University Times

Pitt would “substantially renovate and improve” Bellefield Hall and Trees Hall recreation facilities available to staff and faculty, under a plan submitted recently to Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg.
The report came from a chancellor-appointed committee that studied staff and faculty exercise sites, among other campus facilities.
Paraphrasing the report – a copy of which sat open on the meeting table in front of him – Herbert Chesler, co-chair of the University Senate benefits and welfare committee, told Faculty Assembly June 1 that the report’s recommendations, if followed, would make the Bellefield and Trees workout facilities “more welcoming to faculty and staff, I believe.”
Chesler represented the Senate benefits and welfare committee on the chancellor-appointed group. He refused to quote the report’s actual wording to Faculty Assembly or give the University Times a copy of the report until Chancellor Nordenberg has reviewed it.
Chesler’s Senate committee has given up pushing for faculty and staff access to the Petersen Events Center’s Bill Baierl Student Recreation Center. Nordenberg had steadfastly denied that request, even before a 2003 student usage study found that the student-only Baierl Center was operating at full capacity.
Also at the June 1 Assembly meeting, members rejected joining a national coalition of faculty senates advocating comprehensive reform of NCAA Division I-A athletics.
The Assembly voted 18-8 (with one abstention) to endorse a resolution by the Senate athletic committee, which argued against Pitt’s Senate either joining the Coalition On Intercollegiate Athletics (COIA) or endorsing the coalition’s framework for reform. Assembly members also voted to send the coalition a copy of a Senate athletic committee report criticizing some aspects of COIA, together with a cover letter from Senate President Nicholas G. Bircher.
Senate athletic committee co-chairs Tony Eichelberger and William C. Zamboni said their committee supported COIA’s overall goal of promoting faculty involvement in running intercollegiate athletics, but they questioned some of the coalition’s motives and its refusal to consider suggested amendments from new member Senates to the group’s framework.
The vote on the athletic committee’s resolution had been tabled from Faculty Assembly’s May 4 meeting. See May 13 University Times, available at: www.pitt.edu/utimes/ut.html. Click on Back Issues.
– Bruce Steele