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A new donation will help Temple University expand its honors program into a full college, something leaders hope will make the North Philadelphia public university more competitive with other schools in the area.
Temple announced the gift from alums Jane Creamer Sullivan and her late husband, Thomas J. Sullivan, last week. A news release called the donation “one of the largest in Temple’s history,” but did not disclose an amount.
The new Jane Creamer Sullivan and Thomas J. Sullivan Honors College is set to accept its first group of students in fall 2027. Students will be enrolled at another one of Temple’s colleges alongside the new honors college.
The program’s development is part of Temple’s strategic plan, unveiled earlier this year.
When David Boardman, dean of the Klein College of Media and Communication, began working on the plan, he knew funding would be a major priority.
Around that time, Jane Sullivan, already a longtime donor to Temple, told him she and her husband planned to include Klein College in their will. That’s when Boardman pitched another idea, helping create what would become the Sullivan Honors College.
“Her desires for how to use her money and our needs for an honors college [were] a really exciting match,” Boardman said. “We got talking about that and at some point, Jane got very excited about helping us build this honors college, and the rest is history.”
The honors program at Temple currently enrolls about 2,100 undergraduate students and has produced students who have earned prestigious honors like Fulbright, Goldwater and Truman scholarships. But Boardman said its resources and visibility have been relatively limited. Temple’s main competitors — Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University and Syracuse University — all have honors colleges. Boardman said Temple has been at a “disadvantage” and a named college will help them compete with other area institutions.
The college will differ from others as admission will not rely solely on a student’s GPA or test scores. While scores will be taken into consideration, Boardman said the admissions team will be taking a more holistic look at leadership, motivation and what obstacles those students have had to overcome.
“What’s their potential?” he emphasized. Students can be admitted to the college throughout their academic career, instead of during the initial enrollment cycle.
The college will also utilize Temple’s global campuses in Tokyo, Kyoto and Rome. Philadelphia will play a central role in the curriculum as students will have the opportunity to participate in research, service learning and mentorship from local experts and alumni.
Boardman said the “core ethos” of the college will be collaboration over competition, and the curriculum will be structured around “working across the fault lines of race and gender and class and interest and discipline.”
While the gift from Sullivan will help to build the infrastructure and hire staff for the college, funding for scholarships and stipends is still needed. Boardman hopes that other donors will step in to help.
Boardman says it’s already starting to generate more interest from prospective students.
“I got an email forwarded to me from a parent who said, ‘Congratulations on creating the honors college. Our daughter will be a freshman in fall 2027, and Temple just moved up her list,’” he said.
Over the next year, faculty, staff, students and alumni will meet to discuss the development of the college.
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