Welcome Back 2017 pt. 1

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Welcome Back!

You’ve probably missed a lot of news this summer, this is your guide to catching up. Check out our summer timelines for news (page 8) and sports (page 79) for a quick rundown of Pitt and city-wide news. Some of our columnists spent the summer finding their passion in Wyoming (page 33) or detoxing form social media (page 39). And in our culture section, get to know “the Martha Stewart of South Oakland” (page 60) and see some previously-forgotten photos of the city (page 55).

6 News 32 Opinions

54 Culture 78 Sports

Cover by Anna Bongardino VISUAL EDITOR

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Editor-in-Chief JOHN HAMILTON editor@pittnews.com

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NEWS 10 8

page 17 year of diversity in review

icymi: summer in news

summer in photos

13 trump budget woes

16 exit Q&A with deans

18 get to know your councilman

21 choosing classes wisely

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ICYMI: A summer of news MAY May 1th

Been away this summer? The Pitt News has you covered. From the mayoral primary to flying machines on the Allegheny — and everything in between — here is what you missed (or may have forgotten about!)

May 16th

May 24th

Defeating Councilperson Darlene Harris and Reverend John Welch, Mayor Bill Peduto wins the Democratic primary for mayor with nearly 70 percent of Democrats’ votes.

Allegheny County police arrest director of Pitt’s counseling center Ed Michaels on charges of possessing child pornography. Pitt administrators later announced Michaels’ removal from the University’s faculty.

Pitt names Kathleen Blee as new dean of Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

June 11th

June 25th

The LGBTQ+ community in Pittsburgh celebrates Pride with two pride parades instead of one. The EQT Equality March was hosted downtown and another parade, the so-called “People’s Pride” was organized to protest EQT’s fracking practices.

Bernie Sanders arrives in Pittsburgh to give a speech at a rally against the Republican-sponsored bill in the United States Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

July 8th Pitt announces a weeklong extension to the winter break for the 2017-2018 academic year, fulfilling a campaign promise made by incoming Student Government Board President Max Kneis.

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June 1st President Trump announces his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, saying that he was elected by the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris.

Mayor Peduto, along with other elected Democrats in Pittsburgh and Pitt academic staff, respond that the city supported Hillary Clinton during the election and would continue to support the Paris Accords.

July 16th

JULY + AUGUST

JUNE

The Vintage Grand Prix arrives in Oakland for its 35th incarnation. Over 200,000 visitors come to spectate at what is the nation’s largest vintage sports car racing event, giving a boost to some local businesses as well.

July 28th Pitt administrators come out against the proposal to form a graduate student union. “Speaking on behalf of the administration, I have serious concerns that a graduate student union would not be in the best interests of either our students or the broader University,” Pitt provost Patricia Beeson said in a statement.

July 17th Pitt’s Board of Trustees votes to increase the University’s operating budget as well as undergraduate students’ tuition beginning in the fall 2017 semester. In-state students will see their payments increase by $442, while those from outside Pennsylvania will see an $864 leap.

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August 5th A group of Pitt engineering students and recent graduates, calling themselves the “Roc-ettes,” take part in the Red Bull-sponsored Flugtag event at Pittsburgh’s annual Regatta on the Allegheny River.

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SUMMER IN PHOTOS

Several members of the 4th River Music Collective, a street folk group, perform at the Three Rivers Arts Festival. Anna Bongardino VISUAL EDITOR

The 10,000 Caftans dance on Grant Street during the EQT Equality March in June. John Hamilton EDITOR IN CHIEF

Former running back James Conner stiff-arms a defender during a Steelers practice on July 30 the picture are bold and black. Matt Hawley STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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SEE THE FULL GALLERY ONLINE @ PITTNEWS.COM

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PGH ORGANIZATIONS BRACE FOR POTENTIAL BUDGET CUTS Henry Glitz News Editor Scattered on the walls throughout the Carnegie Museum of Art’s galleries are small red, white and blue stars with small texts accompanying each.

The nearby plaques explain the reason for the stars existence — to highlight the impacts of federal funding on museums and the importance of museums to the community.

The campaign is a reaction to President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, which would eliminate funding altogether for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. A sign by the entrance of the museum explains that grants from such federal funding bodies help institutions such as it make the arts, sciences and humanities more accessible to the public.

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The proposed cuts would not only affect the Carnegie Museums’ ability to provide cultural enrichment to the local community, but its capacity to execute basic responsibilities, said museum media director Betsy Momich.

“For example the museum houses and preserves archives of local historical information for the community,” Momich said. “Any dramatic cut in funding could really hurt communities.”

At some locations, the inscriptions list the statistical impacts of local museums — they reach 1.4 million people The Carnegie Museum of Natural History would lose funding under Trump’s annually, maintain 1,000 jobs in the local proposed budget. Anna Bongardino VISUAL EDITOR economy and provide educational expeArts Council and the American Associariences for as many as 400,000 school- the general public as well. tion of Museums that the museum holds “We’re joining with the rest of the muchildren in a year, the signs say. membership in. “There’s also a lot of this seum community nationally to remind The Museum isn’t planning on staygoing on behind the scenes.” legislators of the impact of museums as ing silent as Congress considers Trump’s One of the public pushes for museums community builders,” Momich said, speproposed budget cuts this fall. In addiis the American Association of Museum’s cifically mentioning the lobbying efforts tion to the sign campaign it’s launched, See Budget on page 14 of groups like the Greater Pittsburgh the museum is advocating for itself to

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Budget, pg. 13 Museums Advocacy Day. However, the event, planned for February 26 and 27, 2018, in Washington, D.C., won’t take place until after fiscal year 2018’s budget has already passed into law.

Momich explained that, even though the Carnegie Museums rely less on federal funds than other small-local arts organizations, it would still stand to lose significantly if the president’s budget cuts were passed in their entirety.

The museums received $1.7 million in support from the NEA and the NEH and $4.5 million in other federal support for museums and libraries since 2010, Momich said.

But artistic organizations wouldn’t be the only local groups that President Trump’s budget proposal would affect were it to pass into law as is. Julie Platt, a graduate student at Pitt’s School of Social Work, worried about the potential effects of cuts to the federal — as well as the state — budget on members of marginalized communities.

“The proposed cuts in the House of Representatives’ federal budget and the GOP-proposed state budget cuts will lead to devastating impacts on many of the people and communities [social workers] serve,” Platt said.

Another student at the School of Social Work, Andrew Perrow, described the repercussions cuts to public service program funds could have. Perrow, whose academic focuses are on the effects such programs have in society, explained that robust federal action and funding is often required to combat some of the worst social ills in the region.

“Two of the biggest issues in southwestern Pennsylvania right now are housing — affordable housing — and community development programs,” Perrow said.

He added that both of these issue areas would face defunding in Trump’s proposal.

“Trump’s budget would completely eliminate community development grants,” he said. “[The Department of Housing and Urban Development] is looking at big cuts as well. If the bill were to be passed, you’d see a lot more people being priced out of housing.”

What’s more, while problems relat-

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ing to housing and community cohesion would likely become worse, Perrow suggested that the ability of social workers like himself to solve the problems would lessen as well.

“Of course we rely on aid to the state — we’d be out of jobs [if the budget passed],” Perrow said. “But the problem still exists, the problems aren’t going away.”

Social workers aren’t the only local professionals whose fields rely on federal funding and who look apprehensively at large-scale federal budget cuts — the work of Pitt’s researchers might also be at risk.

The president’s proposed budget would strike out as much as 11 percent of the funding that the National Science Foundation — a federal institute that funds scientific research — receives annually. And Pitt, which ranks among the largest recipients of NSF funding in the country, would likely feel the pain.

Pitt laboratories would unquestionably be affected by the proposed cuts, according to Arvind Suresh, spokesperson for the office of Pitt School of Medicine Dean Arthur Levine. However, he added, it’s impossible to know just yet how much damage the cuts will do. Pitt received $760 million in federal research funds, according to a 2015 budget presentation.

In a statement released May 2017, Association of American Universities President Mary Sue Coleman said the proposed cuts to federal funding of research “would effectively cripple our nation’s scientific efforts ... and hobble our ability to provide tomorrow’s cures and technologies.”

For now, researchers can do little but wait anxiously to see just how much research will contract with the upcoming year’s federal budget. Momich advised that cuts, even in seemingly unimportant areas, could have unintended consequences, as federal museum funding went to scientific research being done by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

“We fulfill a lot of roles,” she said.

“That’s what we’re here to do. And budget cuts make it just that much harder.”

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DEPARTING DEANS REFLECT ON TENURE John Hamilton, Editor-in-Chief

Two Pitt deans announced their resignations during the summer months, giving the University two positions to fill by the start of the 2018 academic year.

Gerald Holder — dean of the Swanson School of Engineering — announced his intent to return to the faculty in May, following two decades in the position. Law dean William Carter will also step down after this year, which will be his sixth leading the law school.

Pitt is in the process of assembling search committees for their replacements, according to Pitt spokesperson Anthony Moore. The committees will work throughout the fall and winter and will make final recommendations to Provost Patricia Beeson after interviewing potential candidates. Pitt will hold “listening sessions,” Moore said, where the University community can give input that will shape the job descriptions for the new deans.

“We hope to welcome two new Deans during the summer of 2018,” Moore said.

Ahead of their final years as deans, we asked Holder and Carter to reflect on their time as deans and look ahead to their new roles at the University.

Dean Gerald Holder

Dean William Carter

Photos courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh We spoke with Dean Gerald Holder in his office on Aug. 8. The following interview has been lightly edited for space and clarity.

Dean William Carter answered questions by email ahead of his final year as dean of Pitt Law. His responses have been edited down for space.

The Pitt News: Looking back 20 years, what have been the biggest changes in the school and industry during your time in the engineering school.

Holder: I became dean in 1996 ... I’ve been at Pitt for 38 years total as of last July. So I’ve been here a long time — lots of changes. We’ve seen big growth in enrollment and demand for engineers nationally is very large and demand for our students is very large. In order to meet that demand we’ve expanded the school dramatically, we have about 150 percent growth in students [since I started].

It’s been a good environment — it’s fun when everything is going well and your students are getting better.

TPN: You said you’ve been trying to manage the “chaotic” growth. How did you try to manage that while also improving the student experience?

Holder: I don’t even know if managing is the right word — building the student experience. We’re proud that students in the engineering school have given us high ratings, whatever measures you use.

We’ve concentrated on that — we have counselors within the engineering school, we created a center for engineering education research. That center is focused on researching how engineers learn, what are the processes they go through to become better educated as engineers.

We’ve worked hard by trying to improve our advising to students, to make sure they understand what they’re doing by coming to get an engineering degree.

TPN: What are some changes that have happened at other schools in Pitt that are different than See Dean Holder on page 22

The Pitt News: What do you think will be your most lasting impact on the law school?

Carter: That’s a very interesting question and one that is somewhat hard to answer, because I believe that the success of any institution is a collective effort.

Although I certainly don’t attribute it to my efforts alone, I think that the substantial improvements in our graduates’ employment rates; the significant increases in faculty and student body diversity; the hiring of many new dynamic faculty members, [and] the significant increases in alumni giving and engagement are among some of our most noteworthy achievements in the past few years.

TPN: What was your role in the creation of the Cyber Institute? What was the thinking behind creating such a institute and you do you envision it growing as cyber law becomes more important?

Carter: The vision and impetus for the Cyber Institute came from our Chancellor, Provost, and David Hickton, but I have been delighted to play somewhat of a role in bringing the Institute to fruition through participating in early discussions about the scope and mission of the Institute ... and continuing to strategize ... about building a truly inter-disciplinary Institute ... to address the many growing opportunities and challenges in the cyber realm.

TPN: Apart from the high profile changes — new institutes, rankings, etc — what behind the scene things did you to improve/chance Pitt Law? See Dean Carter on page 22

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EXPANDING THE DIALOGUE: YEAR OF DIVERSITY IN REVIEW

A student takes part in activities at Pitt’s Diversity Celebration outside the William Pitt Union in October. Kyleen Considine SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Caroline Bourque Senior Staff Writer Comedian Scott Blakeman walked onto the William Pitt Union Ballroom stage in early April and immediately launched into a bit about Jewish-American culture.

“Hillary Clinton claimed she was part Jewish during her presidential campaign,” he said. “I looked it up, turns out it’s true. She had a ninth cousin, twice removed, who ate a brisket sandwich once.”

His comic partner, Dean Obeidallah, followed him with an act poking fun at his own heritage.

“Arabic Muslims say ‘Inshallah’ all the time. It means ‘God willing.’ I once asked where the bathroom was in an Arabic restaurant, the guy said it after he told me,” Obeidallah said.

The duo — who together form the comedy group Stand Up for Peace — were both met with laughter and applause from the student audience. The Muslim Student Association and Hillel chapter — two groups brought together by Pitt’s Year of Diversity — invited them to perform at Pitt.

After the event, Meital Rosenberg, then a senior economics and international and area studies major and active member of Hillel, said the evening was intended to showcase that two groups often seen as very different actually have much in common.

“At the end of the day, we’re all human,” she said. “We’re not isolated categories. We want people to walk away from this understanding everybody wants to have peace and be able to laugh together.”

The stand-up routine was only one of more than 200 events

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held this past year to promote unity and celebrate differences as part of Pitt’s Year of Diversity. Other notable individuals who visited the campus during the year included Nyle DiMarco, a Deaf activist and actor, and Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican LGBTQ+ activist.

The University Senate Council Group on Diversity and Inclusion called for the University in 2015 to declare the 2016-17 academic year the Year of Diversity Then SGB president and member of the group Nasreen Harun said the proposition would bring diversity and inclusion to the forefront of the University’s focuses.

“The grants and incentives that come from designating [20152016] as the Year of Humanities has really made people think about this topic,” Harun said.

The Year of Diversity helped fund The Pitt News Silhouettes edition, led to the creation of a new general education requirement — that will apply to students entering the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in fall of 2018 — and produced an ongoing Diversity Book Club.

At the forefront of last year’s Year of Diversity was Kacey Marra, an associate professor in Pitt’s Department of Plastic Surgery and co-chair of the Year of Diversity Steering Committee.

She gradually became more involved in diversity-related initiatives during her Pitt career, she said, joining multiple committees at Pitt focusing on issues of gender equity such as the wage gap and women’s leadership over the past decade. In recent years, Marra became more interested in diversity issues in Pitt’s School of Engineering and School of Medicine.

Provost Patricia Beeson tasked Marra and Waverly Duck, the other co-chair, to form a committee for the Year of Diversity, even-

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tually settling on 20 students, faculty and staff with past interests in diversity issues in committees or campus organizations before the start of the academic year.

The group met throughout the year to discuss different events occurring on all Pitt campuses related to diversity issues. They also put out the call for event proposals related to diversity issues, aided by the Provost’s offer of up to $5,000 in matching funds for campus organizations with approved ideas.

“The events, I think, had profound effects on many different facets of the Pitt community,” Marra said.

The result was over 200 events throughout the year, from poetry readings to trips abroad, with a wide variety of diversity-related topics spanning everything from disability, religion, racism, LGBTQ+ and socioeconomic issues.

The lasting impact of the Year of Diversity is ensured by the research grants awarded to 30 principal investigators among the five Pitt campuses, all of which received funding for research in diversity in areas of race, ethnicity, age, gender and sexuality. Additionally, Duck proposed a yearly workshop for the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences to develop courses related to diversity, which would fill the new diversity course requirement.

However, certain Pitt community members worried that this sudden awareness of diversity on campus would fade once the Year of Diversity officially ended. For Alexa Connors, a rising senior and vice president of the Campus Women’s Organization, this was a primary concern.

Connors, a gender and women’s studies and biology double See Diversity on page 23

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Meet City Councilman Dan Gilman

Photo by John Hamilton EDITOR IN CHIEF

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Henry Glitz News Editor For many of the thousands of incoming Pitt students, this fall in Pittsburgh will be their first. It’s an experience that City Council Member Dan Gilman shared with them many years ago.

“Whether I’m a native depends on how original you go,” Gilman said, laughing. “We moved to Pittsburgh when I was 13.”

Gilman sits on Pittsburgh’s City Council as the representative for District Eight, which stretches from Point Breeze and Shadyside to North Oakland, including all of Pitt’s residential dorms north of Fifth Avenue. He says the district, which he’s lived in ever since his family came to Pittsburgh, is among the most exceptional in the city. “[The district is] almost a mini city in and of itself,” Gilman said. “It’s incredibly diverse — we’ve got everything from museums to quiet residential districts, Catholic and Orthodox churches to synagogues.”

Gilman’s praise for his district’s broad assortment of special characteristics comes from a place of familiarity — the councilman’s academic and political careers both took shape within the area’s borders. Gilman graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004 with a degree in ethics, history and public policy. Serving as the president of CMU’s student government, he continued his career as a political aide to then-Councilman Bill Peduto, who also represented District Eight. When Peduto went on to win the mayorship in 2013, Gilman

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was elected to the newly-vacated seat and stepped up into his old boss’s job. “[Peduto] is personally one of my closest personal friends,” Gilman said. “Politically, I think most of the council would call themselves his ally. Eight out of nine members endorsed his re-election campaign.”

Pittsburgh’s municipal government is modeled along the “strong mayor” system common among large American cities, which, unsurprisingly, leaves fewer powers to individual members of council than it does to the mayor. The mayor’s powers include everything from appointing and dismissing the heads of city departments at will to directing citywide executive programs.

But while his influence is limited compared to the executive’s, Gilman still benefits from a detailed understanding of the city’s political landscape. According to Viola Garis, a recent Pitt graduate and former intern in his office, it would be hard to overstate the councilman’s savvy approach.

“He knows essentially everything about how Pittsburgh government works,” Garis said. “If I had a question that couldn’t easily be answered by the staff, he always had the answer.”

Gilman’s intimate knowledge of the city’s politics has helped him in identifying key areas for policy improvement. He framed some of the biggest issues facing the city as a whole squarely in the context of his own constituents’ experience.

See Gilman on page 28

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FEELIN' CLASSY: THE ART OF MAKING A SCHEDULE THAT WORKS Luke Stambaugh For The Pitt News As the fall semester approaches, students across campus are hastily making their final tweaks and last minute changes to get their schedules to be perfect — or as close to perfect as possible.

The process of choosing classes usually starts with research. Students sift through course descriptions online, looking for appealing classes that fulfil their academic requirements. This research is generally supplemented by an advising meeting.

Nora Smith, a rising sophomore planning to apply to Pitt’s School of Education, finds it easier to pick classes now that she decided to major in developmental psychology.

Smith originally planned to be a general psychology major, but after taking a few classes focusing on specific avenues of psychology, she realized she wanted to go the developmental route.

“I started out getting most of my Gen Ed requirements out of the way, and I actually enjoyed those classes — a lot of those overlapped with major requirements for developmental

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psych so that definitely helped me make up my mind,” Smith said.

The semantics of Gen Eds, or general education requirements, are daunting, and figuring out what kinds of foreign culture and natural science courses actually fulfill a requirement can be more than frustrating for students who are just starting.

But in many cases — like Smith’s — getting prerequisite courses out of the way while they are still figuring out what degree they would like to pursue is extremely valuable for getting ahead in their academics, as well as figuring out potential majors and minors.

Although Smith has settled on developmental psych as her major, she found her extracurriculars exposed her to an abundance of options.

“After joining the Campus Women’s Organization, I seriously considered a major, or at least a minor, in gender and women’s studies,” Smith said. “I am also really into poetry and the people [in Campus Women’s Organization] showed me that I could pursue a degree in that, or even English writing.”

Smith said that her specific academic goals influence the specifics of her schedule. For ex-

ample, she prefers to schedule early classes so she has time for lab work in the afternoons. This semester, she will also take less credits to allow time for research.

Students like Nora, whose primary responsibility is completing their degree, have a lot of leniency in how they go about scheduling. When opportunities such as research and other academic resources — like study abroad — present themselves, it is easy for these students to incorporate them into their schedules without falling too far behind.

For other kinds of students on campus, the freedom to take the classes they want anytime they want is not as easy. For example, student athletes abide by a lifestyle that contains two major factors that heavily influence class selection — travel and practice.

Ashley Paquet, a rising sophomore majoring in administration of justice with a concentration in cyber crime, is on the Pitt women’s soccer team. As an athlete, perfecting her academic schedule comes second to her athletic schedule.

“The times of classes are always extremely important,” Paquet said. “If the times for classes See Feelin’ Classy on page 22

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Jordan Mondell CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

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Dean Holder, pg. 16

Dean Carter, pg.16

what happened at the school of engineering?

Holder: The cultures in different disciplines are different. Engineering culture — a fact-based discipline where you’re building something. You can’t build a building that’s going to fall down because you left something out. As opposed to the more liberal interpretations of literature or something — where you can have different interpretations, and that’s great and fine and stuff like that.

Compared to say law or medicine or arts and sciences, we’re different and our culture is different because of the nature of the discipline.

TPN: What advice would you give to the next dean in terms of adapting to some of those things?

Holder: Trust the faculty and students — they have the best interests of the school at heart.

Be supportive of the students — don’t undersell them in terms of your expectations but also recognize that the students are just out of childhood.

The next dean will choose for themselves, in consultation with the provost, what they want to do. They might follow the path we’ve been on and continue to grow the school and add more students. They could decide they want to maintain where we’re add and get some sort of equilibrium existence here because we’ve been sort of chaotic with all the growth and everything.

I’m sure the new dean with have their own agenda with everything they want to accomplish.

Look at the values they have and what they think they can do for the Swanson School.

TPN: Are you going to go back to teaching?

Holder: I’ll be dean for another year, then I’ll go on sabbatical to prepare. It’s still kind of uncertain but I expect to go back on the faculty to teach.

I’m looking forward to it, that’s why I became a professor — I was interested in teaching students.

Carter: There are many “behind the scenes” efforts by the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the administration that contribute to the success of the Law School. Among some such efforts over the past few years are the hiring and retention of a truly excellent faculty and staff (who often go overlooked in their contributions to the school’s success) ... the establishment of a new Student Professional Development Fund that provides financial support for our students’ job searches, networking efforts, and career development; and significantly increased engagement of our alumni with our students’ career, professional, and academic development.

One particular set of persons whose “behind the scenes” efforts that I want to recognize, and who have been absolutely essential to our progress, are our student leaders, who have devoted enormous time to assisting their peers and the Law School.

TPN: Are you excited to return to teaching full time? Was the student interaction something you missed as a dean?

Carter: I am incredibly excited to return to full-time teaching. Although I knew intellectually that I would miss full-time teaching while serving as Dean, and although I have in fact continued to teach one course every year while serving as Dean, I have been surprised by exactly how much I have missed being a full-time teacher. Teaching is the first thing I ever wanted to do and it is ultimately my calling. Although I have greatly enjoyed the privilege of serving as Dean and I hope that I have done a good job in that role, I very much look forward to getting back to my first love, which is teaching.

Feelin’ Classy, pg. 21 are at the same times as practices or games, we cannot take those classes.”

Paquet’s teammate and fellow sophomore Kate McEachern is also an administration of justice major, but is taking up a second major in psychology and a minor in sociology.

McEachern echoes her teammate’s struggle in scheduling but brings up another struggle for student athletes who are scheduling — the matter of which professors are teaching which classes.

“The professor is pretty important … it can be frustrating when you miss class for traveling,” McEachern said, adding that some professors

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are more accommodating for athletes missing classes.

For all students, their experience in the classes they choose are extremely dependent on those at the front of the room. Professors are the ones who create the classroom environment, and when it comes to learning, they must be effective.

Student athletes like Paquet and McEachern seek professors who understand their lifestyle and explain concepts clearly. Often, their teammates help to identify those professors.

For other students, knowing which instructors to schedule early for and which ones to avoid comes down to word of mouth and the See Feelin’ Classy on page 23

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Diversity, pg. 17 major, was originally skeptical of the concept of a Year of Diversity. She said she wondered why celebrating diversity had to be confined to a specific time frame.

“Why should we only have a year of diversity?,” Connors said. “Why can’t it just be ongoing?”

But Connors said she and other CWO members ultimately concluded that the year was a great way to open up the conversation around diversity and begin to educate the community.

“We’re kind of hoping to keep the momentum going now that there’s been a spotlight on all the diversity organizations,” Connors said, “We want to keep it going, and not let it die down.”

“Dialogue with the Dean,” an open discussion held once during the fall and spring semester, allowed students to come to Dean Kenyon Bonner with ideas on how to celebrate diversity and promote inclusion at Pitt. At the first event held in September, Bonner made it clear that the Year of Diversity was meant to have lasting effects.

“Is this a one-and-done?” Bonner said during the discussion. “Absolutely not.”

Though Pitt hopes the focus on diversity will continue in the future, the University has for-

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mally announced a new focus for the upcoming year — The Year of Healthy U. Provost Patricia Beeson said in a letter that the University will focus on promoting healthy habits and better understanding human health.

“It is my hope that the Year of Healthy U will advance our understanding of health in all its forms and renew our commitment to fostering a healthy community,” Beeson said.

Student organizations will continue to focus on diversity, even after the formal Pitt programming has ended. CWO is planning to again hold this coming year the event “What Home Means to Me,” a night of storytelling held in partnership with the Garden of Peace project, a community organized designed to support and empower LGBTQ+ individuals. The event, held this past April, primarily featured people in the queer community reading personal poetry and prose.

In carrying out events like this, Connors was surprised at the administration’s largely handsoff approach to the Year of Diversity, instead allowing campus leaders and organizations to lead the charge by submitting their own idea proposals.

“They did put a lot of responsibility on the diversity organizations to spearhead the Year of Diversity,” Connors said. “It really forced all of the organizations to step up as leaders on campus

and make our presence known.”

According to Brandon Daveler, president of Pitt’s Students for Disability Advocacy group, this type of approach was a welcome opportunity for SDA. SDA thrived during the Year of Diversity, expanding their reach and impact by holding faculty and staff information sessions, presenting at the Panther Leadership Summit, and participating in Boxes and Walls, an event which highlighted “historically oppressed groups.”

“If anything, I believe [The Year of Diversity] has reinforced the need to advocate for full inclusion and promote diversity,” Daveler, who lives with a disability and is forced to deal with the stigma surrounding it, said. “And not only the university level, but also as a community and national level.”

As an organization that pushes for greater inclusion and communication surrounding the topic of disability, the SDA succeeded in earning mentions in multiple magazines and newspaper articles throughout the year, including New Mobility, Diversity in Action and The Pitt News.

“I believe the year diversity was successful even if it only changed the perspective of one person,” Daveler said. “That one individual now has the power and ability to change the perspective of several others.”

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Feelin’ Classy, pg. 22 website most visited by scheduling students — ratemyprofessor.com.

With online sites, however, the reviews tend to evaluate quality in terms of personal opinions.

These kinds of resources provide a guideline, not a guarantee of the experience in that class.

“I used Rate My Professor, but I found that whatever the rating of a professor ... I always felt the opposite,” Smith said. “I think that those ratings are too personal and usually say more about the student that had the professor than the professor themselves.”

When choosing which classes to take, it is also important to know what role an advisor — be it an advisor for undeclared or declared students — plays in creating a schedule. Advisors advise — what a student does is up to them.

“Last year, I had a general Arts and Sciences advisor and I found that they could not help me much with things that had to do with developmental psychology,” Smith said. “They were extremely helpful with things like organizing Gen Eds and study abroad, but I had to do most of my own research on how to approach my major.”

Find the full story online at

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The Pitt News SuDoku 8/21/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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Gillman, pg. 18 “[Most] everything that impacts the student experience is covered at the city level,” Gilman said, mentioning public safety, pedestrian and cycling issues and zoning for University buildings.

According to the councilman, his district isn’t just facing local issues like these, though. More national-level issues, including the heroin and opioid epidemic, deteriorating infrastructure and the relationship between police and minority communities have become particularly rel-

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evant in recent years.

“We face the same challenges, yet state and federal institutions aren’t responding,” he said.

Gilman points out that his district is one of the youngest in the city, as well as the only district to see population growth between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.

“It is challenging to manage growth,” Gilman said. “But it’s also more fun.”

Among the challenges the councilman mentioned specifically important in District Eight is the question of how to ensure that members of communities that already exist in the district — and have for a long time — aren’t crowded out or

left behind by newcomers.

“Oakland is almost four or five neighborhoods in one,” Gilman said, discussing incoming students’ role in particular as district newcomers.

“I would say students should have respect for existing community while also ingratiating yourself into that community.”

But seemingly an even more central part of Gilman’s agenda is attracting younger residents to the growing district and convincing those already here for school to remain after graduation.

He praised his district in particular and the city in general as big enough to offer the variety, creativity and opportunity needed to pursue your ambi-

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tions, but at the same time small enough for an individual to make a difference.

“Pittsburgh is either America’s smallest big city or its biggest small town,” he said. “You can have a tremendous impact at an incredibly young age.”

Gilman also pointed out the city’s growing college-educated population. With one of the largest increases in the number of educated millennials in the country, Pittsburgh is beginning to find that the problems of college graduates in the 21st century are becoming its most pressing problems as well. And nowhere in the city is that more immediate than in Gilman’s universityheavy district.

Council Member Corey O’Connor, who represents District Five, including Schenley Park and south Squirrel Hill, introduced a will of council in July to address one of these problems — student debt. The proposal would incentivize students to stay in the commonwealth after graduation by absolving them of a portion of their student loans equal to 15 percent of any mortgage they take out in Pennsylvania.

“If we could keep half of the population of all of our graduates, we would be doing really well,” O’Connor told The Pitt News.

Both O’Connor and Gilman see the possibility of the state legislature in Harrisburg taking up and approving the policy as an exceptionally long shot given the capital’s predictably sluggish approach to passing even basic legislation. But Gilman says he sees a way forward to aid financially struggling recent grads in his district and throughout the city.

“The one area I’ve focused where we do have control is down payments on existing home mortgages,” Gilman said. He referenced the Pittsburgh Home Ownership Program, a cityfunded plan that subsidizes mortgage loans for new homeowners.

“We’re looking at that basic model, tweaking it and investing more money in it,” he said.

“There’s likely to be legislation coming from me in the next couple of months on that.”

But perhaps more important than any one policy proposal is Gilman’s steadfast advocacy for the benefits of becoming a part of the community in the district and the city — whether you’re a millennial or not. “[Pittsburgh]’s one of the safest cities in America,” he said. “We have one of the best restaurant scenes in America. I recognize how easy it is to think all of Pittsburgh is within a quartermile of campus, but you should get out and experience all [of the city.]”

Gilman seemed to enjoy little more than rattling off the upsides of his community and city.

“Have I convinced you yet?” he laughed.

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