More than a year after Jason Wingard became Temple’s 12th president, he cruised down Broad Street sitting on the backseat of a convertible, wife by his side, in graduation-like attire to kick off his inauguration.

“When he drove onto campus sitting on the top of the back seat of a convertible with a marching band, we knew it was ‘Me, me, me,” said Joe Louis, a parent of a Temple student.

During Wingard’s tenure, Temple experienced a laundry list of crises that caused the public perception of the university to take a serious hit. Complaints, like those that he treated Temple more as a photo opportunity than a genuine chance to help students, permeated his time at the university. 

Two years later, Temple is on a path forward. The university’s Board of Trustees tapped former Drexel President John Fry in June 2024 as the man to take command following a time of hardship. A number of students and faculty believe he’s already off to a better start — and he is forced to pick up the pieces left behind from Wingard’s tumultuous tenure.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Wingard’s greatest missteps lie in his mishandling of student safety concerns, lack of communication, and inability to lay out concrete plans.   

“He came in, he took some photos, he left, just like the millions of tourists that Philadelphia received,” said Scott Gratson, director of undergraduate studies at Klein College of Media and Communication. 

Concerns about safety have loomed large over the Temple community for years, but those concerns were heightened after the murder of a 21-year-old student in November 2021. Two years later, on Feb. 18, 2023, former Temple police Sgt. Christopher Fitzgerald became the first university officer to be killed in the line of duty. 

Their murders, along with a slew of other safety-related incidents, were a blaring reminder that the university was struggling in more ways than one.

That reality became painfully evident when Wingard said during an interview with NBC10 just days after Fitzgerald’s death that he “did not have an answer” about how to address the escalating safety concerns at Temple.

A lack of answers was accompanied by spotty communication. So much so that some students took alerting the university community about safety incidents into their own hands. A student-led Instagram account, Keep Us Safe TU, emerged in November 2022, aiming to share safety alerts and relevant information. It quickly amassed thousands of followers, underscoring many’s desire to receive timely and accurate communication from a third-party service.

The handling of a 42-day strike from the Temple University Graduate Student Association added another layer of controversy to Wingard’s tenure. Temple’s administration notified strikers that they had lost their tuition remission while also stripping other benefits of participating protestors. 

Despite what TUGSA President Jesús Fernández Cano feels was the administration’s mismanagement during this critical moment, he still held positive feelings toward the university.

“I still like Temple, even during the process of the strike,” Cano said. 

Cano pointed out that the real issue stemmed from leadership rather than the university itself, describing Wingard as “a scapegoat” amid the turmoil, which some in the Temple community echo.

“I really do like the community, and I feel like they’re the ones who are really representing what Temple should be representing,” said Radhey Patel, a senior economics and philosophy double major.

The growing dissatisfaction with Temple’s leadership came to a head in 2023 when a poll conducted by The Temple News revealed that more than 92% of surveyed students disapproved of Wingard’s performance. 

Just weeks before a planned no-confidence vote from the Temple’s faculty union, Wingard resigned, making him the shortest-serving president in the university’s history after less than two years in office.

RECENT IMPROVEMENT AND REASON FOR OPTIMISM

Fry’s arrival has been met with largely positive reactions on campus, and he has hit the ground running by visiting various campuses and student organizations. For some, those small gestures signal a positive step toward healing relations on campus. 

“President Fry comes to the basement of Annenberg Hall to see our Student Success Center, he’s hanging out in the basement, and [Wingard’s] getting followed by a marching band,” Gratson said.“If that doesn’t show a difference between the two, I have no idea.”

Additionally, Fry’s concrete plans to improve the university and be more accessible to students have led to an optimistic outlook. 

“I haven’t heard anything good or bad. I do know that he’s taking some initiatives,” said Jasmine Mehta, a sophomore political science major. “I’m just excited to see what he’s gonna do with them and how he’s gonna implement them.”

Wingard was notoriously difficult to reach for media requests and other meetings with local lawmakers. In his first 100 days, Fry had already sat down for an interview with The Temple News. It took nearly eight months for Wingard to complete a sit-down interview with TTN.

In a July interview with The Temple News, Fry outlined his vision for transforming Temple into a safer, more inclusive campus. His plan called for enhancing security measures, exploring Temple’s online structure and digging deeper into the sustainability of the university’s athletic programs.

 “I need to understand what the typical economics for this type of thing are,” Fry said. “What are we going to do to make the experience easy for students?” 

In his first months at Temple, Fry has effectively communicated the university’s action plan amid controversial orders out of Washington, defended students’ ability to protest on campus, met with every dean and multiple student organizations and lobbied for increased state funding during a multi-hour questioning session by lawmakers in Harrisburg.

“[Fry’s] instatement into Temple was not very performative,” said Anne Joseph, a senior public relations major. “It seems like he genuinely was hired for his initiatives and the things that he can do.”

The long-term recovery plan for Temple, following its difficult years under Jason Wingard’s leadership, is still in its early stages. That plan became even harder when acting President JoAnne Epps, who was hired to ease tensions following Wingard’s resignation, unexpectedly died after collapsing at a campus event.

While an administrator at the University of Pennsylvania, Fry helped launch partnerships between the university and local businesses aimed at improving campus facilities and strengthening the bond between the university and its surrounding neighborhoods. 

Then, while President at Drexel University, he worked on major projects like Schuylkill Yards, a 20-year plan to spend $3.5 billion to transform empty land into modern offices, research labs and stores. He also built partnerships for research, added new school programs and created ways for the community to get involved.

But those previous developments have raised some concerns about Fry’s past among the student body. They argue that similar projects at Penn and Drexel contributed to rapid gentrification and the displacement of long-time residents. 

On Nov. 21, Temple Students for Justice in Palestine, in collaboration with local Palestinian coalition groups, gathered at the Bell Tower to express their concern. 

The protesters claimed that Fry’s development plans for North Philadelphia could be a repeat of the patterns seen in other cities and around Drexel in West Philadelphia. Rising property values and shifting demographics have altered the character of established communities and forced some lifelong residents to move away, they said.

Fry and other Temple administrators have been increasingly eager to hear feedback from students. In February, students received an email from Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications Angela Polec stating the university is partnering with Simpson Scarborough, a research and marketing firm for higher education, to conduct a survey about student perceptions. The survey results have not yet been published.

“Temple’s community has really set itself apart from the Temple administration, and I think what could just work best for them is just working in our interests,” Patel said. “Like, we’re the people that Temple should be serving, and then it sometimes feels like we’re not the ones who are being seen or heard. So, just kind of hearing what we want to say and really trying to implement that.”