May 19, 2016
Sara Goldrick-Rab/Twitter
Sara Goldrick-Rab is coming to teach at Temple University.
In March, we brought you the story of Sara Goldrick-Rab, a controversial and often outspoken professor coming to Temple University this summer from the University of Wisconsin.
Goldrick-Rab, who teaches education policy and sociology, was not shy about criticizing state and school officials for not making college more affordable — as well as for putting athletics above education — at her old job.
She praised Temple on both those points when she announced her new gig. I joked in March that it would be interesting to see her thoughts on the proposed $100 million football stadium in North Philly — a potential project that’s received intense backlash from some community members.
Related: Why North Philly protesters marched on Broad Street to fight Temple's stadium plan
Apparently, Goldrick-Rab's all caught up, but it's not Temple that's drawing her ire. It's the Eagles.
In a retweet of PhillyVoice's Wednesday story about members of the Philadelphia Eagles helping to build a playground at a Northeast Philly school, Goldrick-Rab criticized the organization for nearly doubling the leasing price for Temple to use Lincoln Financial Field, a complaint Mayor Jim Kenney has made in the past.
How about the Eagles save North Philly's neighborhoods by not charging Temple a fortune to play at the Linc ? https://t.co/TtCRBGTbpS
— Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) May 19, 2016
She went on to retweet a number of tweets from the past few months criticizing the Eagles for not giving Temple a better deal, also retweeting a February column from Stu Bykofsky that lambasted the team's high asking price.
Exactly https://t.co/k0NnrD0WMc
— Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) May 19, 2016
Temple paid $1 million in rent to the Eagles for the 2015 season to play in Lincoln Financial Field, plus a fee for stadium operations.
When Temple's lease runs out in 2017, the Eagles want to increase the rent to $2 million plus $12 million up front for a new 30-year lease.
Goldrick-Rab added this in a Twitter direct message:
... from what I can tell thus far, I think the public is getting hurt here by a poor decision by the Eagles- a not very neighborly one. The Linc is basically a public-private partnership and they need to honor the city's public university. Temple should pay- always has- but gouging it isn't cool. Feels like bullying-- public u's need to focus their energies on raising money for academics- this has created a distraction from Pres Theobold's good work. It's put Temple in a grossly unfair position vis a vis its community, which it cares about more than the vast majority of u's I've ever seen. None of this is good for Philly-- I would hope the Eagles would do the right thing by their hometown.Things should certainly be interesting when she arrives at Temple in July as debate over the stadium heats up.
