2-9-16

The Pitt News T h e in de p e n d e n t st ude nt ne w spap e r of t he University of Pittsburgh

PITT TO STUDY ALZHEIMER’S OUTSIDE OF THE BRAIN

Full SGB election guide See Online

Column: Super Bore 50 See Online

February 9, 2016 | Issue 102 | Volume 106

Casey Schmauder Staff Writer

By examining protein structures, Pitt researcher Rena Robinson aims to shift the focus of Alzheimer’s research from the brain to the body.

The National Institutes of Health recently granted Robinson $1.7 million over the next five years to study proteins affected by Alzheimer’s disease outside of the central nervous system. The lab at Pitt will use mice to study disease progression in peripheral organs, such as the liver, heart, kidney and lungs.

Researchers in Robinson’s lab will track changes in the proteins of the body as the disease progresses through various organs to see if they relate to changes in the brain and spinal cord.

The premise of the proposal is “to better understand what happens outside of the brain in a neurodegenerative disorder,” Robinson said. “The community knows a lot about the pathology and what takes place in the brain, but more recently, we’re learning that other systems are important in how the disease develops.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, five million Americans were living with the disease in 2013. If scientists fail to find a cure by 2050, the CDC expects that number to triple.

Robinson said most Alzheimer’s research so far has focused solely on the disease’s impact on the brain, rather than the other vital systems in the body.

Proteomics, the study of proteins’ structure and function, is key to Robinson’s research because it shows how proteins interact with the body.

See Study on page 3

Aminata Kamara presented “How Domestic Terrorism Affects Black Students” at a Black Action Society and National Panhellenic Council meeting. Jeff Ahearn | Assistant Visual Editor

GSWS OFFERS FIRST TRANS STUDIES COURSE Danni Zhm Staff Writer

It’s too far past add/drop to get a seat in Pitt’s first transgender studies course, but there wouldn’t be room for newcomers anyway.

As soon as Pitt’s Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies announced Special Topics: Transgender Studies last fall, 25 students rushed to fill all of the open seats.

The Monday evening GSWS course is the first undergraduate course about transgender populations at Pitt and is taught by visiting lecturer Julie Beaulieu this spring. Pitt is currently interviewing instructors who specialize in sexuality studies in hopes of offering the course

regularly.

Beaulieu, who specializes in women in literature, feminist theory and gender and sexuality, said the new course aims to give students an indepth understanding of the trans perspective, including the various gender identities under the umbrella of being transgender. Other ACC schools, such as Syracuse and Duke Universities, offer similar courses in transgender studies.

“Some people identify as non-binary, some as trans and some are still seeking language to explain [their] unique experience with gender,” Beaulieu said.

The course focuses on the progression of trans lives and how that change has impacted society throughout history. Specific topics in-

clude the medical history of trans lives, early trans activism, history of trans theory and key debates in feminist and queer theory that impact trans lives.

“Some [students] are taking the course out of personal interest, some want to deepen their understanding of critical theories of embodiment and some [think this] will help them to better serve people in health care and other fields,” Beaulieu said.

Natalie Shafer, a senior GSWS, history and philosophy major and a student in the class, said the course rejects misrepresentations of trans people in the media by educating the students See Transgender on page 3

News

SGB ELECTION 2016: A STUDENT’S GUIDE Pitt’s Student Government Board elections this March will mark the end of the longest SGB term in recent history.

After passing a referendum in October 2014 to align its term with the academic year rather than the calendar year, the current Board took office in January 2015 and will serve until May. The adjustment period gave this Board an extra semester of service.

The Keystone slate Presidential candidate: Natalie Dall Board candidates: Justin Horowitz, Arlind Karpuzi and Sydney Harper Platform: Fighting sexual assault, optimizing student advising, creating better study space in Hillman Library Natalie Dall, a junior microbiology major and current Board member, decided that her work on SGB was not finished.

“In the last few months, I kept identifying more things I wanted to work on,” Dall said.

Dall said she chose to run for the president’s position because she may need presidential authority to accomplish her initiatives, which include reviewing Pitt’s sexual assault policy and increasing accessibility to victim resources.

This fall, Dall worked to improve student advising by looking into new ways to match advisers with students with a feedback survey for advisers. Last week, Dall and Board member Lia Petrose released a survey to elicit more student opinions on undergraduate advising.

Justin Horowitz, a sophomore marketing and global management major, said he wants to make textbooks more accessible to students, find more study space in Hillman Library and encourage collaboration among Pitt’s hundreds of student groups.

Horowitz, the current president of the Interfraternity Council, proposes moving some books currently in Hillman library to archives, such as the University Archives Service Center, so they will still be accessible to students and the University can make more study space for students. Horowitz also wants bring a relaxation lounge to Hillman.

“I think it’s crazy that it’s so hard to find study space, especially during finals week,” he said.

Horowitz also plans to introduce a program to encourage professors to find and use free PDF versions of textbooks for classes.

Horowitz said the program would cut down the cost of students’ books. If elected, Horowitz said he plans to start by creating a student petition in support of the program and meeting with the administration to start designing and using the program.

According to Horowitz, SGB should also use funding to incentivize student groups to collaborate for events.

pittnews.com

Lauren Wilson Staff Writer

Now, two presidential candidates and eight Board candidates are running on three slates for nine open seats — eight Board seats and the presidency. When it’s all over, all of the Board candidates will win their seats, and one of the presidential candidates will be sent home.

Here is what you need to know about the upcoming election:

The incline slate Presidential candidate: Matthew Sykes

Board candidates: Samantha Jankowitz, Max Kneis and Joseph Kannarkat

Platform: Increasing safety, bettering University transportation, increasing STD testing accessibility, making the Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching surveys and exams easier to handle As president, Matthew Sykes, SGB’s current chief of finance, said he would continue focusing on improving mental health awareness and services at Pitt and would work to create a mental health program specific to first-year students. He also said he wants to make Student Health Service more accessible, in part by finding ways to decrease waiting times for counseling appointments.

Sykes said he would work with Residence Life to introduce and implement Kognito, a web-based training program for resident assistants to help train them

in identifying at-risk students.

Sykes is a senior industrial engineering and sociology major, but will stay at Pitt for a fifth year to complete his degree.

Samantha Jankowitz, a junior business and history and philosophy of science major, said she’ll focus on transparency as well as safety and transportation, starting by reforming SafeRider. She said students should be able to use SafeRider even if they are very close to a bus route, which is not currently allowed, according to Panther Central’s website.

the h.a.t.s. slate Presidential candidate: None

Board candidates: Alyssa Laguerta and Rohit Anand

Platform: Health, awareness, transportation, safety, SGB accessibility Alyssa Laguerta, a sophomore microbiology and sociology major, said as president of the Asian Students Alliance, she considers herself a cultural leader on campus and hopes to promote diversity at Pitt if elected to SGB. According to Laguerta, she and Rohit Anand, a junior neuroscience and psychology major, have a growing list of 57 small initiatives related to health, awareness, transportation and safety — H.A.T.S. “Diversity is kind of Pitt’s buzz word right now,” Laguerta said. “We say we’ve enrolled the most diverse class this year, but Pitt’s minority population makes up less than a quarter of Pitt’s population.”

Laguerta also said she’ll raise awareness about the Student Health Service programs at Pitt and take a closer look at how the University distributes the Wellness Fee,

February 9. 2016

which is currently $210 per year for a full-time student.

She said she wants to ensure that health resources are equally accessible to all of Pitt’s populations, including female LGBTQ+ students.

“I approach everything I do from an intersectional way,” Laguerta said. “Culture ties into everything.”

The H.A.T.S. Slate also wants to focus on increasing study spaces on campus, creating a program that helps students schedule classes and reducing Saturday exams for students.

“Five years down the line, I want to look back at this time at Pitt and say that this is an amazing university,” Anand said. “When my sister is looking at colleges and sees Pitt, I want her to know the changes I have helped with.”

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Transgender, pg. 1

Find the full story online at

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Study, pg. 1 “This will be the first demonstration of using proteomics techniques to look at what’s happening to multiple body systems at the same time during Alzheimer’s disease,” Robinson said. Looking at proteomics, the study will examine Alzheimer’s impact on biological pathways, such as energy metabolism, as the disease progresses. Through protein studies, the lab can look at multiple pathways at once.

Robinson worked with proteomics in her postdoctoral program in Allan Butterfield’s lab. Butterfield, a professor at the University of Kentucky, oversaw Robinson’s work with mice with mutated proteins. There, Robinson substituted an amino acid in a mutated protein and saw positive changes in the mouse, such as less oxidative stress, which prevents a cell from detoxifying free radicals in the body.

Butterfield’s lab was one of the first to use the technique of redox proteomics, a process that allows researchers to identify proteins with oxidative damage. After publishing a comprehensive report on the technique in 2012, Robinson learned the technique and expanded her own knowledge of proteomics.

“There are a number of labs who use proteomics, but compared to genomics it’s a rather small set of people who do that,” Butterfield said.

“It’s a very instrument-rich technique, it requires a good deal of expertise in instrumentation and pro-

tein separation and informatics.”

Robinson’s lab can get up to 24 samples in a single analysis, whereas a traditional lab can get up to 12. The higher sample size means the study’s results are likely to be more precise. The lab said its goal throughout the study is to get up to 60 samples from a single analysis.

Oscar Lopez, University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer Disease Research Center director, said Robinson’s undertaking will reward the field with new insight on proteins in the aging body.

“If you can detect a pattern of abnormal proteins, then that would help people to improve diagnoses and help to predict what is going to happen to normal people who do not have the disease but who have that abnormal protein,” Lopez said.

From the onset of the disease, Butterfield said a patient has roughly eight to 10 years to live, and Alzheimer’s research aims to extend that lifespan.

“The most activity in Alzheimer’s disease research is aimed at trying to slow the progression by therapeutic intervention, with mixed results,” Butterfield said.

Having worked with Alzheimer’s disease since she finished her doctorate program and witnessed its impact firsthand, Robinson said she wants to make progress that’ll change the way researchers study Alzheimer’s.

“The urgency at which we need to understand and come up with treatments for Alzheimer’s is really high,” Robinson said. “It’s important in this field to explore areas we haven’t explored before and try to get a handle on this disease.”

The Pitt news crossword 2/9/16

about theory, rights and history relating to the identity.

Shafer said she took the class to gain an understanding of life as a trans person in the United States. “[The public’s knowledge is] gathered from the little media coverage transgendered people get, normally of which doesn’t include or misrepresents the actual experience of trans people,” Shafer said.

Beaulieu said she hopes to teach more trans studies courses in order to help students get a more comprehensive look at transgender identities, including branching out into more specialized topics, like trans literature.

“I hope to teach a course on transgender art, literature and film in the future,” Beaulieu said. “There’s a rich archive of trans literature and art that is really moving and transformative.”

For Alexander McCarthy, a senior urban studies major, the course is something he’s been waiting for since he started taking classes with Beaulieu.

“I’ve had Julie for a bunch of classes, and [GSWS has] been saying for several semesters

that this class might be offered,” McCarthy said. “Within gender studies, my trans topics are my favorite, probably because I’m trans, and I knew Julie’s class would be heavy in theory which I also love.”

McCarthy said the Pitt GSWS classes he’s taken have helped him shape his understanding of how the world sees transgender people.

Todd Reeser, program director for GSWS, said he wants Beaulieu’s students to apply what they have learned beyond the in-class discussions of each week’s lecture.

“Transgender is an increasingly visible form of gender identity, and if students are to function in [this] increasingly diverse world, they should have a grasp on this topic,” Reeser said.

Reeser, who teaches an integrated Queer Theory graduate class that integrates trans studies, has published several articles on trans identities in French literature and film. Reeser said the GSWS has also never offered a standalone trans studies class on the graduate class.

He said studying transgender culture and identities is especially important for the transgender population at Pitt.

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February 9. 2016

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Opinions from the editorial board

Assaults reinforce need for victim support In the past week, four people have been physically or sexually assaulted on or near campus.

While these students were brave enough to file reports, the sad fact is that many other victims stay silent. A lack of reports only gives us a glimpse into the larger problem. And, now more than ever, it is important to remind students of the safety resources they have at Pitt.

Pitt’s University Counseling Center offers specialized counseling services to assist students who have experienced sexual assault, stalking and harassment. The sexual assault specialist, who coordinates these services, also assists students with obtaining medical, police and judicial resources within Pitt and the local community. To access any of these services, students can call 412-6487930 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Friday or 412-6487856 after 5 p.m. or on weekends.

If you need to report a sexual assault, a criminal complaint can be filed with the Pitt police by calling 412-624-2121 or 911, for the city of Pittsburgh police. On the Pitt police website, you can also file an anonymous complaint, if privacy is a concern.

Following the Sunday assaults, Pitt has taken extra measures to keep students aware of its resources. In his email to students about the assaults, Ted Fritz, associate vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management, outlined the Universi-

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ty’s additional safety provisions.

Fritz said the Pitt police department has already begun to expand its officer patrols, and the University will continue to offer self-defense classes, with the next one falling on Feb. 10. In addition to these services, the University should consider expanding its SafeRider routes and the number of times a student can request the service.

We hope Pitt will continue the conversation and every student will take advantage of these preventative steps. But students also have an important role in this dialogue.

If you witness a potentially volatile situation, you must speak up. If you see someone persistently make advances toward someone clearly unreceptive to them, it’s time to step in.

Talk to your friends, your neighbors, your classmates — everyone — about consent. Feeding into the bystander effect is unacceptable.

If your friend comes and confides in you, don’t interrogate them or dismiss their claims. Tell them where to get help.

Assault victims deserve instant presumption of honesty. Questioning their behavior and motives for coming forward or not is unproductive.

It is extremely rare for someone to lie about an assault, and doubt places pressure on victims when they have enough to deal with already.

No matter the situation, don’t be afraid to seek support, and don’t be afraid to offer it.

TNS

column

CANDIDATES HAVE ABANDONED FOREIGN POLICY Henry Glitz Columnist

As the field of presidential hopefuls narrows, the foreign policy debate has become a question of whether we should bomb or shoot our enemies.

For the current Republican candidates, there’s a growing consensus that we must use large-scale violence to address the growth of the Islamic State. At a Dec. 5, campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, casually voiced support for “carpet bombing [ISIS] into oblivion,” adding tactlessly that he wanted to see “if sand can glow in the dark.”

Hawkishness has often been a hallmark

February 9. 2016

of Republican primaries. But in an election cycle where foreign policy questions reign, it’s less the quirk of one party’s more extreme candidates than an obsession afflicting both parties.

The failure of dovish candidates to make an impression has more to do with voters’ inability to care about foreign policy issues outside of terrorism than it does with the pitfalls of establishment politics.

The GOP candidates’ increasingly militaristic tone on diplomatic issues is undeniably stronger than it was even three months ago — a testament to the combined effect of terror attacks in Paris and See Glitz on page 5

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Glitz, pg. 4 San Bernardino, California, on the Republican electorate’s collective psyche.

As recently as July 2013, a mere 38 percent of Republican respondents said the government’s anti-terror efforts hadn’t gone far enough, according to a Pew survey. That share nearly doubled to 71 percent in a Pew poll asking the same question last December.

Although Republican voters increasingly support more aggressive foreign policy, the GOP candidates’ military-focused consensus is even more drastic.

Political analyst Harry Enten looked at Republican candidates’ public statements on foreign policy and gave each candidate a percentage hawkish score. By his rating, Rand Paul was the only candidate to score below a 50 percent — the only candidate, in other words, whose public statements supported diplomacy more often than militarism. At 55 percent, reality TV star and Republican contender Donald Trump was the next lowest scorer, despite the fact that he recently bought radio ads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina vowing to “decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS.” Nine candidates, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, scored above a 90 percent.

In fact, only Trump and Paul scored below 70 percent.

While foreign policy questions have traditionally been a stronghold for Republicans, the Democratic candidates hardly offer an alternative point of view.

Former New York Senator, Secretary of State and current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, has been notably more interventionist on foreign policy issues than the Obama administration.

At a Nov. 19, speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Clinton promised “to defeat and destroy ISIS” with “airstrikes ... combined with ground forces.”

But Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, doesn’t offer much in the way of an alternative, either.

Sanders, who Senate colleagues said frequently hijacked foreign policy discussions to rail against big banks and Wall Street,

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has so far campaigned mostly on domestic issues. His knowledge of foreign policy seems to be mostly limited to Clinton’s 2002 vote in the Senate OK’ing the invasion of Iraq.

Beyond that, the democratic socialist’s vaguely dovish positions on issues such as Iran have been embarrassingly shallow.

For example, at the Feb. 4, Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Sanders described North Korea as “an isolated country run by a handful of dictators, or maybe just one.”

It makes no sense that candidates in an election dominated by foreign policy dilemmas and terrorism are parroting the same answers. But it’s not the candidates who are to blame.

For the average American voter, most foreign policy matters simply aren’t interesting enough. A meager 22 percent of respondents considered “international issues” more important than domestic issues, according to a September 2014 poll reported by the Washington Post.

When Americans do weigh in on international affairs, they’re also more likely than not to contradict themselves.

A 2013 poll conducted by Pew showed a 52 percent majority of respondents affirming that the United States should “mind its own business internationally,” apparently pointing to a preference for isolationist policy. But another question in the same poll seemed to give just the opposite impression: A majority “blame the president for international bad news” and expect the country to play an “active role” on the global stage.

Attitudes toward foreign policy goals continue to shift in the wake of last year’s terror attacks and the continued growth of the so-called Islamic State. But until the American public can take an interest in questions of foreign policy outside of visceral anti-terrorism efforts, our apathy will continue to fuel an interventionist, neoconservative consensus on the presidential stage.

Our national dialogue on international affairs should go beyond picking which country to bomb next.

Henry primarily writes on government and domestic policy for The Pitt News.

Write Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu.

Letter to the Editor One of the biggest issues that we face currently is the inability to have honest, real discussions about privilege. Monday’s column, “Privilege is not enough to end all discussions,” illustrates that. Privilege is a part of everyone’s life, affecting every interaction and experience that one has.

Sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can’t. What matters is how one responds to being called out on this privilege, how one reacts and behaves.

It is not a personal attack, and being defensive and hostile only further diminishes the experiences of members of marginalized groups. It invalidates their opinions and feelings, further perpetuating the marginalization of their identity.

Privilege has an abundance of forms, such as mental health, gender identity, sexual orientation and many others. Contrary to the opinion of this writer, being neurotypical is in fact a privilege, and being monogamous definitely is. Further, one can be privileged in one scenario and oppressed in another. Privilege is complex, with many intersections of identities.

As a person of color, one does not experience life the same as a white individual. This is not a personal attack on white identity, but rather a commentary on how society values different races and ethnicities over others.

One only has to turn as far as the local news to see this, through police brutality, racial profiling and other discriminatory events. This article shows a failure to understand the concept of privilege and illustrates the need to educate others on what it is.

As a queer person of color, it is exhausting and frustrating to deal with individuals unwilling to acknowledge

It’s not a contest, a game to see who is the most discriminated against. It is an acknowledgment of how my experience differs from yours in a way that you can never truly understand unless you also aren’t afforded those privileges.

In order for any change to take place, one has to start by dealing with the privileges they have and allowing the voices of those without privileges to be heard. Being offended that someone is “discounting” your ideas helps no one. It only allows the issue to continue and enables oppression. This makes the discussion about yourself, which it is not. It’s not about you. It’s about the individuals and community being systematically oppressed by the institutions that enable your privilege. By disavowing the concept of privilege, you subscribe to systems of oppression.

Yes, we all have privileges. And if we truly want to live in an equitable and just world, we need to acknowledge them and allow those that are actively being discriminated against to be empowered and voice their experiences. As Mia McKenzie writes, “If you are a person with a lot of privilege (i.e. a white, straight, able-bodied, class-privileged, cisgender male or any combination of two or more of those) and you call yourself being against oppression, then it should be part of your regular routine to sit the hell down and shut the eff up.” Knowing when it is your turn to talk, and not rise above the voices of those who are truly being affected, is the role of an ally to any community and an advocate for equity and justice.

their privileges. I am not attempting to shame you or leverage my privileges against you in a competition.

Junior President of Rainbow Alliance

February 9. 2016

Marcus Robinson (he/him/his)

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Culture FUN!A!DAY RETURNS TO PITTSBURGH

Courtesy of Emma Rehm

Britnee Meiser Staff Writer

A creative idea and the drive to get it done — that’s all it takes to exhibit artwork in Funa-Day, a national event with a loyal Pittsburgh following.

Fun-a-Day, a volunteer-run concept that started in Philadelphia 12 years ago, has spread to cities all across America as an event focused more on the process than the finished product.

The premise is that every day for the month of January, artists work on individual creative projects. Over the weekend, Pittsburgh’s ninth annual Fun-a-Day exhibit showcased its participants’ work at TechShop, a community and art center in East Liberty.

You won’t find many oil paintings or traditional canvases at Fun-a-Day. But you will find “...coffee paintings, self portraits done by 3-year-olds, tiny sculptures that fit inside of gumball machine pods, photographs of shadows, a song a day, written and recorded,” said Emma Rehm, who has organized the event for five years.

About 30 Pittsburghers presented their completed projects this year in front of about 200 people over the course of the two-day exhibit, Rehm said.

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“A huge difference from an average art show is that when people sign up to be a part of [Fun-a-Day], they haven’t created anything for their installation yet,” said participant Caitlin Donahoe, who wrote a haiku a day. “We have to create it as time passes.”

TechShop donated its classrooms for the exhibition, so the event was free both to participate in and to attend. Fun-a-Day’s volunteers organized the classrooms like a mock art show.

Projects ranged from drawings to textiles and even tattoos, presented to illuminate the work’s evolution.

“You can see development and progress,” said Rehm. “You can [also] see the days when people were phoning it in because the tank was empty, or the days people struggled with inspiration. You see a huge variety of formats and media.”

The daily requirement can be a tough routine to stick to, especially when there’s no one to regulate the “art every day” rule but the artists themselves. In Rehm’s words, “It’s hard — life is very disruptive.”

Despite the challenge, participants offer a constant state of support on the Fun-a-Day Blogspot page by posting updates with words and documenting pictures of their process

leading up to the exhibition’s opening. Brighton Heights artist and librarian Jeff Brunner posted pictures of several of his 30-minute sketches on Instagram with annotations, including one of a surgical appendectomy “by request,” adding that he took cues from Thomas Eakin’s 1875 oil painting “The Gross Clinic.”

“I’d definitely encourage others to participate,” said Brunner. “Just taking the time to make something new every day, it slows you down and lets your brain drop all of the craziness of the day. It’s almost like a meditative practice.”

Brunner is continuing the project on his Tumblr, Hey Beast Studio.

“Fun-a-Day becomes a really supportive community, especially on social media,” said Rehm. “Even though most people are doing their projects alone, there is a sense of being part of something that other people are struggling through together.”

Participant and public relations volunteer Laura Greenawalt’s project was a pop-up book using only refurbished materials she had lying around. She only completed a week’s worth of material —“Life, man,” she offered as an alibi — so she exhibited just the first page of her book, an ode to her roommate’s new Yorkie

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puppy.

“It’s not like any art show you’ve seen before,” said Greenawalt. “It’s completely egalitarian and there are no rules. When there are no barriers to participation, people get weird with it, which I think is super rad.”

In 2011, the originators of Pittsburgh’s Funa-Day moved out of town, and no one took over to officially organize the exhibition that year.

“But the most wonderful thing happened,” Rehm said. “People all over town still participated.”

Even without a space to show off their finished products, people still created on their own, either showing off their projects online or nowhere at all.

To Rehm, the end goal has always been just to create art every day, regardless of audience or venue.

“A lot of folks use the framework to kickstart their creative thinking, and also as a coping mechanism for dealing with the grim reality of a cold, gray Pittsburgh January,” said Rehm. “A monthlong challenge is a beautiful framework because it’s accessible, but also just hard enough to really feel like it counts for something.”

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A FORTUNATE TURN OF EVENTS Meghan Bray Staff Writer

Fans of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” have reason to believe their misfortune is over.

After a less-than-satisfying 2004 film adaptation, the Baudelaire orphans might finally return to relevancy via Netflix, which is releasing an episodic series of the narrative in August. The dark children’s series, which published 13 books from 1999 through 2006, follows three orphan siblings — Violet, Klaus and their infant sister Sunny — as they bounce from various caretakers while simultaneously dodging their evil inheritance-seeking uncle, Count Olaf.

So far, the news surrounding the Netflix project has been sparse, but encouraging. For one, we have our villain — and he’s a good one.

After much fan speculation, Neil Patrick Harris tweeted Jan. 16 that he will play the nefarious Olaf, saying he was “excitedish” for the role, and “spending all day with those three horrible child actors, that will be a challenge.” He finished the tweet with “#sneer” and “#shudder,” already embracing his role as the worst uncle ever.

Preceding Harris, Jim Carrey gave Olaf a bombastic performance in the 2004 film, which was laughable for all the wrong reasons. Carrey’s Count was the fatal flaw of the failed film.

Not to criticize Carrey’s comedic chops, but the character he created was simply not the same as the book. His silliness made a mockery of the frightful villain that stalked the three Baudelaire orphans for seven years.

Before the film, Carrey’s only role similar to the part was in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” in which he played Joel, a self-loathing depressive who gets his memory of an ex-girlfriend erased.

While an excellent role for Carrey, the part was neither creepy or antagonistic, two things the Olaf role demands.

In contrast, Harris guarantees a stronger performance because of his experience in the macabre.

In one of his more serious performances, he played Desi Collings in the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” (2014) — a character whose worrisome adoration for Amy (Rosamund Pike) is subtle, but shudder worthy. More recently, he guest-starred in “American Horror Story: Freak Show,” the fourth

season of the series, as troubled ventriloquist Chester.

Harris isn’t the only actor with a mop-up job. Netflix also revealed Jan. 26, Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes will join Harris as the new Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, respectively. Weissman has turned heads as a young Supergirl in the CBS television series “Supergirl,” but this marks Hynes’ first appearance of any sort — a very coveted role for a newcomer.

The team behind the Netflix series also includes the film’s original producer Barry Sonnenfeld and American author Daniel Handler, who wrote the original “Unfortunate Events” books under the pen name Lemony Snicket, as the executive producer.

The film only covered the major plot points of the first three books in the series and flopped so badly that the rest of the novels never made it to the big screen. Despite the film’s unpopularity, there was so much hype leading up to the release date that it made $30 million on the opening weekend.

It’s unclear which books Netflix will adapt right now, but its mass-release format and freedom from the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system makes Netflix a hopeful home for the series.

With a catalogue of successful shows like “Daredevil” and “Orange is the New Black,” the streaming service is primed for a story with as many installments and devastating deaths as the Baudelaires’ — none of which felt particularly heavy in the film’s 107-minute runtime.

For a children’s series, “Unfortunate Events” has some of the more grizzly deaths of the genre — many of which are murders — that producers could never honestly adopt in a PG movie. The orphans’ caretakers and newfound friends suffer deaths by poison, a lumber saw, harpoon and are eaten by leeches and lions, to name a few.

In addition to multiple ill-fated guardians, the Baudelaires also transverse secret societies and host other recurring characters and concepts that an ongoing series can explore more thoroughly than a single film or film series. Point being, nobody wants to be handed the meaning behind V.F.D. after a meager hour and a half.

Thus far, the few concrete details about the revamped Baudelaire series look promising. We can only hope that it translates into anything but unfortunate.

DAILY DUBNIK Jack Trainor Culture Editor

Courtesy of NBC

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TNS

Who: Pitt senior Sarah Dubnik What: Competing in the Jeopardy! College Championship semifinals Where: NBC When: Wednesday Feb. 10, at 7 p.m.

Why: Dubnik was one of the semifinal round’s two highest point-earners after the five regular-game win-

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ners at $14,801. She will take on North Carolina State’s Ziad Ali, the other highest point-earner, and Northeastern University’s Kate Laubscher. As one of the remaining nine contestants of the starting 15, Dubnik is competing for the two-week contest’s $100,000 prize and a spot in the tournament of champions. Be sure to pick up Thursday’s edition of The Pitt News for our feature story on Dubnik and her time representing Pitt in Jeopardy!’s annual collegiate rivalry.

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Sports SHELDON ON THE SIDELINES Jeremy Tepper

Senior Staff Writer Although he would soon get revenge against Georgia Tech, Sheldon Jeter left the Petersen Events Center defeated by the Yellow Jackets on a Monday night in January.

Jeter, a forward on the men’s basketball team, hadn’t played a secret game against Pitt’s ACC foes. Instead, his loss came from the sidelines, as Jeter serves as the head coach of Pitt basketball’s manager team. “[The manager’s team] had a couple embarrassing games,” Jeter said. “We had a tough loss here against Georgia Tech, and everybody had to look in the mirror and really see what was going on.”

The night before Pitt basketball games, Jeter and the team managers switch positions. The managers take the court, while Jeter coaches from the bench.

In recent years, it’s become increasingly common for opposing teams’ managers to face off in glorified pickup basketball games before the official teams’ matchup.

But having a coach for such games is un-

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Courtesy of Caleb Gilbride

usual. Caleb Gilbride, a manager and sophomore at Pitt, said he’s yet to come across another squad that has an official coach.

Jeter only began serving as head coach of the squad this season, but merited consideration for the gig after proving his dedication to the team last season. When his teammates went out on weekends last season, Jeter often worked out at Petersen and watched the manager games after.

Before this season, Gilbride and John Wallace, another manager and a junior at Pitt, batted around the idea of asking a

Jeff Ahearn | Assistant Visual Editor

player to coach the team.

“I was like, ‘It’s a manager’s game — why not add a little more officialness to it?’” Gilbride said.

Given that Jeter was the only player who consistently attended the manager’s games, the choice was obvious.

“This year Caleb just came to me and said, ‘You should be the coach of the

February 9. 2016

team.’ I was like, ‘I guess you’ve got a point there,’” Jeter said.

In all arenas, Jeter said he takes coaching more seriously than his teammates, going all in during Pitt’s youth basketball events in the summer.

“Some of us will just stand around.

That’s not me, I’m actually like jumping up, yelling, running up and down the court with them,” Jeter said.

The team doesn’t hold practices, and the games are less tactical than a college contest. While they are still competitive, the games are much more improvisational and less reliant on play calls and schemes.

So Jeter acts as self-described energizer. He compares himself to Jackie Moon, a fictional and eccentric character and See Jeter on page 9

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Jeter, pg. 8 player-coach played by Will Ferrell in the movie “Semi-Pro.” “Some coaches are very strategic. I’m more of a motivator. I’m more like the cheerleader,” Jeter said.

Wallace recounts a variety of speeches Jeter has given the team before or during games. Against presumably lesser competition, Jeter reassures the managers that they’re on the superior team.

“There’s been games where we saw the competition, and it didn’t seem like it was going to be a tough win for us. So Sheldon was more motivation, like, ‘Listen guys, I know you got this win, just go out there and take care of business,’” Wallace said.

But when Jeter sees his team loafing due to long periods of play, he’ll call a timeout and try to center the team’s attention.

“He’ll say, ‘Hey listen, we need to focus in, we need to take care of business, we need to get our heads in the game and we need to go out and play good, solid Pitt basketball,’” Wallace said.

Because of the laid-back nature of the

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manager games, Jeter doesn’t impart a lot of strategy, but he still gives added perspective. Wallace said Jeter calls out mismatches and shares general ideas, such as driving gaps or playing high-low offense. “[Jeter provides] not specific plays, but good overall basketball advice directing the court in specific situations,” Wallace

managers, Gilbride said.

Similar to Jeter’s head coach, Jamie Dixon, he’ll often preach defense. Against Virginia Tech, the managers surrendered numerous 3-pointers before halftime, much to the dismay of Jeter, which he made clear at the break.

“He was getting all up in our face be-

Some coaches are very strategic. I’m more of a motivator.

-Sheldon Jeter

said. “He’s kind of that guiding force from the side just to maintain our poise and to play within the rhythm of the game.”

Jeter also manages the rotation, subbing from a team of usually seven or eight

cause of our lack of closing out. Our perimeter defense was terrible,” Gilbride said.

For the time being, Jeter said Cameron Johnson, a guard on the Pitt basketball

February 9. 2016

team, is the lone assistant coach on his staff, occasionally gracing the sideline.

Before Johnson, guard and forward Chris Jones held the position, but the team “fired” him for not attending the first game after the managers named him to the staff.

The managers’ team is 4-2 thus far, ranking 37th among 122 teams, according to KPI Sports, a site which compiles a ranking based on each team’s resumé.

Though he’s focused on playing basketball currently, Jeter said he could see himself coaching the sport when his playing career is over.

“I want to do something with basketball, and coaching would be a good step,” Jeter said. “I’ve had a couple people tell me I would make a good coach.”

Jeter intends to coach the managers again next season, hoping to end his college career with a coaching championship.

Though there’s no official prize for the victor, Gilbride has plans for the potential occasion.

“I always joke around that if we win a title we’ll get a ring pop instead of an actual ring,’” Gilbride said.

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