Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella (Ret.) has been named Drexel University Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Public Policy for the duration of this academic year. He will contribute to the teaching and scholarship undertaken by Drexel’s Center for Public Policy, and in particular help advance the Center’s efforts to facilitate public policy discussion and debate in the region.

Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of the award-winning sitcom “Arrested Development” will be at Drexel University on Tuesday, Oct. 21 for a far-ranging conversation about the iconic show, his career as a successful writer/producer and a look ahead to the future of television.

Thanks to a $5 million gift from the Raymond and Ruth Perelman Education Foundation, Drexel University transformed the center of its campus along 32nd Street, between Chestnut and Market Streets. The resulting hub, known as the Raymond G. Perelman Plaza, opened to the campus community on Sept. 30. The University marked the occasion with a celebration and dedication ceremony.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

The annual Philadelphia Geek Awards have once again recognized the work of Drexel University’s faculty and students as some of the best examples of the city’s vibrant geek community over the past year.

In the first pilot study asking adults on the autism spectrum about their experiences with driving, researchers at Drexel University found significant differences in self-reported driving behaviors and perceptions of driving ability in comparison to non-autistic adults. As the population of adults with autism continues growing rapidly, the survey provides a first step toward identifying whether this population has unmet needs for educational supports to empower safe driving – a key element of independent functioning in many people’s lives.