Acting President JoAnne Epps dies at 72
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WRITTEN BY: Jadon George
PHOTO BY: Ryan S. Brandenburg/Beasley School of Law
Temple University officials have confirmed that interim president Joanne Epps passed away Wednesday afternoon. She was 72 years old.
Epps collapsed onstage at a university event and was transported to Temple University Hospital, according to an email sent to students by Mitch Morgan, chair of Temple’s Board of Trustees. Medical staff at the hospital pronounced the president dead at 3:15 p.m.
“There are no words that can describe the gravity and sadness of this loss,” Morgan said. “President Epps was a devoted servant and friend who represented the best parts of Temple. She spent nearly 40 years of her life serving this university, and it goes without saying her loss will reverberate through the community for years to come.”
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Epps had been scheduled to address a memorial honoring scholar, art collector, and Temple donor Charles L. Blockson at the time of her collapse.
Epps’s tenure came as a beacon of stability following a period of tumult at Temple University, which has now seen four presidents come and go in the last decade. She ascended to the presidency in April after the resignation of Jason Wingard, whose one-and-a-half year tenure had featured the shooting death of a campus police officer, the killing of a student in a botched carjacking, a graduate students’ strike, and a potential no-confidence vote from university faculty. Epps, who joined Temple in 1985, had previously served as Temple’s provost from 2016 to 2021 and as dean of the Beasley School of Law from 2008 to 2016.
