September

Inspired by the summer's viral “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,” some college students started the “Pay My Tuition” challenge. Education software developer Blackboard Inc., jumped on board and announced it would give away $25,000 in scholarship money. And a Drexel grad student won $15,000 of it.

Drexel vulcanologist Loÿc Vanderkluysen, PhD, provides insight into the science of volcanos and what challenges remain during the ongoing rescue effort in Japan.

Drexel University and Lockheed Martin are working together to nurture the engineering students who show an acuity for leadership. The corporation is partnering with the University’s College of Engineering to create the Lockheed Martin Engineering Leadership Program, a track of courses, activities, mentoring and experiences designed to help students identify and develop their leadership abilities.

Policies intended to increase the sharing of scientific resources among life science investigators appear to be working, according to a study led by a researcher in Drexel University’s School of Public Health. But the survey also identified some unexpected problems.

Italian fashion and culture descend on Philadelphia this October, with two events hosted by Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design – a screening of a new documentary on Italian master tailors on Oct. 2 and a seminar on the rich history of Italian footwear on Oct. 15. The events are part of Ciao Philadelphia, a month-long celebration of Italian arts, culture and industry, organized by the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia.

Thanks to its newest employee, Drexel University has become the first university in the country whose recreation center hosts an on-site therapy dog year-round. Drexel is also the first college in the Greater Philadelphia area to retain a therapy dog on campus.

West Catholic Preparatory High School and Drexel University celebrated the official opening of an open-grass area located within Drexel’s Vidas Athletic Complex that was converted into a synthetic field for both institutions to use. A $1.5 million gift from the Maguire Foundation made the transformation possible.

More than a thousand residents and visitors to southern New Jersey will dig their own fossils and learn from the Drexel University paleontologist and students who conduct globally significant scientific research at Mantua Township's third annual Community Fossil Dig Day.

Chef and TV personality Carla Hall plans to open a number of casual, Nashville-inspired restaurants called Carla Hall’s Southern Kitchen, with the help of students from Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management. In a unique partnership, culinary and hospitality students at Drexel will work alongside Hall and her team to learn every aspect of opening a new restaurant and help develop the first location in New York City.

The new Psychological Services Center on Drexel's campus now offers high-quality, scientifically informed, affordable psychological services for the community and clinical training opportunities for doctoral students.

CultureSpots, a new mobile tool, eliminates barriers for small to mid-size museums and galleries that want to provide their visitors with a mobile audio tour experience. The free audio tour platform was created by Cliff Stevens, a local technology entrepreneur, whose goal was to make art and culture more engaging and accessible. The CultureSpots.com website will be live on Oct. 1, with an official launch event and demonstration on Oct. 22 held at Drexel University.

The most prestigious squash tournament in the United States returns to Drexel University this fall. The top players in the world will take the court at the Daskalakis Athletic Center from Oct. 9-18 to compete in the 2014 Delaware Investments U.S. Open Squash Championships.

This fall, Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law launched a new Community Lawyering Clinic at Drexel’s Dana and David Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships, located at 35th and Spring Garden Streets. The clinic provides law students with the opportunity to gain firsthand experience working with real clients, while empowering and serving the neighboring Mantua and Powelton Village communities of West Philadelphia.

DrexelNow spoke with Millicent Carvalho-Grevious, PhD, who oversees Drexel’s Employee Ambassador Program, to find out what the program is all about.

Find out what the cranes and construction crews that have become a part of the Drexel horizon have been up to all summer.

Something that’s free, quick and designed to keep you safe is waiting in the app store for you. The new Drexel Guardian app is ready for download and it’s worth the two minutes it takes to set it up.

Drexel University’s School of Law will be named the Thomas R. Kline School of Law in honor of a landmark $50 million gift that will transform legal education at Drexel for generations to come, Drexel President John A. Fry announced today. The commitment by Kline, one of the nation’s most respected and influential trial lawyers and a champion of the elevation of trial advocacy training for law students, marks the largest single gift in the University’s history.

The new casino training lab in Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management will be named the Dennis Gomes Memorial Casino Training Lab after the late gaming visionary, with the support of the Gomes family. A dedication ceremony will take place in the lab, which is located in Drexel’s Paul Peck Problem-Solving Building (101 N. 33rd St.), on Monday, Oct. 6 at 5:30 p.m.

Drexel University has appointed David L. Unruh, currently a senior vice president with Grenzebach Glier and Associates (GG+A), as senior vice president for Institutional Advancement at Drexel. He will begin his new position at the University on Nov. 1.

A new fall in a new class, “Fundamentals of Beer,” in Drexel University’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, will be open to the public, including industry professionals and serious laypeople.

Design & Merchandising Associate Professor Joseph Hancock, PhD, weighs in on some of the fall trends to watch for this season on Drexel’s campus and beyond.

“Bill Walton, artist to artist” will be on display in the URBN Center Annex’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery (3401 Filbert St.) of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design from Tuesday, Oct. 7 to Friday, Dec. 5. The gallery is free and open to the public Tuesday – Sunday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, Oct. 9, from 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

The A.J. Drexel Autism Institute has received a grant of $3.6 million to launch four major initiatives of its Life Course Outcomes research program, focused on understanding and improving quality of life issues for people on the autism spectrum at all ages.

Eight students and alumni from Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design are among 61 fashion designers who were chosen to participate in the first-ever Descience Fashion Competition. The national competition matches designers with scientists to create garments that reflect scientific advances. The competition will culminate with a fashion show featuring the collaborative creations at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Monday, Sept. 29.

In 1934, Ernest Hemingway invited two members of the Academy to fish with him in Cuba to study Atlantic billfish. Eighty years later, history will repeat itself when an Academy member travels to Havana with the author's grandsons to commemorate Hemingway's literary and scientific legacy.

A massive ribbon-like wood sculpture by installation artist Jeremy Holmes, currently on display in Drexel University’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, will serve as the setting for “Splice,” a new work by Leah Stein Dance Company from Sept. 18- 21, as part of the Fringe Festival presented by FringeArts.

Drexel has retained JLL to advise in the selection of a master developer for its ambitious Innovation Neighborhood plan for Philadelphia’s University City. The master developer will have exclusive rights to plan and develop approximately 10 acres of urban, transit-oriented real estate. Anchoring University City’s Innovation District, the project has a capacity to exceed more than five million square feet of mixed-use development.

Drexel’s Chanel Ward-Richardson, mom to Taney Dragon first baseman Joseph Richardson Jr., is finally coming back to reality after an unforgettable summer.

A Drexel-led team has described a new dinosaur species with the most complete skeleton ever found of one of the largest animals to ever walk the Earth. At 85 feet (26 m) long and weighing about 65 tons (59,300 kg) in life, Dreadnoughtus schrani is the largest land animal for which a body mass can be accurately calculated.

Renowned Philadelphia area philanthropist Raymond G. Perelman has pledged $6 million for the construction of a Center for Jewish Life at Drexel. The new facility, which is expected to open in the fall of 2016, will be named the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Jewish Life and will be located on N. 34th Street.

Drexel Athletics Director Eric Zillmer, PsyD, shares highlights of the men's basketball trip to China.