Latest Update - Rally 2pm Thursday

Good evening all,

The day of reckoning for State Senator John Taylor has arrived; the politician who strongly opposes the bill which will provide Temple University $175 million in state and federal funding it is expected to receive, will experience the strength of the Temple University community.

This funding is crucial to the university in many ways; mainly to keep YOUR tuition rate in check. If this funding does not come thru, Temple students will be forced to eat a 45% tuition increase of roughly $5,000 per year. This amount is tacked onto the current tuition rate which currently sits in the top ten of the most expensive public universities in the country.

Tomorrow (or today if it's Thursday and your reading this) there will be a rally in front of the Student Center at 13th & Montgomery at 2:00pm. I ask you all to please attend this rally and show your support. Local news media has been contacted of this event, and we will publicly shame State Sen. John Taylor so that all in the Philadelphia area are witness.

With the news media present, our goal would be to let everyone in the Philadelphia area know that this individual, State Senator John Taylor is holding Temple students and their families financial situation hostage. This politician has messed with the wrong university with this ordeal. It is our goal to let him know the definition of career suicide if he does not change his stance.

The time to act on this is now. The more people that come out in support for this, the more our voice is heard. When people turn on the 6pm news, the 11pm news, the Friday morning news, or turn the page in the Friday newspaper; it will be our goal to put this individual to shame and let it be known that he strongly supports a 45% tuition increase for Temple students during the roughest economic climate in our generation. The vote isn't expected until Monday so now is our chance before the story gets tucked away during the weekend.

So please, do not forget: Thursday, 2:00pm in front of the Student Center we will meet. We will then march over to his district office on Thompson street and demand that his presence is there. I have spoken to a secretary at his office earlier today and was told that he would be in session tomorrow in Harrisburg. However, I have heard from a reliable source that tomorrow there is not a session for State Senators, such as himself; meaning he will be in the area.

I have received a written response from State Senator Larry Farnese whose name was mentioned in the Daily News article today. He has stated to me that "when a final budget bill comes before the Senate, I will support funding for Temple University."

Another politician who was mentioned in the same article, State Rep. Dennis O'Brien, had a staff member reach out to me and stated that State Rep. O'Brien strongly supports funding for Temple University as well.

As a proud alumni of this university, it upsets me that a bitter politician has such energy devoted in attempting to ruin the academic career of 25,000+ students.

Once again, the time to act is now. Show up to this rally and let your voice be heard. Don't wait until the evening news, or checking out online how the rally went; come to it and be a part of it. There's not much time to act, so decide if $5,000 is worth your time or not.

-Jon