University Times

Time dulls the memory.

But when reflecting on a long-time professional home — especially a home that has seen such dramatic changes over its 40-year history as Pitt’s Greensburg campus  — vivid memories can come flooding back, along with a healthy dose of nostalgia.

• The winter day that the sidewalk was covered with an iceberg.
• A University of Pittsburgh sign on the side of an old administration building three miles from the campus’s current site.
• The day the Millstein Library was dedicated, finally making Pitt-Greensburg a fully realized college.
• The day, prior to a trek on the nearby nature trail, that a professor was demonstrating the proper use of a machete only to cut himself in the leg (a move more embarrassing than life-threatening).
• Members of the now defunct Polar Club rowing a raft on Slate Creek in freezing weather wearing only swim trunks.
• An office view that evokes Emerson’s poetry.

From serendipity to living the American Dream:

Guy Nicoletti

When the Greensburg campus opened its doors to students in fall 1963, Guy Nicoletti, who is still teaching at UPG 40 years later, was there — all due to pure chance.

Months earlier, Nicoletti (then a Pitt graduate student in mathematics) had been walking in Greensburg when he saw to his surprise a “University of Pittsburgh” sign at 122 N. Maple Ave. Curious, he entered the old building, later to be named Vogel Hall, UPG’s first home. Its wooden steps creaked, and painters were sprucing the place up.

“I guess I made some squeaking noises,” Nicoletti remembered, because out of one of the offices on the second floor came Carl Poke, then assistant to the president for academic affairs, and still on the UPG political science faculty. Poke asked, “Can I help you?”

The two got to talking and Nicoletti, matter of factly, reviewed his background in math and engineering and his  experience working for U.S. companies in South America.

Suddenly, Poke told Nicoletti, “Don’t go anywhere!” and left to confer with UPG’s first president, Albert B. Smith. Nicoletti recalled: “Later I met Dr. Smith and he said, ‘Well, we’re starting here in the fall, would you like to join the faculty? We’d like you to teach math, engineering and Spanish.’ I guess he figured he had three birds in one hand.”

Not that Nicoletti was unique for his versatility among the original faculty, he said. “We had a make-believe campus, but a real multi-dimensional faculty. Most of the original 12 of us could perform the work of two or three specialists.”

With his first child on the way and a Ph.D. still to complete, Nicoletti wondered if he could handle the teaching load, “but this was one of those moments in time where you say to yourself, ‘I have to start somewhere.’”

To bolster his nerve, Nicoletti determined to take it one year at a time at UPG. But one year followed another, he was promoted and earned tenure, and the dynamic teacher (winner of the campus’s 2001 distinguished service award), now 75, is still going strong.

Nicoletti cited UPG’s creation of academic villages — where students meet for non-classroom academic activities centered around broad areas such as the humanities and behavioral sciences — as having had the most profound effect on campus education.

Regardless of era, Nicoletti said, students are basically the same, with the same drives, aspirations, weaknesses and strengths. “But the students of yesterday were motivated by well-defined objectives, whether they were economic, political or social. They knew who they were and where they wanted to go, and there were thriving industries, especially in this area: Westinghouse, General Electric, AT&T, Bell Labs.

“In my opinion things changed with the Vietnam tragedy; old values crumbled, purposes became fuzzy, we had uncertainties in all our thoughts, and that includes faculty.”

Vietnam and its consequent upheaval continues to affect the social fabric down to this day, he said. “We’re still struggling for a sense of direction. It’s as though students are blindfolded and the horse pulling the carriage is blindfolded, too.”

But Nicoletti has no regrets that his “one year at a time” became 40, with the promise of more.

“I think of having a dual blessing here: The continuing contact with youth, which keeps me young and thinking young — and my brain still works, thankfully — and the breathtaking, challenging, growing, ever-expanding field of human knowledge. In fact, without me knowing it while it was happening, I am really the fulfillment of the American Dream.”

Vocation — teaching

Avocation — photography:

Stanley Katzman

Humble beginnings for UPG would be an overstatement, said chemistry professor Stanley Katzman, who came to UPG in 1967. Chem labs in a high school, which meant moving equipment back and forth from storage and keeping everything under lock and key; a commencement held in a local hotel ballroom; makeshift lunch rooms; rented buildings: Enough to give a professor an inferiority complex.

“We could hardly claim we were providing quality lab experience for students in those days, but we made do with what we had, and I think those early students really put in outstanding efforts to learn,” Katzman said.

“We didn’t have any new buildings of our own until Powers Hall and Smith Hall” opened in the mid 1970s, which at least quelled any rumors that the campus might be closing, he said. “I think once we started construction, we began to feel like a real campus, but it wasn’t until the opening of the Millstein Library that we could really call ourselves a fully realized college.”

Katzman said the 1995 dedication of the Millstein Library was the campus’s proudest moment. The 1993 library ground-breaking also marked the beginning of his time as the unofficial campus photographer.

The late Guy Rossetti, who served for 29 years as professor of Hispanic languages and literatures and later as vice president for administrative affairs at Greensburg, saw Katzman taking pictures one day. They started talking about how no one had been documenting the development of the campus. Rossetti told Katzman: “That’s ridiculous. We need to have an archive of that. I want you to start taking pictures of everything you can.”

Now the Office of Student Life is always using Katzman to shoot events. “It’s been a great way to get to know the students on more or less a calendar cycle: the sports teams, the annual events and so on,” Katzman said. “And individual students will just come up to me and say, ‘Can you take my picture in front of this building? I want to send it home to my parents or boyfriend.’”

Rossetti also should get the most credit for the campus’s expansion, Katzman said. The Rossetti House for International Studies, part of the academic villages model, was named in his memory in 1999.

“It really was his master plan, that he had to sell to the University, to the community and to the state, that you see [the fruits of] today. Now when parents come to visit or high school students looking at colleges, their jaws drop, it’s so beautiful.

“For the longest time even our own community, literally, didn’t know we existed,” Katzman said. “I had a student tell me he used to go by here twice a day the whole time he went to Mt. Pleasant High School, but never knew we were here. Then the high school sponsored college night, and once he saw the campus, he said he was flabbergasted.”

Campus expansion also promoted higher enrollment and a better quality of students, Katzman said. “Especially with the academic villages, we’ve been making a concerted effort to make our students more cosmopolitan. You couldn’t really do that when we were mostly a commuter school. And our relationship to the community right now is the best it’s ever been.”

Has the relationship of the campus to Pitt’s central administration changed over the years?

“I’ve never really concerned myself with that,” Katzman said. “I think of myself as a grub in the pits, and that’s not a complaint. Teaching my students is what this place is all about for me.”

Award-winning staff member and campus quilter:

Janet “Dolly” Biskup

Dolly Biskup started work at UPG in 1980, when George Chambers was named campus president. “I’ve been in Lynch Hall ever since,” she said.

While Biskup has stayed anchored, the campus has not: The cafeteria was in what’s now the computer center; the maintenance building was the admissions office; Terra House (nee Quinn House, after the daughter of the estate owner, Commander Charles McKenna Lynch), became the Rossetti House, and most of the 27 buildings on the 213 acres have sprung up while she’s been working there.

“I also came here before computers,” Biskup said. “We had the old AB Dick machine with punch cards to keep our records. Things have sure changed.”

But one constant, she said, “is the slow pace around here. You’re definitely not in a city when you’re on our campus.”

Biskup’s institutional memory includes a winter day in the 1980s when Slate Creek froze. “Overnight it rained, and I swear there was a huge iceberg on the sidewalk when we came into work. I felt like you had to be a mountain climber to get into the building.”

She also recalled the now-defunct Polar Club that would raft on the creek in freezing weather dressed only in swim trunks, which made staff question the rafters’ sanity.

While she hasn’t encountered any ghosts herself, Biskup said some people on campus believe Lynch Hall and the Rossetti House are haunted. “I know one staff member who swears she saw the ghost of Commander Lynch, and I’ve heard students talk about strange noises in Rossetti House, which originally was the home of Mrs. Quinn.”

Every once in a while, students will bring a psychic to campus to attempt contact with the poltergeists, she said. “I just think it’s a fun thing for the students, who have passed down the legends over the years.”

Biskup’s loyalty to the campus extends to membership in the UPG quilters, a group of volunteers who have completed the second of three quilts depicting campus history. The first quilt, “UPG Beginnings” and its followup, “Building UPG,” now hang in the Millstein Library.

Her volunteer efforts and professional service to the campus have earned her both the UPG President’s Award for Staff Excellence and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for Staff Employees.

“I just enjoy my job, and I really love this place,” she said.

Changes for staff:

Joyce Bucchi

Even though she’s been at UPG for “only” 15 years, Joyce Bucchi, director of Human Resources, has seen significant changes.

“I remember quite clearly when I came here in 1987, there were severe budgetary constraints. We were counting every pen, pencil and piece of paper, and ordering any of our supplies needed to be approved,” Bucchi said. “Now we’ve been able to expand drastically with new technology. I think staff would appreciate what they have more today if they were around then.”

Bucchi said there were 37 staff in 1987, a number that since has grown to 120. “In the past staff had to wear four or five different hats. They still do multiple things, but they are not quite as diverse in their responsibility.

“On the other hand,” she continued, “today’s staff are much more involved in campus and community activities: in United Way, in the Smart Growth Partnership, which has its headquarters on campus, in all sorts of charitable functions like the Heart Walk. Our staff are not just 9-to-5ers.”

She said that another change during her tenure as director of Human Resources has been closer ties with the Pittsburgh campus counterpart HR office.

“They really makes us feel like we’re part of the University; it’s been very positive. An HR liaison holds the benefits fair with us. They’ve offered our staff counseling. It’s been a real change for the better,” she said.

“All in all this is a great place to work,” said Bucchi, who was honored with the 1998 UPG President’s Award for Excellence in Service and the 2002 UPG President’s Award for Staff Excellence.

A commitment to teaching:

Donald Reilly

The clock is winding down on the teaching career of English professor Donald Reilly, who is retiring next month after 38 years at Greensburg.

“It will be different for me after all this time, but that’s okay,” said Reilly, whose teaching honors include the 1997 Sigma Tau Delta Honor Society award and the 1999 UPG Distinguished Teaching Award. He intends to volunteer at the Millstein Library and serve on campus committees as needed.

Reilly has held many posts since coming to Pitt-Greensburg in 1965, while finishing his doctoral work at the Pittsburgh campus. He served two six-year stints as chair of the humanities division, and for a time was the campus’s public relations officer.

Reilly came to Pitt-Greensburg for financial reasons, after two years teaching at Bethany College. “I came because of the tuition benefit while I was completing graduate school.

“Dr. Smith came to me and said, ‘I want you to stay and grow with this institution.’ I thought to myself, ‘Where else could I have such an opportunity?’ It was a great decision, I’ve been very fortunate and I’ve never looked back. I also appreciated the campus-wide commitment to high-quality teaching.”

Reilly said the camaraderie among the original faculty, who for the most part were similar in age and who shared the enthusiasm born of starting a new college, contributed to a sense of community, even absent a campus.

And grow the institution did, Reilly said, and not just building by building. “I think we’ve grown in many ways: the number of students, more diverse students, and having students live on campus. Higher SAT scores. More activities. And I would say students now are more engaged in the community life of the campus.

(He was quick to defend UPG’s earlier students, however.  “Students in the late ’60s and early ’70s were very hardworking and really appreciative of their education,” he said. “And since they were commuters, they had to commit more of their time, and they often had jobs and families to manage.”)

The most important growth in the campus, though, was the gradual transition to becoming a four-year institution. “I give all the credit for that transition to Norman Scanlon, who was a faculty person’s dream dean. He was an advocate for us, while still being no-nonsense.”

The advent of four-year programs can be attributed to Scanlon’s efforts as vice president, Reilly said. “Or, at least, let’s say he was a key player behind the scenes,” in wrenching approvals from Pitt’s administration and the commonwealth, and lobbying the Greensburg community for financial support.

“When we were a two-year institution and students knew they had to go to Oakland for the second two years, they usually considered this campus as their home. Our alumni are incredibly loyal, and we’ve had constant support from the Greensburg community, and those are signs of a healthy institution.”

As he faces retirement, Reilly, who favors 19th-century American writers, said he thinks of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” because his office in the Faculty Office Building overlooks a green bank by the Slate Creek:

“On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set today a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.”

Behind the scenes:

Norman Scanlon

Long-time administrator, sometime political science teacher and even erstwhile interim president are positions that reflect the central role of Norman Scanlon in the Greensburg campus’s institutional history, earning him the 2000 UPG President’s Medal for Distinguished Service.

Scanlon, who started in 1968 as assistant vice president to Carl Poke (President Albert Smith’s first hire in 1962), succeeded Poke in 1991 as vice president for academic affairs. While downplaying his influence, Scanlon acknowledges his part in building the campus faculty.

“Going to four-year programs particularly helped with building and strengthening our faculty,” he said. “We’re a teaching campus, of course, but we also have many examples of quite respectable scholarship, and that’s something we’re very proud of.”

Greensburg campus faculty have won 11 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Awards.

But the process of building four-year programs was sometimes disheartening because of the slow pace, he said. “We picked up steam when we moved to our permanent home on the Lynch estate, because it gave us breathing room to expand.”

That expansion, coupled with converting to a primarily resident-student population of mainly full-time students — just the opposite of the campus’s original make-up of mostly part-time commuters — helped build the institution into a high-quality small liberal arts college, which today is considered among Westmoreland County’s best.

“It wasn’t until the 1980s that we saw a 50-50 split of full-time and part-time students. Now that students are predominantly full-time, student activities have blossomed: intercollegiate athletics have developed, the academic villages have arrived, there’s a much stronger sense of community.”

That sense extends beyond the campus, Scanlon said. “Due to the efforts of President [Frank] Cassell, for example, we are a founding member of Westmoreland Heritage,” a county-wide organization dedicated to raising public appreciation of the historical assets of Westmoreland County and encouraging tourism.

Does the sense of community extend to Pittsburgh and Pitt’s central administration?

“Truthfully, past administrations treated us with benign neglect. I think that started to change when Don Henderson was provost and now it’s as strong as it’s ever been with Provost Maher and Chancellor Nordenberg, who were just on campus in September helping us celebrate our 40th anniversary.

“Our goals are generally in line with those of the University: a focus on undergraduate education, on increasing the quality of the student body, and on creating stronger new interfaces by integrating student and residential life.”

But Scanlon feels nostalgia for the early years, too. “I think there was a sense of community, even in the early years. Dr. Smith was a great one for family-style picnics,” he said.

Some of those picnics were held on the campus’s Kenneth E. Bell Nature Trail, which was dedicated in 1975.

“I remember we had to cancel our picnic one day, when Don Reilly was giving instructions on how to use a machete to clear brush on the trail and he hit himself in the leg. So, I guess he was a trail-blazer in more ways than one,” Scanlon quipped.

—Peter Hart