I came to Temple University several years after Bill Cosby. But the prominence he had by then achieved as a standup comic, along with the success of his comedy albums and the hit TV series, “I Spy” (in which he costarred with Robert Culp from 1965 to 1968), gave him something of an inspirational presence. That was felt most vividly among the black students, for whom Cosby was held up as a paradigm of accomplishment. But the same was true as well among us (mostly white) denizens of Thomas Hall, an old church on campus, the basement of which had been converted to house the studios of WRTI, Temple’s radio station (90.1 FM). My Friday nights during the ’67-68 academic year were spent hosting a classical music show in the booth from which Cosby had spun jazz records a few years earlier. I even got to know Harold, the building’s ancient custodian who, it was asserted, had been the model for one of Cosby’s stock comic characters, “Old Weird...(Read Full Article)