The Pitt News
Column: Women’s March fails its principles pittnews.com
T h e i n de p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | January 16, 2019 | Volume 109 | Issue 85
SGB BEEFS UP WORKOUT FACILITIES
‘SAY IT LOUD’ SAYS IT PROUD
Maureen Hartwell For The Pitt News
Over winter break, the William Pitt Union gym received new equipment and revamped its layout at the request of Pitt’s Student Government Board. This project, headed by Pitt SGB with the Department of Campus Recreation, rearranged the equipment, placed a workout mat in front of the mirrors and added two sets of kettlebells and dumbbells. At a more-crowded-than-usual public meeting Tuesday night, Jessa Chong, the board’s vice president and chief of cabinet, said the project aimed to solve the issue of limited space in the WPU gym. Aside from two frequently occupied workout rooms, Chong said, students previously had little space to complete workouts other than cardio. Chong also said this renovation fulfills her campaign promise of more workout areas on lower campus. “Because the Pete is just not accessible in between classes,” she said. Chong said that these renovations are temporary, filling in the gaps until there are more workout facilities on lower campus. She said the next public meeting will discuss more updates to campus recreation centers, including the possibility of a larger recreation center on lower campus. Chong is also involved in the sustainability Town Hall, another new SGB effort. Each Town Hall seeks to gather student feedback about a particular issue. Past Town Halls have focused on University policies and dining services, and the board has two more planned for the spring, including one on sustainability. SGB President Maggie Kennedy said the sustainability Town Hall, tentatively scheduled for March, aims to engage faculty, administrators and See SGB on page 2
Nicole E. W. Parks, African American Alumni Council president, welcomes guests at “Say It Loud.” Knox Coulter | staff photographer
BAS CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF PRIDE, PROGRESS Neena Hagen Staff Writer
During the height of the Civil Rights movement, in 1969, 40 members from Pitt’s newly minted Black Action Society shut themselves inside a Cathedral of Learning computer lab for seven hours to protest racial injustices on campus. Pitt’s African American Alumni Council commemorated that effort yesterday by holding a 50th anniversary celebration called “Say It Loud,” a black power reference and the title of a memoir coming out in 2019 about the Pitt sit-in featuring testimony from first-hand witnesses, many of whom spoke at the event. “Your presence today signifies your devotion and commitment to the achieve-
ments of people of color,” Council President Nicole Parks said, gesturing to the nearly 200 people in the Kurtzman room of the William Pitt Union. That historic sit-in served as the primary impetus for then-Chancellor Wesley Posvar to create Pitt’s Africana Studies program and institute a quota system to accept more black students into the University. “This group’s request of the University shouldn’t have been that controversial,” Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said. “That seed that was planted 50 years ago … it has deeper roots and has ushered in real change.” Witnesses of the 1969 protest shared their experiences as protesters and ordinary black college students. Pitt alum
Lorna Hubbard read out her University acceptance letter, which drew gasps from the audience. “Despite our reservations, your record does offer sufficient hope for your success to justify our calculated risk,” the letter read. “Your mission presupposes that you will approach your task here with seriousness and maturity.” Hubbard graduated with an degree in education in 1970. But even with her own success, she and her few black classmates, including former Pittsburgh education officer Curtiss Porter, lamented the lack of black students and black professors at Pitt in the late 1960s. “We still weren’t seeing a black studies See Say It Loud on page 2