Changes in the Staff Handbook regarding former Pitt employees who are re-hired were the focus at last week’s Staff Association Council (SAC) meeting. SAC members’ discussion of recent changes in the practices that govern staff employees who leave the University, either voluntarily or involuntarily, focused on the rationale for the changes, and on how to […]
How fares democracy in western Pa.? >
March 22nd, 2007A panel of current and former public officials, all of them alumni of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, recently offered their views on the state of democracy in western Pennsylvania. The March 16 public forum, part of GSPIA’s Wherrett Lecture Series in Local Government, yielded no consensus, but provided plenty of food […]
Change how science is taught, Nobel laureate urges >
March 22nd, 2007“We need a new, more effective approach to science education. And I think approaching it the way we approach science offers that hope,” a Nobel laureate told listeners at the School of Arts and Sciences spring teaching excellence lecture. In introducing Carl Wieman, a University of British Columbia physics professor, Regina Schulte-Ladbeck, A&S associate dean […]
MAKING PITT WORK: Sharon Jasneski >
March 22nd, 2007Behind the scenes at Pitt, University staff, some 6,500 strong across five campuses, often toil in jobs ranging from the mundane to the esoteric. From mailroom workers to data entry specialists, costume designers to biosafety officers, photographers to accountants, staff at Pitt perform tasks great and small, year-in and year-out, for the greater good of […]
Report ranks Pitt in top tier of public research universities >
March 22nd, 2007Pitt ranks in the top tier of U.S. public research universities, according to “The Top American Research Universities,” the recently issued 2006 annual report of the Center for Measuring University Performance. The report places Pitt in the top tier with six other public research universities, which it lists alphabetically: the University of California-Berkeley; the University […]
Medicaid report released >
March 22nd, 2007The non-partisan Pennsylvania Medicaid Policy Center (PMPC) released its “Faces of the Pennsylvania Medicaid Program” report last week. The report is a comprehensive look at the structure and reach of the Medicaid program in Pennsylvania. With rising health care costs increasing Medicaid’s role in Pennsylvania’s health care landscape, this report makes the intricacies of the […]
Herberman sets up research fund >
March 22nd, 2007In honor of his late brother, Ronald Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and UPMC Cancer Centers, has created the Harvey G. Herberman, MD, Memorial Cancer Research Fund to support all types of cancer research at UPCI. Harvey Herberman was born in 1938 in Brooklyn, New York. He practiced as a […]
Clinical trials web site launched >
March 22nd, 2007UPMC Cancer Centers and a Pittsburgh-based health care technology company are launching an interactive web site that will help patients and their families learn about clinical trials. The site simulates a conversation by allowing visitors to type in their own questions and receive video-based answers in real time from other cancer patients, medical experts and […]