The Pitt News T h e i n de p e n d e n t st ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh
Whitehead named to FWAA All-Freshman team Page 9 January 12, 2016 | Issue 85 | Volume 106
Exit Starman Amanda Reed Staff Writer
at 14 different colleges throughout the United States, sponsored the event. About 20 students came to the discussion to talk about handling identity differences between cultures and to learn self defense tactics from Pitt police officers. Students sat at tables according to the region in which they studied or wanted to visit. The student leaders asked the groups to think about their identities as Americans and then challenge them within the context of race, gender and age in their regions.
In 1977, David Bowie sang “I will be king, and you, you will be queen.” Little did he know how literal that would become. After a nearly 50-year career that transcended musical and societal labels, Bowie’s cosmic career as one of Pop music’s most important figures came to an end when he died Sunday of cancer. The news broke over his website and social media accounts, just two days after the release of his latest album, “Blackstar,” which coincided with the singer-songwriter’s 69th birthday. Fans and colleagues, including fellow British music artists Paul McCartney and Duran Duran, took to the Internet to pay their condolences. Bowie was born David Jones on Jan. 8, 1947, but changed his last name to Bowie at the start of his career in 1966 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees. He released his first album, “The World of David Bowie,” in 1967, which mostly went unnoticed. That anonymity changed in 1969 with “Space Oddity” and the poignant track of the same name, which tells the story of Major Tom, an abandoned astronaut orbiting the moon. Although the song was a hit on British airwaves, it took four years for the song to catch on in the United States. He received his first major crossover hit with “Fame” off of his album “Young Americans” in 1975. Bowie released 24 more albums after that, most recently “Blackstar.” He was a musical chameleon. Over the span of his 40-year career, he never restricted himself to one genre
See Study Abroad on page 3
See David Bowie on page 6
Richard Bubin, owner of Ice Creations, carved the Cathedral of Learning out of a block of ice in front of passersby outside of the William Pitt Union Monday. Theo Schwarz SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Students teach study abroad safety Taylor Mulcahey For The Pitt News
Amber Montgomery felt safe when she studied abroad in Jordan in the summer of 2015 except when she went to a pool house. When Montgomery, a junior history and political science major, retreated to the locker room after spending the day swimming with her host family, she smiled at a man who handed her a towel. Mistaking her courtesy for something more, the man followed her to the locker room and Montgomery had to clarify she
was just being polite — not inviting an advance. She said the man’s behavior was a cultural misunderstanding, not a personal attack. “It stopped before anything inappropriate happened,” Montgomery said, “[But] it was a little scary for a minute.” Montgomery was one of four female students who shared their moments of culture shock at the Your Identity Abroad round table and self-defense training Monday night in the O’Hara Student Center Ballroom. The Vira I. Heinz Program, which gives scholarships to women