3-21-18

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The Pitt News

Pitt Law announces new dean pittnews.com

SGB promotes March For Our Lives pittnews.com

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | march 21, 2018 | Volume 108 | Issue 131

SNOW CONES

UNION SUPPORTERS DISCUSS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Samuel Ruppert For The Pitt News

Students eat free Rita’s Italian Ice Tuesday as snow falls on the first day of spring. Sarah Cutshall STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Friends remember student Chris Dayer

Janine Faust

Assistant News Editor Friends of Pitt student Christopher Dayer are remembering him as a kind person with a contagious smile after learning of his death. Dayer, 21, committed suicide Friday, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office. He jumped off the Panther Hollow Bridge early in the morning. He was studying chemistry and would have graduated this year. Amanda Nichols, Dayer’s girlfriend, shared a 10-photo post on Instagram in which she thanked him for their time together and for loving her. “I know you would’ve stayed for me and for everyone that cared about you and loved you if you could,” Nichols, a junior psychology major, wrote in her post. “I’ll miss you forever and I’ll never forget the time that we had together, I’ll never take knowing you for granted.”

Dayer was going to enter graduate school at Temple University next year, with the intention of studying pharmacy, Nichols said. He was also a member of the Phi Chi pre-medical society at Pitt. Nichols said in a Facebook message Tuesday that after Dayer told her he was depressed, she spent the past three months trying to “get him to go back out into the world that loved him so much, that he brought so much light into.” “When he told me he had started feeling better, I was so happy,” she said. “I told him that even with how hard the past few months had been, I never stopped being grateful to know him and love him and be on his team.” Nichols described Dayer as a friendly person who made efforts to get to know people and make sure they were comfortable. “He wasn’t afraid of being honest and he was

one of the kindest, most special people I’ve ever known,” Nichols wrote. “I feel lucky to have gotten to love him and know him as well as I did.” Dayer loved music and knew a lot about hiphop and other genres, cared about fashion, played the trumpet and enjoyed going to museums. Nichols noted that he taught himself how to juggle in 10 minutes and learned how to drive stick by reading wikiHow. Damaria Roberts, a junior studying business administration, marketing and management at Harrisburg Area Community College, said Dayer was one of her first friends. She and Nichols met each other in kindergarten and attended high school together. The two stayed connected on Snapchat when Dayer left for Pitt, and would meet when he came back to Harrisburg during school breaks. See Dayer on page 2

The current campaign to create a faculty union at Pitt focuses on a host of issues, including job security, benefits and wages. Union supporters also want to figure out who owns the PowerPoints they make. A group of about 15 gathered in David Lawrence Hall Tuesday afternoon to have a panel discussion on intellectual property rights for Pitt faculty members and how those rights tie into the formation of a union. The Pitt Faculty Organizing Committee hosted the panel. Organizers have focused on intellectual property in their campaign to create a union. According to their site, organizers are calling for a union contract with the University specifying what rights Pitt faculty has in regards to the material they create. Pitt policy on patents says the University can claim ownership and control of the intellectual property rights which result from activities of its faculty, staff and students. If the inventor or another institution believes the circumstances warrant another action, they can request a review. The University’s copyright policy maintains that authors affiliated with Pitt retain copyright ownership in any material which is a copyright work in the author’s field of expertise. But the University does retain a “non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free license” for course material a faculty member creates at the school. The panel brought four guests together to discuss the topic. The guests included Jacob Rooksby, Gunduz Caginalp, Lauren Collister and Robin Sowards. See Property on page 2


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