Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and deployment of federal officers to cities across the country, students at Philadelphia-area colleges are protesting against the appearance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at campus career fairs.
At least four local universities — Thomas Jefferson, Villanova, Temple, and Rowan — have faced opposition to allowing recruitment in recent months.
A petition circulated at Jefferson last week sought to keep CBP from appearing at a campus career event. CBP and ICE — both agencies that enforce immigration laws under the Department of Homeland Security — have been at the center of a national debate after two Minneapolis residents were killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in shootings now under investigation.
“Due to the harm CBP has caused to communities across the nation, it is abhorrent for TJU to accept CBP at their institution,” said anoccupational therapy student who signed the petition and asked that her name be withheld, fearing retribution. “I don’t think any institution should be encouraging students to get involved in these kinds of agencies, given the current climate.”
But the petition has since come down, the student said, and CBP is not on the list of employers due to appear at the event, called the 2026 Career Day and Design Expo, on Thursday at the East Falls campus. Jefferson has not acknowledged that CBP was on the list initially or responded to questions on whether it was removed.
CBP, which has offices in Philadelphia, has appeared at campus career events in the area in the past.
An email seeking comment from CBP’s media office was not returned.
At Rowan University in New Jersey earlier this month, the participation of CBP’s Trade Regulatory Audit Philadelphia Field Office in a career fair drew some student protest. Members of a student activist group distributed fliers speaking out against CBP during the fair, according to Rowan’s student newspaper, the Whit, and campus police and administration officials came to the scene.
The agency also reserved a table and came to afall event at Rowan to share information about accounting-related auditing internships, said Rowan spokesperson Joe Cardona,and has done so at the public university for the last decade.
Rowan’s Rohrer College of Business Center for Professional Development hosts more than 200 employers each year, including local, state, and federal agencies as well as private-sector groups, he said.
“The presence of any employer on campus does not constitute institutional endorsement of that organization’s policies or actions,” Cardona said. “Rather, it reflects our commitment to supporting student career exploration while upholding principles of open access and free expression.”
At Villanova, CBP pulled out of a career fair it had planned to attend earlier this month, according to the Villanovan, the student newspaper. The withdrawal followed criticism on social media about the organization’s planned appearance.
The organizer of an Instagram account that opposed the agency’s participation said they wished that Villanova had made the decision to disallow the group rather than the group withdrawing, according to the student newspaper.
“I think a lot of students will feel a lot safer and more comfortable attending this Career Fair,” the organizer said. “But it doesn’t take away the anger that this was ever something that was gonna happen.”
Villanova said in a statement that CBP‘sOffice of Trade had participated in prior career events and that employers with prior participation were contacted “through standard outreach” about this year’s event.
Temple’s law school last semester had planned to host a “Coffee and Careers” networking event with a DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer but later canceled it, according to the Temple News, the student newspaper. The event was replaced with a talk on public interest law by Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau.
DHS “chose to engage directly with students interested in DHS opportunities rather than participate in a scheduled career event,” Temple spokesperson Steve Orbanek said.
He also noted that “career fairs are university-sponsored events, and actions that disrupt these events may violate university policy and established on-campus demonstration guidelines.”
Erin Mooney, executive director of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, slipped out of a sweltering sauna last weekend wearing only a bathing suit and strode barefoot straight into the coldest day of the winter.
“I never thought that I would find myself in a bathing suit laying down in the snow on a 15-degree day, and I found myself doing that at the Schuylkill Center,” Mooney said.
It marked the opening weekend of a new experience that the Schuylkill Center, on Hagy’s Mill Road in Philadelphia, is offering along with a local sauna company, Fiorst — one that already has had solid booking off social media views, despite having just opened Saturday.
Visitors will have the chance to relax ina glass-walled, wood-fired sauna overlooking a snowy field and woods in Northwest Philly, paired witha cold plunge.
Mooney said the idea to host a mobile sauna on the preserve’s grounds grew from a desire to keep the center lively through winter and draw in new visitors. She was inspired by a sauna exhibit by the American Swedish Historical Museum in FDR Park and began looking for a way to bring that Nordic tradition of “hot and cold” to her own facility.
She spotted Fiorst, a mobile sauna venture run by Jose Ugas, on social media, reached out, and the two forged a near-instant partnership. They spoke on Jan. 30, a Friday; by the next Friday, a custom sauna unit from Toronto rolled onto the grounds.
By last Saturday, the fire was lit, and guests arrived.
“It was, you know, kind of kismet, in a way, we were able to have this shared vision,” Mooney said. “And with him doing this servicing of the saunas on site, it makes it so much easier for us.”
The interior of the Nordic-style sauna at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.
How does the sauna work?
Nordic-style wood saunas are notable for their minimalist design and high heat, which participants couple with either a plunge into a cold shower, tub, or lake or a step outdoors.
Fiorst’s installation overlooks the center’s main wooded area, framing the winter landscape through a glass wall as guests sweat it out inside the sauna’s170- to 190-degree temperatures. Each 90-minute session allows participants to cycle at their own pace through intense heat and biting cold, a contrast Mooney found invigorating.
The sauna is modeled on a concept popular across Nordic countries, including Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden.
Mooney said the project has already pulled in new visitors from neighborhoods like Fishtown or outside Philadelphia who might not typically visit for hiking or birdwatching.
She believes the sauna fills a niche for “clean, wholesome, healthy fun” that is alcohol-free.
However, unlike the typical Nordic experience of being nude during the sauna, the Schuylkill Center experience is strictly “bathing-suit friendly,” a choice tailored to American comfort levels.
The collaboration operates on a revenue split, with a charitable twist. During February, the center’s share of the proceeds goes to its Winterfest for Wildlife campaign to support the on-site wildlife clinic.
For now, the sauna remains a seasonal experiment, but it will stay in place as long as demand — and winter weather — holds up.
“I think it will stay seasonal,” Mooney said. “We live in a sauna already in the summer in Philadelphia.”
The sauna is open on weekends at the Schuylkill Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is booked through the Fiorst website. The cost for a 90-minute session is $75. You can add a friend for $25. Private sessions of up to 16 cost $600. For now, bookings can be made only one week in advance.
The Schuylkill Center is expecting Valentine’s Day weekend to book quickly.
Jose Ugas (left), founder of Fiorst, and Erin Mooney, executive director of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, at the sauna.
‘A moment of clarity’
Ugas, a bioengineer at Johnson & Johnson who lives in Whitemarsh Township, felt compelled to bring a Nordic-style sauna experience to the region after a triphe took to Sweden following the loss of his mother to brain cancer in 2023. There, friends introduced him to a traditional Scandinavian ritual: enduring searing dry heat inside a wooden sauna, followed by a plunge into icy water or a cold shower.
What began as a distraction soon crystallized into a moment of clarity, Ugas said.
“Just that time together and kind of going between the hot and the cold just was like a mental reset for me,” Ugas said.
Ugas, who will graduate with an MBA from Villanova University this spring, wanted to replicate the nature-immersive element that had grounded him overseas.
Hefound a Toronto company that builds portable glass-fronted wooden saunas andordered a custom unit equipped with a wood-fired stove, hot stones, steam, aromatherapy, and a cold-plunge tub. Ugas launched Fiorst in 2024, describing it as “nomadic” at first.
The venture first hosted sessions overlooking Valley Forge and at Fitzwater Station in Phoenixville. Ugas then established a more permanent site, which he calls Riverside, on River Road in Conshohocken where he still books sessions.
Ugas calls the partnership with the Schuylkill Center a natural fit given its location amid nature, merging his wellness goals with the venue’s environmental focus.
“At the core of our mission and their mission is to get people out in nature,” Ugas said.
So far, he has relied on social media to market the sauna, which has drawn hundreds of visitors to its locations.
The Nordic-style sauna at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia.
‘Social sauna’
Serena Franchini, a nurse and founder of Healing Fawn Inner Child Work & Somatic Therapy, has taken sauna sessions at Ugas’ other locations. She sees it as a tool to help with nervous system regulation while offering an immersion in nature.
“I loved the idea that it was outside,” Franchini said.
She likes the relaxed atmosphere compared with some traditional saunas that often enforce strict time limits on heating and cooling cycles. Instead, she cycles between the sauna and cold-plunge tub at her own pace.
Franchini highlighted the mental wellness aspect of Ugas’ “social sauna” sessions, noting Friday night events as “skip the bar” alternatives that allow strangers to gather for a healthy, communal experience.
“It’s a great way for community to connect with people that are interested in the same things that you are,” Franchini said.
The product with the most spectacular Super Bowl increase didn’t advertise.
Philadelphia-based Gopuff reported sharp increases in advertised snacks, but also in basic party ingredients such as limes and red party cups, during Super Bowl LX.
Orders for limes during the game jumped over 600% over previous Sundays in 2026. Limes are, after all, a key ingredient in popular plates like guacamole and pico de gallo, served with Mexican beers and margaritas, and “easily forgotten at the store,” making them a natural for last-minute delivery, said Gopuff spokeswoman Brigid Gorham.
Lime sales exploded even more than Gopuff’s Basically-brand red party cups, a three-year-old in-house brand, which was up 381% on Super Bowl Sunday above recent Sunday sales.
Overall, alcohol sales nearly doubled from recent Sundays. Soda sales were up more than one-third and salty snacks by about one-quarter. Compared to last year, when the Eagles were in the Super Bowl, the number of Philadelphia orders were up 7%.
Other Super Bowl Sunday growth-leaders included PepsiCo’s Tostitos Hint of Lime chips, which were up 398%.
But the top gains were two candies made by Italy-based candy maker Ferrero. Gopuff orders for Kinder Bueno, chocolates marketed heavily in Latin America and U.S. Hispanic neighborhoods, were up 444% vs. recent Sundays, and Ferrero’s Nerd Gummy Clusters, were up 418%.
Kinder Bueno and Nerd Gummy Clusters saw sales roughly double in the hour after their Super Bowl ads ran. Liquid Death and Dunkin also saw orders rise at least 50% after ads.
Founders and CEO of Gopuff Yakir Gola (left) and Rafael Ilishayev speak to a room full of staff and team members of Gopuff at a recently opened center in Philadelphia in 2022.
Cofounder Yair Gola and his colleagues saw those numbers and thought, “This ought to be a holiday.”Last fall, it set up a 501(c)4 lobbying group, the Super Monday Off Coalition, pledging at least $250,000 to get the effort rolling.
Druski (left) and former NFL quarterback Tom Brady in an ad for Philadelphia-based Gopuff promoting its campaign to designate “Super Monday” as a national holiday, since millions already take the day off.
The company’s contribution to the lobbying would be funded by 1% of Gopuff’s profits from sales of certain boxes of beer, sugary drinks, hot dogs, and other products from Thanksgiving to game day.
Heavy users who placed at least four $30 orders in that period would also get $20 “Gocash” discounts and receive a chance at a Birkin handbag, a Rolex watch, and other prizes.
By Monday, Gopuff hadn’t announced its planned donation, but the campaign was declared “a winner” by Charles R. Taylor, a Villanova University marketing professor who tracks Super Bowl ads. He spotlights not just successful marketing but also ineffective efforts like Nationwide’s painful 2015 “Boy” campaign and GM’s 2021 “No Way Norway” misfire.
Partnering with high-profile Brady and Druski gives “instant visibility and credibility” with fans and wider audiences, Taylor said. Even if the campaign costs more than Gopuff actually donates to the cause, a national holiday is “a clever hook” watchers will remember, Taylor said.
Going public?
Gopuff raised over $5 billion from Saudi, Japanese, and U.S. private investors during the digital-delivery investment boom that lasted into the COVID years. These big investors hoped Gopuff (officially Gobrands) founders and early investors would win them big profits by selling shares in a high-priced stock market initial public offering or selling to DoorDash, Uber, or other delivery giants.
But app use and delivery growth slowed in the COVID recovery. Gopuff’s perceived valuation tumbled as its publicly traded rivals’ share prices fell. The company, which had expanded to hundreds of city neighborhoods and college towns, shut marginal centers and laid off staff at its Spring Garden Street headquarters to reduce losses and save investors’ capital for better times.
Now Gopuff is showcasing efforts to win new investor attention.
Gopuff has added a warehouse camera feed and local product-sales stats for fans who want to know what neighbors are buying, app-based order updates, and user product recommendations. It added over-the-counter pharmacy items and new lines of vegan organic GOAT Gummies (which Brady is also promoting).
The company also began accepting SNAP EBT electronic food-stamp accounts and donated $5 million for SNAP when the federal shutdown threatened low-income families dependent on the program.
New hires include economist Matt McBrady — a veteran private-equity investor, former adviser to President Bill Clinton, and sometimes Wharton instructor — as Gopuff’s new chief financial officer, noting his experience taking companies through public stock offerings.
Last fall Gopuff raised $250 million, its first investment since a 2021 convertible-bond financing that had valued the company at a stock-market-bubble-inflated $40 billion.
This time, the largest investors included previous Gopuff backers Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners, along with Robinhood, Israeli billionaire Yakir Gabay, the cofounders, and other earlier investors. Eldridge chairman Todd L. Boehly in a statement called Gopuff “resilient.”
Valor partner Jon Shulkin cited the company’s “focus, innovation, and substantial gains in profitability.”
This latest capital-raise implied a valuation of $8.5 billion — a fraction of what Gopuff was worth on paper during the digital-delivery bubble, but enough for the venture capitalists to hope they may yet get their money back with at least a modest profit.
As Chris Scafario sees it, Philadelphia’s reputation as an “eds and meds” region, referring to its plethora of colleges and hospitals, could grow a third leg.
It could also become the defense industrial base region,said Scafario, CEO of the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center.
President DonaldTrump wants to increase defense spending, with $1.5 trillion proposed for 2027. This could mean more research and workforce development training opportunities — and local universities are positioned to take advantage of it, Scafario said.
Chris Scafario, CEO of the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center
“A lot of that investment is going to be targeted toward university and innovation-based relationships because they need help getting stuff done,” said Scafario, who is talking to local colleges to help get them ready to capitalize. “They need access to brilliant people, whether they’re faculty or the faculty’s work products, the students.”
The move comes as colleges face potential cuts in research funding under the Trump administration in other areas, such as the National Institutes of Health. Both Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania in the last month announced cutbacks to cope with potential financial fallout from federal policies.
Scafario’s center, which is based at the Navy Yard and was founded in 1988, aims to foster economic development and local manufacturing.
The Philadelphia region has been involved in defense contracting on and off for years, with major hubs in naval and aerospace manufacturing, and local universities say they worked with the Department of Defense in the past. Rowan University in New Jersey says it has $70 million in defense-related research projects underway.
But Scafario sees the opportunity for major expansion.
Drexel University, Temple University, Penn, Rowan, and Villanova University, which is already a top producer of naval engineers, are among the schools that are “in a great spot to leverage the opportunities that are going to be coming through the defense industrial base,” Scafario said. “In the next year, people are going to start realizing that we are meds, eds, and a defense industrial base region. It’s going to bring a lot of investment, a lot of economic opportunities, and some really, really great employment opportunities in the region.”
The Philadelphia region could become a national anchor for shipbuilding or other maritime industrial-based activities, he said.
Scafario hopes to bring colleges together with other partners for more discussions in the spring when the timeline for those federal investments starts to become clearer, he said.
Amanda Page, Warfighter Technologies Liaison for the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center
Colleges could help with efforts to accelerate production capacity of naval ships and work on initiatives such as how to make submarines less traceable and more durable. Or they could help improve medical equipment and training for the battlefield. The treatment standard in the military used to be the “golden hour”; now it’s about “prolonged field care,” said Amanda Page, a retired active-duty Army medic who serves as warfighter technologies liaison for the center.
“Medical personnel need to be prepared mentally, physically, emotionally, and electronically to keep those patients for 96 hours,” Page said. “That’s going to require a ton of research and technology.”
Page was hired by the center in October to help build relationships between the center, the Department of Defense (which the Trump administration has rebranded the Department of War), local higher education systems, and the city.
“I’m super excited about what it will bring to the region and what the region can prove to the Department of War about its legitimacy,” she said, “as a manufacturing and technology powerhouse.”
Local colleges say they are reviewing potential collaborations.
“There are a lot of opportunities we are looking at,” said Aleister Saunders, Drexel’s executive vice provost for research and innovation, declining to provide specificsfor competitive reasons.
In addition to opportunities with the Navy and the Navy Yard, he noted major local companies involved with aerospace and aviation, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing. There are also opportunities around materials and textiles with the Philadelphia-based Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, which provides many of the supplies to the military.
“Those are really valuable assets that we should find a way to leverage better than we are,” he said.
Key opportunities are available in advanced manufacturing and workforce development, he said.
“There could be folks who are already working in manufacturing who need [upgraded skills] in advanced manufacturing techniques,” he said.
Temple University president John Fry said increasing research opportunities and impact — the school’s research budget now exceeds $300 million — is a priority in the school’s strategic plan. Temple offers opportunities around medical manufacturing, healthcare, and health services, he said.
“The key to doing that is going to be partnerships,” he said.
Josh Gladden, Temple’s vice president for research, said he has met with folks from Scafario’s group and they are talking about some opportunities, but declined to discuss them because they are in early development.
He noted that the Navy is interested in working with Temple’s burn unit.
Temple has also been getting to know the workforce needs of businesses at the Navy Yard and looking at how to align its educational programs, Fry said.
“Those are relationships I would love to pursue,” he said. “Part of our mission is to develop the future workforce and grow the regional economy, and that’s one way of doing it.”
Rowan has been a longtime research partner with the U.S. military, said Mei Wei, the school’s vice chancellor for research.
“It’s encouraging to know there could be more funding available for research,” Wei said. “These projects give our undergraduate and graduate students the opportunities they need to develop their research skills with close guidance from our faculty and our external partners.”
A former Villanova professor says in a federal lawsuit filed this week she was fired from the Catholic university after accusing its law school of racial discrimination involving one of her students.
Stephanie Sena, who had been an anti-poverty fellow in the law school and taught at Villanova for more than 20 years, was dismissed in 2024 for what the school said were “student complaints,” according to the lawsuit.
But Sena’s lawyers say the dismissal was due to her filing an ethics complaint against the school for racial discrimination for comments that administrators made around a decision not to give her student a financial award that would have alleviated her debt, citing a speech the student made at a law school symposium.
The student, Antionna Fuller, accused Villanova of racialdiscrimination and failing to appropriately support her with financial aid during a 2021 symposium speech at the university, titled “Shifting the Poverty Lens: Caritas in Focus.” Sena hosted the symposium, during which Fuller also publicly asked for an apology from Villanova.
“How can you say caritas [which means love and charity in Latin] and Black lives matter with no thought to a Black life in front of you, systematically oppressed by your hands?” Fuller said,according to a video of the speech. “It’s not only hypocritical, but it’s embarrassing. We cannot talk about oppression and white supremacy without acknowledging its very presence here.”
Her speech drew a standing ovation, but later caused consternation among law school leadership.
Sena found out that law school dean Mark Alexander, in a letter to the scholarship committee, asked that Fuller not receive the debt relief award because she “maliciously maligned” the law school, according to the suit.
Sena‘s lawsuit alleges that then-law school vice dean Michael Risch said after the student’s speech that the student was “lucky” to have gotten into the law school and that she would not be there if she were white.
Villanova said in a statement Wednesday that Sena’s lawsuit “lacks merit” and that the university “will vigorously defend against these baseless allegations.”
“We look forward to presenting the actual facts surrounding the plaintiff’s separation from Villanova. To be clear, Villanova University does not tolerate discrimination or retaliation of any kind, and the allegations in Plaintiff’s lawsuit are contrary to our written policies and conflict with the core values of our University.”
Sena, 46, of Media, declined to comment.
Fuller, 29, who now lives with her mother in the South, said in an interview Wednesday that she feels both relieved and anxious about seeing the issue aired publicly.
“I am happy, at least relieved, that truth is coming out,” said Fuller, who graduated summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina and got her Villanova law degree in 2022. “I’ve been in such an isolated place and just carrying this trauma for so long.”
She said she sought therapy after the reaction she got to her speech from Villanova administrators and last year wrote a book, I Almost Sued My Law School, about her journey as a first-generation, low-income Black student. She no longer wants to practice law, she said, and is still figuring out her next steps.
But she said she was grateful to Sena, whom, during the symposium speech, she called “my hero, advocate, and my friend.”
“She was the first person to publicly stand up for me,” Fuller said.
Stephanie Sena stands at site of an encampment along Kensington Avenue in 2021.
Fallout from symposium speech
Sena, a longtime activist who has worked to help people experiencing homelessness and opened a homeless shelter in Upper Darby in 2022, was fired in 2016 from her job as an adjunct professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts after defending students who accused a classmate of rape. She sued PAFA and the case ended in a confidential settlement.
She also led activists in lawsuits against the city in 2021 over its intentions to remove homeless people in a Kensington encampment. In 2023, the head of Norristown’s municipal council planned to bus homeless people to Villanova’s campus because of Sena’s advocacy for the homeless in Norristown. Villanova at the time was criticized for not defending Sena and making a stronger response.
Sena was hired to teach at Villanova in 2003 and began to work at the law school in 2020, serving as a full-time faculty member and anti poverty fellow. She was also an adjunct professor at Villanova’s Center for Peace and Justice.
In herlawsuit against Villanova, Sena asserts that law school leadership met with her in 2022, several months after Fuller’s symposium speech, and asked her if she had known what Fuller planned to say. Matthew Saleh, former assistant dean for admissions, told her it would be harder to attract Black students to the school because of the speech, according to the suit. Risch, the vice dean, made the comment about Fuller not being at Villanova if she had been white, the suit says.
Saleh, who now is the senior associate dean of enrollment management and financial aid at Rutgers’ law school, said in an interview that he does not recall making that comment and that he doesn’t think it’s even the case that Fuller’s speech would hurt recruiting.
“That would not have even come to my mind,” he said. “I couldn’t reasonably see a way that it would impact recruiting.”
Sena “objected to the race discriminatory and retaliatory comments” made to her in that meeting, according to the suit.
In October 2023, she complained again about the comments in an email to two administrators who headed diversity, equity, and inclusion at Villanova,according to the lawsuit complaint. Then came the award committee meeting on Jan. 30, 2024, where the dean in a letter argued against Fuller’s receiving the award, according to the suit.
Students who were in the award committee meeting and were upset about the law school dean’s reactionapproached Sena and asked what they could do, according to the suit. Sena said the students, who are not named in her lawsuit, could contact the diversity, equity, and inclusion office and file a climate complaint.
Sena, according to the suit, complained again one day after the award committee meeting that Villanova “had engaged in a dangerous pattern of race discrimination” and filed an ethics complaint with the university. She also expressed her concerns in an email to faculty and in a meeting with a law professor, who told her the students had committed an ethics violation by revealing confidential details of the awards meeting they were in, according to the suit.
After filing the complaint, Sena said in her lawsuit, she was “treated differently,” “unjustly criticized,” and “blamed for issues outside her control.”
In June 2024, human resources informed her that she was under investigation after students said she had pressured them to file complaints against the deans, which Sena denied, the suit said.
She was fired July 30, 2024, even though, the suit said, she had no prior performance or disciplinary issues and had received awards and promotions. She is seeking damages including economic loss, compensatory and punitive, and attorneys’ fees and costs.
An apology and acknowledgement
During the symposium, Fuller had said she wished Villanova would apologize and acknowledge what happened. She said that the school had given her $15,000 in financial aid toward her annual $65,000 cost, but that she subsequently learned other students had gotten more, even though her mother worked multiple jobs as a nurse’s aide to support the family.
“I was confused,” she told the audience. “How can a student with seemingly the most need graduate with the most debt?”
She learned of a free-tuition public interest scholarship that Villanova awards to incoming students and sought it after she was enrolled, she said. She was turned down repeatedly, she said, even though Villanova had recently awarded its largest group of the scholarships.
“Am I invisible?” she asked. “To walk into this law school building every day, to be surrounded by wealth and prestige, while struggling and burdened with debt, and while expected to perform like those who are not feels inhumane.”
She said during the speech she would graduate with almost $200,000 in student debt. Villanova officials, she said Wednesday, later accused her of exaggerating because she was including her undergraduate debt, too, and maintained that the total was really $160,000 — $126,000 of which was from the law school.
Fuller said Wednesday she had apologized to law school leadership, hugged them at graduation, and thought everything had been resolved. She said she was surprised to hear that the dean wanted to block her access to the debt award, she said.
“My intent wasn’t to harm, attack or mislead,” Fuller wrote in her book, “but to share my personal experience — my fears and financial anxieties — as part of the larger conversation about finding solutions to reduce poverty, which the conference was centered around.”
Staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.
A freshman football player at Villanova University texted the woman he is accused of raping to apologize for the encounter,according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest,offering new details about the incident.
D’Hani Cobbs, 20, was charged with rape, sexual assault, and related crimes after police say he assaulted a woman who also attends the university. He was removed from campus following the Dec. 7 attack, school officials said in a statement. The student newspaper the Villanovan first reported his arrest.
According to the affidavit, Cobbs allegedly assaulted the woman in Good Counsel Hall on the Main Line school’s South Campus.
The early morning attack began after Cobbs and the woman, whom police did not identify, met at an off-campus event and exchanged phone numbers, the document said.
The two later got a ride with others back to South Campus, according to the affidavit. Sometime between 1 and 2 a.m., Cobbs and the woman entered a residence hall room along with another person, whom the filing did not identify. That person left, the document said, leaving the woman alone with Cobbs.
Cobbs asked the woman for a hug, and then he “tried to kiss her, and she said no,” the filing said. Cobbs then “pinned her up against a desk” and began touching her buttocks and genitals and penetrated her with his fingers, the affidavit said. He then grabbed her and lifted her on top of his bed and allegedly raped her, according to the affidavit.
The woman later told police she was screaming and crying during the attack. She said she left the room in tears and asked Cobbs to call a friend to pick her up.
Cobbs later contacted the woman twice, according to the filing.
Around 2 a.m., he texted: “Are [you for real] good tho? That was random [as hell]” and “U were jus fine.”
Just before 5:30 p.m., Cobbs texted: “Yoo Wsp, u ok? My apologies if I made u feel uncomfortable in any way last night I didn’t have any intentions on making u feel uncomfortable. If u want to talk about it over the phone or in person we can just to come to more of a understanding.”
When investigators interviewed Cobbs that week, he did not deny that he had sexual contact with the woman but said it was consensual.
Cobbs’ defense attorney, Thomas G. Masciocchi, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said in a statement Monday that prosecutors had reviewed evidence in the case and swiftly brought charges.
“The message here is as simple as it is clear — when it comes to other people’s bodies, no means no, and stop means stop,” Rouse said. “That’s what we tell our kids and it holds true throughout life, no matter who you are or how talented an athlete you might be.”
As of this week, Cobbs’ player bio page on Villanova’s website is out of service with an error message.
Cobbs’ profile on ESPN is still active, and lists the New Jersey native as a wide receiver. He returned one punt last season, according to the page. A post from the Instagram account for Villanova’s football team announced Cobbs’ signing in 2024.
A Villanova spokesperson said in a statement that in addition to ordering Cobbs to leave campus, the school is “committed to both supporting the victim and fostering a safe environment for all of our students.”
Cobbs was arraigned Friday and was released on unsecured bail, according to court records. He is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 12 and is ordered not to have contact with the woman.
A freshman football player at Villanova University has been charged with rape and sexual assault stemming from a December incident on campus, a university spokesperson said Sunday.
D’Hani Cobbs, 20, faces charges of rape, sexual assault, and related offenses in Delaware County, court records show. He is accused of assaulting another student on Dec. 7, the university said in a statement, which did not provide any additional details about the alleged incident. The arrest was first reported by student newspaper The Villanovan.
Cobbs was arraigned Friday and held on $250,000 bail, according to court records.
A university spokesperson said school leaders reported the incident to law enforcement and “removed” Cobbs from campus shortly after the incident in December.
“Sexual violence of any kind is not tolerated on our campus and we are committed to both supporting the victim and fostering a safe environment for all of our students,” the university said in the statement.
A player bio page on Villanova’s website was out of service with an error message on Sunday, but according to social media and sports news outlets, Cobbs graduated from Camden High School in 2025 and played wide receiver at Villanova. Recruiters for the Villanova Wildcats posted a “welcome to the family” message on social media after recruiting Cobbs in December 2024.
An attorney for Cobbs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Villanova University was one of several colleges nationwide that saw its operations disrupted Thursday by a series of hoax threats.
The Main Line Catholic university with 6,700 undergraduates closed the campus early Thursday morning, advised students on campus to stay in their residence halls, and warned others to stay off campus while authorities investigated. The move followed an undisclosed threat about one of its academic buildings.
By 2 p.m., the private university gave the all-clear and said while in-person classes would remain canceled, students could leave their residences and get into some buildings, including the library, main dining halls, the health center, and the Connelly Center.
Villanova’s threats were part of a swatting pattern nationwide. In September, the Associated Press reported that about 50 college campuses had been hit with hoax calls nationwide in recent weeks. The U.S. Department of Education put out tips on how to recognize fake calls, including questions to ask callers to determine if there are inconsistencies.
Locally, colleges including Temple, Drexel, and Villanova said in September they had taken steps in response to the spate of swatting incidents nationwide, including upgrading training on how to handle them.
On Thursday, another wave of calls appears to have occurred. New York University received threats against two school buildings, the school announced around the same time as Villanova. One threat included mention of bombing an NYU building. NYU did not go on lockdown.
The FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office said in a statement that it was aware of the threats made to universities on Thursday.
“We continue to stay in close coordination with our law enforcement partners,” an FBI spokesperson said. “As always, the FBI encourages members of the public to remain vigilant and immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement.”
Villanova said the FBI was investigating, alongside state and local law enforcement. There were no reports of activity posing a danger to the campus.
In its 2 p.m. update, the schools said that classes that are fully online could continue on Thursday and that graduate courses meeting in the evening could be “offered remotely at the discretion of the professor.”
Intramurals scheduled for Thursday evening, the school said, also would be held.
University spokesperson Jonathan Gust declined to say which Villanova building was targeted or describe the nature of the threat, given the investigation is ongoing.
“In an abundance of caution, the university made the decision to close,” he said earlier Thursday.
Additional police will remain on campus, the school noted.
A backpack sits around toppled chairs at the Villanova University campus where an active shooter was reported Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Villanova, Pa.
Villanova students and staff on Thursday were trying to cope with another disruption to their campus life.
At First Watch restaurant just off campus, freshman finance major Nolan Sabel said he woke up to a university alert on his phone, warning him of “an unknown threat of violence.”
Sabel said he was disappointed to learn that an academic building had been targeted — for the third time in a year.
“It’s kind of crazy,” Sabel said. “You hear that Villanova is really safe. It doesn’t feel that way.”
Now, he and his lacrosse teammates are wondering whether a scrimmage set for Thursday afternoon would be canceled.
The university told the students they were “on lockdown,” Sabel said. But that didn’t stop them from walking just off campus to get breakfast.
“We needed food,” he said. “We have a game today.”
Villanova senior James Haupt said he learned of the threat and class cancellation about 7:30 a.m. He lives off campus and had not yet headed to the school for his morning class.
“After the last incident, it’s hard to take it completely seriously when we know that was a hoax,” said Haupt, 21, a communications major from Long Island. “But it’s still a little scary knowing this can happen at any point.”
He said he was glad that the school canceled classes.
“It’s a great gesture by the school,” he said. “I’d rather not have to go into class and be worried.”
Haupt had one class scheduled for Thursday and an intramural basketball game in the evening.
While students seemed to be taking the incident in stride, parents were expressing concerns on private Villanova Facebook pages, said one staff member who was not authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be named.
“Terrible sign of the times we live in,” one parent wrote, according to the staff member. “Thinking of everyone. These poor kids and us parents having to deal with this. Hope it’s nothing and all are safe and whoever is behind this is brought to justice.”
As Joshua Weikert shared ground rules for quizzes in his early morning international relations class, he sought to put his students at ease.
“I don’t want you stressing out about these,” he said Tuesday, as the new semester got underway at Immaculata University in Chester County.“I myself was a terrible student.”
Weikert, 47, of Collegeville, may not have been a star student, but he sure knows a lot.
The politics and public policy professor will compete onJeopardy! 2026 Tournament of Championsat 7 p.m. Friday on ABC, having won six games when he was on the show in March.
Joshua Weikert teaches a class in international relations at Immaculata University.
Over a couple weeks, Jeopardy! shows will feature him vying against 20 other champions, including Allegra Kuney, a doctoral student at Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus, and Matt Massie, a Philadelphia lawyer who moved to the area in 2024, who also will appear on Friday’s show.
Friday’s match is a quarter-final, and if Weikert wins, he’ll advance to the semifinals. (Kuney won her quarter-final Tuesday.)
Weikert won about $103,000 when he competed last year, 10% of which he donated to a memorial scholarship fund named for his late friend, Jarrad Weikel, a Phoenixville man who died unexpectedly at age 40 in 2022. The winner of the champions tournament —which will conclude sometime in early February — will take home a grand prize of a quarter million.
Weikert will watch the show Friday among family and friends — including his fellow contestant Massie — at Troubles End Brewing in Collegeville, which named one of its beers after him. It’s an English Bitter, one of Weikert’s favorites, called “Who is Josh?”
At Immaculata, a Catholic college where Weikert has taught since 2016, students and staff are stoked. A campus watch party is planned, President Barbara Lettiere said.
His appearance last year, she said, has put a welcome spotlight on the school and brought an outpouring of enthusiasm from alumni. On tours, some prospective students and their parents who spot Weikert have recognized him, she said.
“I never knew that this show was as watched as it appears to be,” she said. “Win or lose, Immaculata wins.”
Student Ben Divens talks about his Jeopardy-star professor Joshua Weikert.
Ben Divens, 19, said it’s “jaw-dropping” and “surreal” to know his teacher will compete in the Jeopardy! champion tournament.
“I knew from the first time I met him he was a super, super smart person,” said Divens, a prelaw major from Souderton.
“He’s guided us so much in our major already,” added Bailey Kassis, 18, a political science major from Fort Washington.
“He’s guided us so much in our major already,” student Bailey Kassis said about her professor Joshua Weikert.
An early gamer
Weikert said he has watched Jeopardy! ever since he can remember, probably since 1984 when he was 6, and it came back on the air with Alex Trebek as host. He grew up just outside of Gettysburg in a family that loved to play games, he said.
“We took them very seriously, which is to say that they didn’t just let the kids win,” he said of his parents, both of whom had accounting degrees. “We were destroyed routinely in the games we played.”
About his performance as a student, he said he often skipped his homework.
“Just give me an exam,” he said, describing his attitude at the time. “I’ll pass it.”
He got his bachelor’s degree in international relations from West Chester University, master’s degrees from Villanova and Immaculata, and his doctorate from Temple. He also attended the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, where he studied modern standard Arabic while serving in the U.S. Army.
Joshua Weikert sets expectations for students as a new semester gets underway at Immaculata University.
In addition to teaching, he also works as a policy adviser to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives under state Rep. Joe Webster, a Democrat serving part of Montgomery County. He vets legislators’ ideas and offers ideas of his own.
“The only thing they’ve ever told me no on was [when] I tried to abolish the Pennsylvania Senate,” he said.
So many bills pass one body, then die in the other, he explained. If there were one legislative body where all House and Senate members served, that might be different, he said.
Weikert’s office walls are lined with framed newspaper front pages highlighting major events: “Nixon Resigns,” “Nazis Surrender,” “Man Walks on Moon,” “Kennedy Shot to Death.”
“Every once in a while, I just get up and read one of the stories,” he said.
He got them from his mother-in-law’s basement and put them up after his wife told him his office needed some decor.
Weikert’s status as a Jeopardy! champion makes clear he’s a fast thinker. He’s also a fast talker.
“I don’t really drink caffeine. I just talk this fast,” he told his students.
His wife, he told the class, tells him to slow down.
“Keep up,” he tells her, he said.
The road to Jeopardy
Since his mid-20s, Weikert has been trying to get on Jeopardy!. Years ago, he got a call from the game show, but he put the caller on hold to get to a quiet place. They hung up.
“I was like, well, I guess I missed that opportunity,” he said.
But he kept trying and started taking the online tests, which typically draw 200,000 participants annually. In 2024, he got an email, inviting him to take the test again — and then again under Zoom surveillance.
Next came a virtual audition and practice game in August 2024. That earned him a place in a pool of about 3,000 people, of whom a few hundred eventually became contestants.
Weikert got the call last January and was invited to fly to California the next month to compete.
In reality, his varied interests and life path had already prepared him for the show. He reads a lot. He’s a fan of historical fiction, pop culture, and movies. His work as a public policy scholar helps, too.
But to try and up his game, he read plots of Shakespeare plays and a book on great operas. He flipped through lists of presidents and vice presidents. His wife, Barbara, a Norristown School District middle school music teacher, read questions to him from old Jeopardy! shows. He knew about 80% of the answers, he said.
That, however, didn’t stop him from having panic dreams of being on stage and knowing nothing.
The toughest category for him, he said, is popular music. Movies, history, and politics are his strongest.
But the hardest questions, he said, are the ones with four or five strong possible answers.
“Getting a Jeopardy! answer right is more about knowing what it’s not than what it is,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, it’s impossible to really study for the game show.
“The odds that something you study would come up is almost zero,” he said.
It was an intense experience on stage last March, but the staff put contestants at ease, he said. Host Ken Jennings, formerly one of the show’s most successful contestants, told them, according to Weikert: “I promise you something today is going to be a win for you, so just relax and have fun.”
He has a hard time remembering his winning answers. He readily recalls his dumbest, he said.
The answer was “sacred cow.” He uttered “holy cow.”
“Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I knew it was wrong,” he said.
He’s proud that he only froze on one answer involving lyrics from the B-52’s “Love Shack,” he said.
There was less pressure competing in the championship match last month, given he was already a winner, he said. But it was harder in that the contestants were the best of the best.
“During the regular season, it’s a little under a quarter of a second between when you can start to buzz in and when the buzz actually comes,” he said. “In the tournament of champions, that drops to 0.08 seconds.”
This time, he also prepped by reading children’s books on topics such as basic cell biology, a tip he got from another contestant.
“It’s the simplest language they can use to convey the information,” he said.
He also read the book, Timelines of Everything: From Woolly Mammoths to World Wars.
He most enjoyed the camaraderie among contestants, he said. When filming was over, they hung out in a bar and — watched Jeopardy!.
At local colleges with major sports programs, some student athletes are now getting paychecks — from their athletic departments.
Pennsylvania State University, Temple, Villanova, St. Joseph’s, Drexel, and La Salle are among the Pennsylvania schools that have begun to directly pay athletes following a settlement last year in federal class-action lawsuits over student athlete compensation.
The move arguably ends college athletes’ status as amateurs and begins to address long-standing concerns that players haven’t fairly profited from the lucrative business of some college sports.
It also raises questions about how schools will fund the athletes’ pay and whether equity complaints will arise if all athletes are not comparably awarded. Some also question how it will impact sports that are not big revenue makers.
Locally, most colleges have been mum on how much they are paying athletes, and some have also declined to say which teams’ athletes are getting money through revenue sharing, citing competitive and student privacy concerns. Villanova, a basketball powerhouse that has 623 athletes across 24 sports, said it will provide money primarily to its men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Erica Roedl, Villanova’s vice president and athletic director, speaks during a news conference at the school’s Finneran Pavilion in 2024.
“Our objective is to share revenue at levels which will keep our basketball rosters funded among the top schools in the Big East [Conference] and nationally,” Eric Roedl, Villanova’s vice president and director of athletics, said in a June message after the court settlement.
St. Joe’s, another basketball standout, said its arrangement is also with men’s and women’s basketball athletes, like its peers in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
Temple University established Competitive Excellence Funds that allow all of its 19 teams to raise money for revenue sharing, but declined to say which teams are currently distributing money to athletes.
“Donors could, if they wanted to, make sure their money went to a certain sport,” said Arthur Johnson, Temple’s vice president and director of athletics. “They have that ability.”
Other local colleges, including St. Joseph’s and Villanova, also launched funds to help raise money for revenue sharing. And all three schools also plan to use athletic revenue.
Under the revenue-sharing framework established by the court settlement, each college can pay its athletes up to a total of $20.5 million this academic year. Football powerhouse Penn State, which has about 800 athletes, has said it intends to reach the cap, according to a June 7 statement from athletic director Pat Kraft.
“This is a rapidly evolving environment that we are monitoring closely to ensure our approach remains consistent with applicable rules, while supporting the well-being and academic success of our student-athletes,” said Leah Beasley, Penn State’s deputy athletic director for strategic engagement and brand advancement.
Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft gives two thumbs up to the student section following a 31-0 win in a football game against Iowa in 2023.
‘It’s a job’
To athletes, revenue sharing seems only fair, given many are so busy practicing and playing through summers and other breaks that they don’t have time to work.
“It is a job at the end of the day,” said former Villanova University basketball player Eric Dixon, who holds the Wildcats’ record as all-time leading scorer. “You put a lot of time into it every single day, every single week.”
Players get hurt and can see their sports careers harmed or halted, said Dixon, who grew up in Abington and played at Villanova from 2020 to 2025. College may be their only time to earn money for their sports prowess.
Villanova’s Eric Dixon drives against Alex Karaban of UConn during the 2025 Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Dixon didn’tbenefit from revenue sharing. But he got money through external name, image, and likeness (NIL) endorsements and sponsorships that the NCAA began allowing in 2021. Dixon declined to specify how much he received, but said it was “seven figures” over four years and allowed him to help his family.
Like some other schools, Villanova, he said, provided players with financial guidance so they could make wise decisions on how to use their money.
External NIL arrangements, though, he said, were a little “like the Wild West.”(NIL compensation is allowed to continue under the lawsuit settlement, but deals of more than $600 have to be reported.) Revenue sharing from colleges will offer athletes more predictable income, said Dixon, who now plays for the Charlotte Hornets’ affiliated team in the G League.
Tyler Perkins, a Villanova junior from Virginia, currently plays for the Wildcats, who won national championships in 1985, 2016, and 2018. While he declined to say how much he is receiving, he said revenue sharing is helping him prepare for his future and “set up for the rest of my life.”
Maddy Siegrist, also a former Villanova basketball player who now plays for the Dallas Wings in the WNBA, is pleased universities are able to share revenue directly with athletes.
“It will be interesting to see how it all plays out,” said Siegrist, the Big East’s all-time leading scorer in women’s basketball and Villanova’s overall highest scorer, of men’s and women’s basketball.
Dallas Wings forward Maddy Siegrist celebrates a three-point shot during a WNBA basketball game against the Chicago Sky in 2024 in Arlington, Texas.
While the big revenue sports are likely to see the money first, she said, “I would hope there will be a trickle-downeffect where almost every sport is able to benefit.“
A lawsuit spurs changes
For years, there have been growing concerns that athletes were not getting their fair share of the profits from college sports, which make money onbroadcast rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships. Meanwhile, coaches can be among the highest paid in a university’s budget.
In 2020, former Arizona State swimmer Grant House became the lead plaintiff in House vs. NCAA, a class-action antitrust lawsuit that argued athletes should be able to profit from the use of their name, likeness, and image and schools should not be barred from paying them directly.
The settlement approved in June of that suit and two others against the NCAA requires the NCAA and its major conferences to pay $2.8 billion in damages to current and former Division 1 athletes. Another provision gave rise to the revenue sharing.
It initially applied to the major sports conferences: the Big Ten, Atlantic Coast Conference, Southeastern Conference, and the Big 12. Penn State belongs to the Big Ten and the University of Pittsburgh to the Atlantic Coast.
But other athletic conferences, along with many of their members, decided to opt in to the agreement to remain competitive in select sports. St. Joseph’s, La Salle, Villanova, Drexel, and Temple all are part of conferences participating in revenue sharing with athletes this year.
“We support student-athletes’ ability to pursue value among their peers and to leverage commercial opportunities that may benefit them or the institution,” said Maisha Kelly, Drexel’s vice president and director of athletics and recreation.
Temple belongs to the American Athletic Conference, which said its members must agree to pay at least $10 million over three years to its athletes. Johnson, Temple’s athletic director, noted that total also includes new scholarships, not just pay.
No tuition, state dollars to be used
Pitt alumnus J. Byron Fleck has called on the Pennsylvania State Board of Higher Education to advise three state-related colleges — Penn State, Temple, and Pitt — not to use tuition dollars, student fees, or state appropriations to fund athlete payments.He also asked lawmakers to take action.
“It doesn’t relate to any educational or academic purpose,” said Fleck, a 1976 Pitt alumnus and lawyer in California.
Karen Weaver, an expert on college athletics, higher education leadership, and public policy, said the same concerns about public funds being used to pay athletes have risen in other states, including Michigan and Washington.
But Penn State, Temple, and Pitt all said in statements that they would not use tuition, student fees, or state appropriations to fund revenue sharing with athletes.
“Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics is a self-sustaining unit of the university,” said Beasley, Penn State’s deputy athletic director.
Pitt said it would use athletic revenues.
In addition to donations, Temple, too, is using athletic department revenues, such as ticket sales, but it is also looking at other “nontraditional ways” to raise money, Johnson said.
“We’re turning over every stone,” he said.
Weaver, an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said she worries that as the caps on revenue sharing get higher and costs grow, schools, especially those tight for cash, may start raising recreation and other student fees. The University of Tennessee added a 10% student talent fee for season ticket renewals, according to the Associated Press, while Clemson is charging a $150 per semester student athletic fee, according to ESPN.
Roedl, the Villanova athletic director, said in a statement that it had launched the Villanova Athletics Strategic Excellence (VASE) Fund to raise money for the payments.
“Additionally, we are looking for other ways to maximize revenue through ticketing, sponsorships, and events, and identifying cost efficiencies throughout our department,” he said.
St. Joe’s, which has about 450 student athletes, said that it started a Basketball Excellence Fund to raise revenue and that payments also are funded by the basketball program. Athletes that receive funds “serve as brand ambassadors for the university,” the school said in a statement. “… These efforts have included community engagement — particularly with youth in the community — and marketing initiatives that directly support the Saint Joseph’s University brand.”
La Salle declined to say how much student athletes receive or in what proportion.
“We can share that any funds provided to students come from external sources and not tuition dollars,” said Greg Nayor, vice president for enrollment management and marketing.
Weaver, author of a forthcoming book, Understanding College Athletics: What Campus Leaders Need to Know About College Sports, said plans that call for the bulk of revenue sharing to go to football and basketball players would lead to legal action, charging that female athletes are not being treated equally.
“Any day now I expect we’ll see a huge Title IX lawsuit,” she said.
