bITS Summer 2010 Welcoming with Former Philadelphia Mayor John Street

An eager participant volunteers for one of Mayor Street's activities.

At this point the group of ten volunteers know what they have to do:  don't smile or laugh for five minutes, while facing the group--the last one still with a serious face wins.  You can see that some of the students are already having a difficult time.

She just laughed and had to take a seat.

Concentration and dedication to the task at hand.

Mayor Street testing one of the last two, and in the background, a volunteer from the group trying to get the student in the striped green shirt to laugh by playing an old man with a cane/umbrella.  Green Shirt won, but Mayor Street, with all his charisma and cunning, was able to get him to laugh in the end.

All of us at bITS, ITSRG, and Temple University in general want to thank Former Mayor John Street for giving us an engaging, crowd-pleasing talk   As we in the office remember it, his two main points were to not let your future depend on luck, and, in his closing message, to remember that:  "The man or woman who stops to throw a rock at every barking dog never arrives at his (or her) destination."  Street emphasized the need to have a plan in life and to follow it through.  There are always distractions and hardships, but if you have a plan, you can go back to it when the proverbial dogs are barking loudly and the going is difficult.

Thanks again to Former Mayor Street for coming today.