Guardian (UK) | Sept. 2, 2014

Liu discusses links between smokeless tobacco and cancer
The use of smokeless tobacco remains fairly steady among baseball players and the public. These products are marketed as an alternative to smoking—and they are less likely to cause cancer—but it’s a mistake to view them as safer. Even if a person uses only smokeless tobacco, the link between that product and oral cancer is "essentially certain," said Jeffrey Liu of Temple’s School of Medicine. However, there is not a clear link between smokeless tobacco and cancer of the salivary gland, which claimed baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. Liu said that statistical case is harder to make because salivary gland cancer is rare.
The Philadelphia Inquirer | Aug. 31, 2014

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