University Times

UPMC Health System has pledged more than $1 billion to the University over the next 10 years, about the same amount UPMC provided to Pitt during the last decade. The UPMC money will support Pitt clinical programs and will include "substantial" discretionary funds for promising areas of Health Sciences education and research, Pitt and UPMC […]

Culminating a decade of planning, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg has authorized the creation of the School of Engineering's seventh department, bioengineering. The department represents a trans-institutional effort with the participation of the schools of medicine and health and rehabilitation sciences. At its core is the Center for Biotechnology and Bioengineering. The department's predecessor, the bioengineering program, […]

John David Crawford, 44, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, died Aug. 23, 1998, at UPMC Montefiore of Burkitt's Lymphoma, a form of lymph cancer. Crawford was an internationally recognized researcher in theoretical physics, specializing in plasma physics and nonlinear dynamics. Colleagues described him as an outstanding teacher and popular lecturer […]

Hewlett-Packard has awarded an equipment gift valued at $191,972 to the Department of Chemistry's Center for Combinatorial Chemistry. The center is the first academic establishment in the U.S. devoted solely to combinatorial chemistry and the development of new chemical discovery technologies. Combinatorial chemistry–the rapid synthesis and screening of large "libraries" of organic compounds–is revolutionizing organic […]

Retired associate professor of social work Mattie B. Addis died Aug. 16, 1998, of complications from diabetes and congestive heart failure. She was 75. Addis graduated summa cum laude from Kentucky State College in 1944, earning a bachelor's degree in sociology and history. She completed her master's in social administration at Case Western Reserve in […]

Pitt astrophysicists would love to join their Carnegie Mellon University colleagues in gaining regular access to the South African Large Telescope (SALT). But Pitt administrators are dubious, citing the project's multi-million dollar price tag. SALT will be the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere when completed in 2003, offering views of distant galaxies and stars […]

The Johnstown campus's affirmative action director has sued the campus and its president, Albert Etheridge, for race and sex discrimination. UPJ Affirmative Action Director Clea Hollis, who is African American, charges Etheridge and the Johnstown campus with sex discrimination in hiring, race discrimination in employment and retaliatory harassment, deprivation of civil rights and sex discrimination […]

The fourth annual Paul H. Saylor Memorial Golf Tournament, held Aug. 17 at the Somerset Country Club, raised more than $21,000 for scholarships at the Johnstown campus. The money will provide financial aid for students in engineering technology. This year's contributions brought the overall total of the fund to more than $131,000, making the Saylor […]

Pitt was ranked 48th among the nation's 147 public universities in the U.S. News & World Report's annual America's best colleges issue, announced Aug. 21. In the ranking of national universities, 228 in all, Pitt finished in the second tier, numbers 51-117, which the magazine lists alphabetically. The magazine defines national universities (as opposed to […]

Incoming Pitt graduate student Joachim Futterer, 26, was found dead in the plaza of Litchfield Towers Aug. 22, 1998. The Allegheny County coroner's office concluded that Futterer died as the result of blunt force injuries from a fall and ruled the death a suicide. He was pronounced dead at the scene. According to Office of […]