7-11-18

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The Pitt News

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | july 11, 2018 | Volume 109 | Issue 9

PITT PROFESSORS PURSUE NEW GRANT-FUNDED PROJECTS

BOARD OF TRUSTEES UNANIMOUSLY VOTES TO RENAME PARRAN HALL

Mario Cattabiani III For The Pitt News

Christian Snyder and Janine Faust The Pitt News Staff

After a long campaign of ballots, petitions, special committees and a recommendation from the chancellor, the main building for Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health will no longer be named after Thomas Parran Jr., a former Pitt dean who presided over the infamous and racist Tuskegee and Guatemala syphilis experiments during his time as U.S. surgeon general. Pitt’s Board of Trustees, a governing body of 36 voting members which oversees all University activities, voted unanimously in its summer meeting Friday, June 8, to remove Parran’s name. The Board did not decide on a new name for the building on DeSoto Street. Parran has a checkered reputation. Along with acting as surgeon general from 1936 to 1948 and helping establish the Graduate School of Public Health in 1948, he was also a founding member of the World Health Organization and a pioneer in treating sexually transmitted diseases. Following his passing in 1968, the See Parran on page 2

Tessa Santoro, 7, from Forest Hills, creates spin art on a record at the stand for Homemade Arcade during SouthSide Works Exposed Sunday afternoon. Anna Bongardino | visual editor

BOARD APPOINTS NEW PROVOST, ANNOUNCES FIVE NEW INDUCTEES Christian Snyder and Kieran Mclean The Pitt News Staff

The Pitt Board of Trustees appointed former Boston University Dean of the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,

Ann E. Cudd, as Pitt’s new provost Friday, June 29. The board also inducted five new trustees, including President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Penguins David J. Morehouse and re-elected former PNC Executive Vice President Eva See Provost on page 2

BIG IDEA CENTER BRINGS INNOVATION TO PITT Brittany Zortman

For The Pitt News Pitt students will soon have the opportunity to fit their big ideas into one space — a workplace that will harbor the tools and resources they need to make these ideas a reality. This year the University of Pittsburgh Innovation

Institute, an organization focused on entrepreneurship and innovation, announced the establishment of a Big Idea Center, a space where students can translate forward-thinking projects into real-world enterprises. The center was announced during the 10th See Big Idea on page 2

Pitt is investing in change this summer, beginning with projects from professors at the University. The first-ever Pitt Seed Project awarded a total of more than $1 million to 23 programs designed to play an instrumental role in transforming the University. The grants will fund a wide range of facultyproposed studies, community partnerships and workshops, ranging from efforts to treat birth defects, reduce inmate recidivism and advance research into better water use. Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher announced the grant program in January, and by the March deadline 171 faculty members had applied for funding. Those applicants were eventually cut to the final 23 announced recipients. “We launched Pitt Seed to directly engage our university community members in enriching our mission and advancing the Plan for Pitt,” Gallagher said in an email. “The response from faculty and staff members has been overwhelming — and it underscores the idea that everyone can play a part in driving meaningful and powerful change at Pitt.” Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery Kurt Weiss received a $50,000 grant to fund the Pittsburgh Sarcoma Research Collaborative, or PSaRC — a project that will aim to develop new See Pitt Seed on page 3


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