If THIS Isn't Twisted Logic, What Is?

A Reasonable, Sensible Move Toward Safety

Here is a special message from Father Peter Donohue, President of Villanova University followed by a message from David Tedjeske, Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police for the university:

Dear Alumni, Parents and Friends:

I wanted to make you aware of the email below that was sent to all faculty, students and staff this morning regarding the establishment of the University police department at Villanova.

Last October, after several years of careful consideration, the Board of Trustees approved establishing a department that will include a combination of security officers and police officers. The latter will have the same authority and undergo the same specialized training as those in public law enforcement. This decision was made in the interest of doing what I believe is best for our entire community.

A great deal of progress has been made toward this change during the past 10 months, and the email below from David Tedjeske, Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police, provides an overview of the transition. This change, which many other colleges and universities across the nation have made, puts our Public Safety Department in a better position to keep our campus community safe.

Sincerely, 

Fr. Peter Donohue, OSA 

President

_________________________________________________

From: David Tedjeske 

Subject: Update on Villanova University Police Transition

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:

Last fall, Father Peter announced that Villanova’s Department of Public Safety would become a police department with a combination of security and police officers starting in the Fall 2016 semester. A great deal of work has taken place since then to establish a University police department and a number of changes will take effect today, August 1. As we begin the transition, I would like to take this opportunity to provide an update on the progress that has been made to-date and share additional details on some of the changes for our University community.

Implementation
We engaged an industry-leading consultant to develop a formal implementation plan and met monthly with the Board of Trustees to ensure a smooth and productive transition for the University. The consultant and Board received information and updates about all aspects of the transition process, including the agreement recently finalized with Radnor Township regarding jurisdiction, protocols and procedures, as well as officer recruitment, selection and training.

As part of the transition, we established direct radio communication with the Delaware County 911 Center and local police departments. We also were certified as a criminal justice agency by the Pennsylvania State Attorney General, enabling us to access law enforcement and Department of Motor Vehicle databases to aid investigations. These were two significant limitations of our previous public safety model that no longer exist now that Villanova is transitioning to a University police department.

University Police Officers
As of today, Villanova officially has three police officers. That number gradually will increase throughout the fall, and I anticipate having between 7 and 10 police officers by the start of the spring semester. This phased-in approach is deliberate and will culminate with a total of 19 police officers being hired over the course of the next year. These officers will be distinguishable from their security officer counterparts by a modified uniform, shoulder patch, and a police badge, as well as by University Police signage on vehicles driven by police officers. Police vehicles will also have red and blue overhead lights.

Oversight Committee
In March, Father Peter shared that an Oversight Committee, chaired by Father Rob Hagan, was being established to act as a liaison between the Public Safety Department and the University community. This group—comprised of faculty, students, staff, administrators and alumni—serves in an advisory capacity regarding the safety and security needs of our community. It provides input on initiatives to enhance campus safety and offers recommendations concerning police department policies and practices. The committee also will receive and review suggestions and concerns from our community.

The committee began its monthly meetings in July and reviewed its charter and responsibilities. At this meeting, committee members also received an overview of the selection process for officers and were invited to participate in the next round of interviews for police officer candidates. In addition, the Committee Chair will meet annually with the Board of Trustees and Father Peter, and provide an annual report on the committee’s activities to Executive Vice President Ken Valosky. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to share any questions or concerns directly and confidentially with the Oversight Committee via email at oversightcommittee@villanova.edu.

Community Engagement
Throughout the fall and spring semesters, members of the Public Safety department worked to connect and engage with community members to discuss the upcoming changes in the department. This outreach included “Dinner and Dialogue” events with students, a Q&A session with the University Senate’s Student Life Committee, presentations to the Faculty Congress and Staff Council, and participation in a Student Town Hall meeting.

As we move forward, I know that many of you may have further questions regarding the transition.  We plan to continue our outreach throughout this academic year and I also will provide monthly updates about the transition, which will be posted to the Public Safety website.

I am pleased to share that the Department of Public Safety moved over the summer to its new home in Garey Hall. This location features the space and resources the department needs to serve the campus effectively.  An open house is being planned to take place once the semester begins, and we look forward to showing you our new space.

I am grateful for the amount of feedback I have received and conversation that has occurred on campus around the transition. This is one of the benefits of a strong community like Villanova’s, and I look forward to our continued work together on these changes to public safety.

David Tedjeske
Director of Public Safety & Chief of Police
Villanova University Department of Public Safety
An IACLEA Accredited Agency 

Remembering Service In The Very Finest Tradition!

Today, we remember retired Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Alex Bonavitacola, 85, of Haverford,, who served over 35 years on the bench and died peacefully last Friday. 

We were so proud to call Judge Bonavitacola a friend and to have worked with him during our time with the Philadelphia Bar Association.

The Judge was a pillar of the Italian-American community in Philadelphia and an inspiration to so many of us. He was a gentle, cooperative figure in the court system -- a pragmatic man who charted new paths to make the system work better. Never overwhelmed by his duties not overly impressed by his position, he retained his sense of humanity and decency throughout his time of service and beyond.

Judge Bonavitacola enjoyed a distinguished career as a jurist, one of a select handful of judges who served in all three divisions of the Philadelphia Court system: the Trial Division, the Family Court Division and the Orphans Court Division. 

Alex Bonavitacola grew up in South Philadelphia, graduated from Central High School, and earned his Bachelor of Science from Temple University in 1953. He then went on to earn his Juris Doctor and LLM from Temple University School of Law in 1956 and 1962, respectively. 

After stints in both the Philadelphia City Solicitor's Office and Zoning Board of Adjustment, he started a law firm with colleagues from Temple, prior to running for Judge of Common Pleas Court. He met his future wife, Flora Jane Catalano, at a Sons of Italy banquet in South Philadelphia. They married in 1963 and had two children,  Marc Bonavitacola and Portia Bonavitacola. 

They lived in the Packer Park section of South Philadelphia for nearly 50 years. 

In 1992, Judge Bonavitacola was appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve as Administrative Judge of the Trial Division of the First Judicial District. Four years later, he was unanimously elected by his fellow jurists as President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. 

He was then appointed by Order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to serve as Chairman of the Governing Board of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, with oversight and governance of the Common Pleas, Municipal and Traffic Courts. 

Judge Bonavitacola received numerous awards and commendations over the course of his career to including the Justice William J. Brennan Distinguished Jurist Award and the Philadelphia Bar Association's "Gold Medal" award. Perhaps his most notable professional accomplishment was his oversight and implementation of the innovative "Day Forward, Day Backward" civil case inventory reduction program for which he received national recognition as well as the Philadelphia Bar Association's "Golden Crowbar" award. This program eliminated a nearly 28,000 case backlog under his stewardship. 

Additionally, at President Judge Bonavitacola's direction, the law library in City Hall was restored to its original splendor and was fittingly christened the "Alex Bonavitacola Law Library." In November 2015, the Philadelphia Bar Association Civil Litigation Section named their annual award for outstanding service in honor of Judge Bonavitacola, “the Hon. Alex Bonavitacola Award." 

The judge was a member of, and held numerous leadership positions in, various organizations such as the Philadelphia Bar Association, the State Disciplinary Board, the Fairmont Park Commission, Unico Charities and Unico Village, Sons of Italy, the Justinian Society, and the Y.M.C.A, to name a few. 

Off the bench, the judge enjoyed reading history books, traveling, following the Phillies and spending time with his family at his vacation home in Margate, New Jersey. In addition to his wife and children, the judge is survived by two grandchildren, Michael Alexander and Justine Jane. 

Donations in his memory may be made to the St. John Vianney Scholars Fund, 1110 Vaughns Lane, Gladwyne PA 19035, would be appreciated.

And Now, A Place To Call Their Own . . . . .

Catholic Health Care Services (CHCS) and the Office for Community Development (OCD) will break ground for the new St. John Neumann Place II, an affordable housing development for independent seniors in Philadelphia.

The newly constructed building will consist of 52 one-bedroom apartment units and a Wellness Center on a parcel of land adjacent to St. John Neumann Place, which has been in operation since 2008 and represents the successful conversion of the former St. John Neumann Catholic High School into 75 units of affordable senior housing. 

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

10:30 a.m.

St. John Neumann Place II

2627 Mifflin Street

Philadelphia, PA 19145

The St. John Neumann Place II development was selected by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) to receive a $12 million dollar tax credit allocation for the development of additional affordable senior housing on the campus of the former St. John Neumann Catholic High School in South Philadelphia and gave the development the award for Innovation in Design.

“This completion of this campus is the culmination of a vision that began over a decade ago.  This community wanted this space to continue to be vital to the fabric of the neighborhood. With the help of many people this vision has become a reality,” says John M. Wagner, deputy secretary and chief executive officer of CHCS.

St. John Neumann Place II will also receive assistance from the Philadelphia Housing Authority in the form of project based vouchers through the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration program (RAD). 

“We are proud to partner with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to serve seniors by expanding affordable housing and health services here in South Philadelphia,” said PHA President and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah. “PHA is supporting the St. John Neumann campus through HUD's Rental Assistance Demonstration Program with an investment of $9.9 million over the next 20 years. It’s an investment that reflects PHA’s desire to work hand-in-hand with mission-driven organizations like the Archdiocese.”

The development is scheduled to be completed in the Fall of 2017.

Notes: Catholic Health Care Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia provides services and housing for seniors, supporting them to remain in their homes and communities. CHCS services for older adults include four senior centers, In-Home Support Program, Certified Geriatric Care Management and a growing portfolio of senior living communities.

Rendering provided by Blackney Hayes Architects.

Maybe It's Just As Simple As This . . . .

It's Radical, It's Adventurous, It's Coming Soon!

The Philadelphia Museum of Art will premiere an ambitious new project this fall (September 18, 2016 – January 2017) by Bruce Nauman, one of the most radical and revered artists of our time. Since the 1960s, Nauman’s work has questioned the very nature of what constitutes art and being an artist, probed the possibilities of the body as subject and tool for performance, and explored the relationship between language and meaning. A pioneer of performance art, durational practices, and time-based media, Nauman has established a conceptually rigorous approach across sculpture, sound, installation, film, and video that continues to inspire younger generations of artists working in these forms today.

Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO, stated: “Part of what is extraordinary in Nauman’s work is his ability to choreograph with space, movement and sound. The monumental nature of this new work offers an all-encompassing experience that commands our attention and underscores the Museum’s committment to presenting the most exciting art of our time.”

The installation takes as its point of departure his seminal video work Walk with Contrapposto of 1968, in which the artist performed an exaggerated walk along a tall narrow corridor that he had built in order to stage the action. Nauman’s new work, which is titled Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, consists of seven large scale video projections with sound in an installation specifically scaled for two galleries in the Museum on the occasion of its premiere. In each of the projections, Nauman is seen from two viewpoints walking in contrapposto, his image rendered both in positive and negative, and at times fragmented and stacked in two horizontal strata.

Contrapposto translates as “counterpose” from the Italian and refers to a pose that first appeared in Greek classical sculpture to introduce dynamism into the representation of the figure. Nauman’s original appropriation of the pose in motion in 1968 questioned the boundaries between performance and sculpture through the relatively new medium of video. In 2016, he transforms his original gesture by exposing it to digital manipulation and recombination, which give the appearance of his body alternatively coming together and disintegrating while remaining the stable focus of the composition. 

The soundtrack of each projection captures the multiplicity of the artist’s movements, which are seen both forwards and backwards, compounding the relationship between the aural and the visual experience of his action. Through the combined effects of Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, Nauman dwells on the history and possibility of representation while elliptically referencing his own biography.

Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, said: ”This new work by Nauman is both a video installation and an amazing sound composition. That he has used a foundational moment in the history of Western sculpture to create a rich field of interrelated references, across media as well as time, is a testimony to his status as one of the most important artists working today.”

The installation builds upon the Museum’s deep commitment to the artist. In 2009, the Museum organized a three-site exhibition of his work representing the United States in the 53rd Venice Biennale of 2009 that garnered the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Following the premiere of Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, the Museum will dedicate one of its permanent collection galleries to a long-term presentation of select works by Nauman.

Curators
Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Erica F. Battle, The John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art

Support
Support for this exhibition has been provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Daniel W. Dietrich II Fund for Excellence in Contemporary Art, and by Isabel and Agustín Coppel

Concurrent Exhibition
The Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York, which has represented the artist since 1975, will present a complementary new work by Nauman, Contrapposto Studies, i through vii, from September 10 until October 29. Consisting of seven projections with sound, the work reverses the direction of the artist’s movements in Contrapposto Studies, I through VII as well as the sequence of the individual projections.

About Bruce Nauman
Working in sculpture, film and video, installation, performance, and sound, Bruce Nauman is one of the most influential artists of his generation. He was born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of California, Davis. After graduate school, Nauman occupied a storefront studio in the space of an old grocery store in San Francisco. There, an old neon beer sign served as inspiration for Nauman’s celebrated neon, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967, which became a major acquisition by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007. Nauman’s first solo debut in New York was at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1968, and his first major museum survey was co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972. In 1994, Nauman’s traveling retrospective and catalogue raisonné were organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Following the presentation of Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens at the official U.S. entry to the 53rd Venice Biennale, Nauman’s two new sound works produced in concert with that project, Days and Giorni, had their United States premiere at the Museum in 2009. The artist lives in New Mexico with his wife, the artist Susan Rothenberg.

Social Media
Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Tumblr/YouTube: @philamuseum

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is Philadelphia's art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.

We're Guessing You've Noticed THIS By Now . . .

Nothing Like THIS -- Not In 67 Years! OMG!

On the left, we see America's growth rate from 1950 through 2008.
On the right, our dismal growth rate under Obama, from 2009 into 2016.
We were usually growing at anywhere from 3 to 4% per year for the years preceding Obama for an average of 3.6%
After Obama? Well, a dismal 1.4%. That's a shocking 61% drop!
This is the slowest growth rate in 67 years!
Obama followed by Hillary will give us four -- maybe eight! -- more years of this.
Don't let it happen!

The Shocking Slide You Simply Won't Believe!

1965            70      75        80      85       90      95        00     05     10        2015


Look at the above graph.
It shows the steady and shocking decline of home ownership rates during the Obama years.
Look at the steep decline from roughly 2009 to 2015.
Today -- right now -- home ownership rates in this country are at their lowest point in 51 years! 
This is what Obamanomics has given us. Look how far we've slipped. We've actually regressed by half-a-centruy.
And consider this, too:
The slowest growth rate in 67 years.
The lowest participation in the labor force.
The highest use of food stamps ever.
The longest drop in real wages in 50 years.
THIS is the record of the Barack/Hillary years. Eight long years of decline.
These are the facts. Will YOU let them run away from this dismal record? Will YOU vote for four (or eight!) more years of decline?                

Yes, Common-Sense Compromises ARE Possible!

The New Jersey Senate has approved bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Senator Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) that enhances protections for victims of domestic violence. Bipartisan compromise legislation by Sen. Loretta Weinberg and Sen. Jennifer Beck enhances protections for victims of domestic violence. (Flickr) The compromise proposal, S-2483, restricts access to firearms by certain persons subject to restraining orders or convicted of domestic violence offenses, and provides a clear and supervised process for the immediate surrender of firearms. “This common-sense compromise ensures that when firearms must be surrendered due to conviction or restraining order, there are no gaps where the person still has access to their guns or the ability to cause additional harm,” said Beck. “For a person subject to a temporary restraining order related to domestic violence, for example, it makes no sense to give them a week to turn in their firearms. You’re just giving them a week to do something bad. If the person is such a risk that the restraining order is necessary, the guns should be surrendered immediately.” The Senate’s passage of the compromise was applauded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the Co-Founder of the gun violence prevention organization Americans for Responsible Solutions. “This agreement is a real victory for responsibility that will make New Jersey families safer, and it represents the kind of bipartisan approach to preventing gun tragedies that our communities need. I’m grateful to New Jersey’s legislators for doing the responsible thing and voting to make the Garden State a safer place to live,” said Congresswoman Giffords. “I want to thank Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean and Senator Jennifer Beck for their leadership and for listening to New Jersey’s community leaders and domestic violence prevention advocates who have urged their elected officials in Trenton to help protect families from abusers with guns.” “As someone who first met Gabby Giffords many years ago, I am not surprised that she has taken the lead in this nationwide effort to protect others from becoming the victims of senseless gun violence,” said Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean. “I’d like to commend Senators Weinberg and Beck for building on the efforts of Congresswoman Giffords to develop a bipartisan solution that protects the victims of domestic violence in a way that works for New Jersey.” Some key components of the legislation: Provides a process for the immediate surrender of firearms by a defendant post-conviction; Establishes that when a final restraining order (FRO) or a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the surrender of firearms is served, a law enforcement officer will escort the subject to the location of their stored firearms to effectuate surrender; An order to surrender firearms will include notification of potential penalties for failure to comply with the order; and Enhanced penalties for domestic violence offenders, including maximum penalties for second and subsequent offenses of third or fourth degree domestic violence crimes. “This legislation protects those who have suffered and are at risk of continued domestic abuse,” added Beck. “The gaps that this legislation addresses are those periods of time when abusers have proven most likely to commit atrocities that we know we can prevent.” Related Facebook Post: https://www.facebook.com/jenbecknj/posts/10154224409405781 Related Tweet: https://twitter.com/jenbecknj/status/760515823945469953 Website Post: http://www.senatenj.com/index.php/beck/senate-approves-weinbergbeck-domestic-violence-protection-legislation/27926