Frank Baldino, Jr., MED '80, Trustee

My father was born in Italy and came to America when he was about 12 years old, married my mom, was born in New York City, and they raised a family of three boys in Bergen County, New Jersey. And education was always first and foremost, and shame on us we didn’t always come home with an “A” on our report card and everything because… it wasn’t fun.

When I went to college, it was almost automatic that I was going to major in some kind of science, and biology was what I gravitated towards. I graduated with a degree in biology in 1975.

Temple had a lot of good things; first, I could afford it. It was very much a regional university. A very good medical school, for sure, it even had a strong reputation back then. But much a regional college, a regional university. The Main Campus was lost in a very difficult neighborhood on Broad and Montgomery, and you wouldn’t recognize it if you’d walk through it today; it’s a completely different place.

As far as eating, we lived off of those little trucks that are up and down Broad Street. And that was part of the whole ambience of Temple. You’d wait in line at the silver truck and you’d get your food for the day and you’d sit outside and you’d sit next to a professor of medicine or a med student running across the street and had ten minutes between patients or other graduate students… and it was part of the ferment of the university.

Personally, I’m very involved with Temple University for all the reasons I’ve said; it’s a medical school that’s on the rise, it was good to begin with and it’s getting better. If you look at Temple, it’s an evolving place, right? And it’s evolved over many, many years, and the leadership of the university really dictates that particular stage of evolution that it’s going through.

I’ve mentioned Liacouras, he’s my bricks and mortar guy, and Adamany is the academic guy, but with Ann Hart you’ve got something very special, and that’s why we’re seeing all this integration. You know, she’s a scientist, she’s a business woman, she’s a practical thinker and she’s bringing all the parts that have been developed separately over the years together in a very meaningful way, and that’s what I think is going to be her legacy there.