Final Project

Where the Sidewalk Changes:

Temple University’s Assertion and Maintenance of “Self” and the Dichotomization of

University and Community

Piper Pugh

Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania

Professor Alesha Gayle

EDUC 545: Community Literacies

15 December 2021
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Introduction

In their article, “Choosing Selves: The Salience of Parental Identity in the School Choice

Process,” Cucchiara & Horvat (2014) suggest that for white middle class parents, school choice,

particularly a choice to send their kids to an urban school, can feel like an "articulation of who

they are as people and parents" and "can be a site for the expression of parents' identity." In my

inquiry into Temple University’s campus, I became interested in the ways that the university

asserts, “chooses,” and attempts to cultivate its “self” and identity. In particular, I wondered, how

can we understand Temple's physical campus as an act of asserting and "choosing self"? What

does Temple hope to assert about its “self” and its place in North Philadelphia? What does

Temple want to present, and who does it want to present it to? In my exploration of these

questions, I also become interested in the ways that Temple’s efforts to assert itself in the North

Philadelphia space have created a divisive dichotomy between the school and the community, as

their physical renovations illuminate extreme differences in resource allocation between the

university and neighboring communities and their recurring physical expansions and attempts to

minimize commuterism pit school wants and community needs in opposition.

My field work project was based upon participant observation on Temple’s campus and

the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as independent literature review and research, for

instance, into Temple and North Philadelphia’s history or waste management processes and

policies. While on Temple’s campus, I collected observation field notes, university marketing

resources, photographs, videos, and participated in short, informal conversation-style interviews

with people I encountered while walking on and off campus. Depending on context, I was able to

record exact quotations, as was the case for a local resident named Sunny1; however, I

summarized the discussion in situations where I felt it would be inappropriate or invasive to take
1
A pseudonym.
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notes. The majority of my data is observation field notes and photographs, which illuminate my

interest in community literacy practices, such as graffiti, tagging, sticker-ing, and flyer-posting,

Temple University’s preoccupation with “safety,” and the differences in the preservation of

public goods, such as sidewalks. My paper will consider these topics, as I investigate how

Temple asserts its “self” upon the physical campus and community landscape, and how their

assertions create displacement and illuminate resource disparities that dichotomize the university

and the community, in geographic and psychical ways.

Order and Uniformity on Temple’s Campus

Approaching the campus by both car and foot, from East and West, I was confronted by

the pervasiveness of Temple’s school color–a distinctive cherry red. On-campus or

Temple-affiliated streets and buildings are proudly lined with red flags, marked with a Temple

“T,” and campus street signs, similarly red, diverge from Philadelphia’s standard green streets

signs in both color and font, all part of a uniformly executed Temple “brand.”

The plethora of official signage placed throughout the campus is similarly uniform, and

red; these signs, which regulate parking, provide mask and Covid-19 guidelines, restrict

smoking, and guide or restrict movement illuminate and formalize the shared rules and practices

of the Temple community. They define a space as Temple-affiliated, and clearly articulate the

expectations of being in the space. The uniformity of the signs, in font, color, and tone, mirrors

the uniformity, and conformity, that these signs demand of Temple students, visitors, staff, and

affiliates. Temple buildings, similarly splashed with Temple cherry red, are too affixed with signs

that regulate, restrict, and direct movement of persons in their spaces.

Architect Richard P. Dober argues that the campus design “expresses something about the

quality of academic life, as well as its role as a citizen of the community in which it is located”
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(Dober, 1996). Temple’s physical campus, from its new buildings to uniform signage, is

constructed to convey the order, innovation, organization, prestige, exclusivity, and security of its

campus life, and to physically distinguish itself from the outside community. The campus’s

cultivated sense of uniformity, and its equation with order, is not “innocent;” it is meant to cater

to current and potential college-goers and their families, who the university relies on to exist and

expand.

The physical environment is molded to market the campus as safety and order-oriented,

and as an agent of “revitalization” (Cucchiara, 2013), contrasting itself to the reputation of the

surrounding neighborhoods, frequently labeled and conceptualized as “dangerous” or “unsafe”

by Temple students. These efforts constitute a sort of “re-branding” of the Northern Philadelphia

area; these efforts are also evidenced in prospective student pamphlets, which emphasize the new

and modern additions to campus and the campus’s security.

Code Blue Emergency System and Assertions of Safety

On Temple’s Campus Safety Services website, under the header “Safety By Design,” the

university asserts that “Campus Safety Services fosters safety in our community by strategically

accessing the physical design of our campus and initiating prevention initiatives to deter

potential safety hazards.” The first example listed is the Code Blue Emergency system with

phones “placed strategically throughout the campus.

The system, which expanded upon previous emergency systems, was instituted in 2003,

deemed necessary by Temple Police Lieutenant Bob Lowell (The Temple News, 2003) as a result

of the expansion of Temple and Temple housing into the surrounding neighborhoods. The head

of campus security, Carl Bittenbender, expounded upon the need for the blue light system,
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stating, “Most students don’t even know that there has been an emergency system for the past 12

or 13 years…the old ones were not noticeable enough” (The Temple News, 2003). Campus

security officials interviewed about the adoption of the system reiterated the need for “visibility.”

While the “visibility” of the beacons is necessary to improve their accessibility to students, the

Campus Safety Services’ preoccupation with increased “noticeability” is also necessary to ensure

the perception of safety. The emergency beacons, large, numerous, and unmissable, help

establish Temple as an institution with a concern for security and a plan to maintain it. On

boundary streets, blue lights appear in closer proximity to each, suggesting that proximity to

campus periphery is more associated with threats to safety. For instance, at the intersection of

Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore, an outer edge of campus, four emergency blue lights are

visible from a single position. Located at this “boundary” between the university and the

community, this multitude of systems in a small geographical radius complicates Temple’s

assertion that the blue lights can also help protect the neighborhood–suggesting instead that they

are in place to protect from the neighborhood. While the blue light system may be associated

with a sense of safety to the students who attend Temple, their migration into the community,

which follows the migration of campus housing and students, conveys another message to

residents about the perceived safety, or lack of safety, of their neighborhoods–or their own

bodies.

The emergency blue light systems, symbols of Temple’s reach and stance on “safety,” are

also sights of community communication, operating like community bulletins for stickers,

announcements, graffiti, art, and advertisements. As Watson et al (2020) consider in Chapter 10:

Multiliteracies Toward Justice in Literacy Teaching, appearing in Race, Justice, and Activism in

Literacy Education, while the university asserts its “self” and identity upon the community,
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young people in the community “assert complex identities” on their community spaces. As the

university expands with new university-affiliated housing, brand-name/chain restaurants, and

retail stores, stickers, graphics, and graffiti critique the capitalist motivations that drive the

expansion (and the often racial and racist implications). One sticker laments, “You don’t hate

Mondays / you hate capitalism // visit upstreampodcast.org,” or “Punch your local nazi.” QR

codes link to resources, podcasts, and other entrepreneurial endeavors and independent

businesses, which include the sale of magic mushrooms, Instagram handles for art pages, and

band advertisements.

Trash and Landscaping: Resource Disparity as a Dichotomizing Force

Exiting Temple’s campus through a black cast iron gate, I approached Cecil B. Moore

Avenue with eyes affixed to the sidewalk. In 100 feet, I passed three pairs of trash and recycling

cans before crossing. As I headed North on 16th street away from the university, the convenient,

frequent pairings of public trash cans and recycling cans faded into white and black bags of

trash, cardboard boxes overflowing with mixed household items to be disposed of, and

varied-sized blue and black trash cans, each competing to manage their burgeoning contents.

Several trash cans were marked with white or black, stating “If lost, call…” or “Return to...”

Noticing a large “City of Philadelphia Municipal Waste” vehicle, I approached a

sanitation worker who was patiently picking up pieces of a broken mirror from the streetside.

Curious about the jarring difference in trash disposal and collection practices, I asked the man if

he also worked over at Temple, pointing to a flag hanging on a post a block and a half away.

Shaking his head with immediacy and vigor, he responded, “we don’t go over there.”
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The differences in the disposal of trash, in addition to other publicly provided services

such as sidewalk and street repair, helps establish a jarring physical distinction between Temple

University and the surrounding neighborhoods. As Temple strives to assert safety and a sense of

order on its campus through regular maintenance work and private trash collection, the

disparities in resources between university and community become increasingly apparent. While

trash on the sidewalks and the side of the street is commonly interpreted as a reflection of the

community–their values, prioritization of cleanliness, or respect for their community–the trash

procedures and methods of disposal actually reflect the policies of the City of Philadelphia’s

Streets Department (2017). The absence of uniform bins, or bins at all, can be better

contextualized through the information and regulations outlined in the City of Philadelphia’s

Streets Department official website, which states that “The resident is responsible for providing

the collection containers; there are no City provided containers.” The website states that residents

may provide their own trash bins, or can alternatively use “sealed plastic bags.” For residents

who may consider using the regularly emptied public trash bins, the department cautions “Use

your own containers to set out trash. City litter baskets are for pedestrian use only. Do not use

them to dispose of your household trash.” Philadelphia residents’ inability to use public trash

bins, which are reserved for “pedestrations,” illuminates how communities, often low-income

communities of color, are actively neglected by cities, having resources and services withheld.

While the university is in a constant state of landscaping, cleaning, and maintenance–with

employees planting, raking, blowing leaves, gardening, and decorating–the local community

green spaces typically lack the same precise manicuring. In field notes taken during an

observational walk South of campus, I remarked, “Sidewalks claimed by nature, being

swallowed whole by plants, weeds, grass that seeps through the cracks in the concrete,” “green
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but not maintained,” and “not manicured, sprinkled with trash.” The policies of the City of

Philadelphia (2017) contextualize this difference between the neighborhoods. The Streets

Department offers very limited services to clean up “yard waste,” or the waste that may be

produced from landscaping efforts. The city will pick up “grass trimmings,” though they

additionally recommend that grass waste can be “mulched into the lawn.” Anything else “must

be collected by private landscaping/collection companies,” as the city does not pick up any of the

following associated with construction projects, “including but not limited to, stones, bricks,

rocks, concrete, gravel, earth, wood, metal,” etc. The disparity in access to resources between the

Temple community and surrounding neighborhoods manifests in the physical spaces of the

communities, and these manifestations, sidewalk trash or cracks in the roads, impact perceptions

of a community’s safety, cleanliness, values, desirability, and worth.

Temple Encroachment into the Community: Past and Present

As the university continues to expand, new industrial style apartment complexes and

buildings continue to infiltrate surrounding neighborhoods. These small encroachments may

make way for increased accumulation of property and housing by Temple. Temple University,

predominantly a commuter school, with 81.6% of students commuting, demonstrates an

increasing interest in and intent to acquire and expand on-campus housing. Temple’s present

expansion efforts, and subsequent threat to community space, is rooted in a considerable history

of legalized, yet duplicitously achieved community displacement.

Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, following the Federal Housing Act of 1949,

hundreds of local residences in the North Philadelphia community were condemned and

demolished at the discretion of the City Planning Commission, largely in order to help Temple
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realize their goals for expansion (BlackBottom, 2009). During this period, the City Planning

Commission of Philadelphia used tactics, such as safety surveys of homes primarily occupied by

Black residents, to find violations to the housing code in order to legally destroy homes and

displace occupants, creating space for Temple to grow from four acres to 70 acres in three

decades (BlackBottom, 2009). Without thoughtful intervention, these patterns of forced

relocation can and will continue to be enacted by Temple upon the neighboring communities.

And yet, students and community members continue to see Temple as a “diamond in the rough,”

an agent of positive change that is “very treasurable to the community by bringing safety to not

only the students whom attend but the community as well.”

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Resources

BlackBottom. (2009, April 29). History. BlackBottom. Retrieved December 7, 2021, from

https://theblackbottom.wordpress.com/communities/north-philadelphia/history/

City of Philadelphia Streets Department. (2017). Sanitation: Residential. Philadelphia Streets.

Retrieved December 4, 2021, from

https://www.philadelphiastreets.com/sanitation/residential

Cucchiara, M. (2013). “From ‘Philthadelphia’ to the Next Great City.” Marketing Cities,

Marketing Schools.

Cucchiara, M. and Horvat, E. (2014). “Choosing Selves: the Salience of Parental Identity in the

School Choice Process.” Journal of Education Policy, 29(4).

Dober, R. (1996). Campus Architecture: Building in the Groves of Academe. NY, NY:

McGraw-Hill.

The Temple News. (2003, October 2). Code blue: A presence on campus. The Temple News.

Retrieved November 16, 2021, from

https://temple-news.com/code-blue-a-presence-on-campus/

Watson, V., et al. (2020). Chapter 10: Toward Justice in Literacy Teaching and Research.” Race,

Justice, and Literacy Instruction.