University Times

The Staff Association Council (SAC) elected its second replacement officer of the current fiscal year at its Sept. 11 meeting and announced a new membership drive, orientation program and emphasis on creating new activities.

Lindsay J. Rodzwicz took over as vice president of public relations from Emma Zink, who left the University after being elected to the new post in May. Rodzwicz is administrator of the Coulter translational research partners II program at the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Bioengineering, which aids the commercialization of Pitt projects in partnership with the School of Medicine and the offices of Technology Management and Enterprise Development.

Four SAC members were nominated for the office, but only Rodzwicz accepted the post.

At SAC’s August meeting, Rich Colwell was elected president to replace the recently elected J. P. Matychak, who resigned his University post in July.

New initiatives

SAC is launching a new membership drive. External relations committee head Andrew Stephany said the group will roll out more marketing and a new-member orientation plan in October. Operations committee chair Tammeka Banks said the effort to increase membership will target areas of Pitt from which there is less participation in SAC. She cautioned that the orientation program still is being formulated, and that SAC had yet to decide “what actually happens, what are the guidelines, [and] is it mandatory to attend before they are members, or is it optional?”

Banks also noted that the special elections of Colwell and Rodzwicz both were conducted by paper ballot. She proposed that the group settle on whether such special elections may be conducted electronically. Biannual SAC elections now are conducted online, but the bylaws do not specify special-election methods.

Executive Vice President Monica Costlow announced that each of SAC’s four committees has been charged with creating and running three SAC events — either established events, such as Kennywood Day (instituted again in 2013 after a one-year hiatus) or newly conceived events. SAC committees will report on their chosen activities and events at future SAC meetings.

Mark your calendars

Pitt Kennywood Day will return in 2014, Costlow added. “We have support from administration … and we look forward to improving some of the administrative functions of the event,” she said, although she would not specify which functions required improvement.

Monika Losagio, vice president of finance, reported that 247 senior admissions, 1,475 regular admissions and 140 meal tickets were sold for this year’s Kennywood Day.

SAC earned $3.50 for each of those tickets, netting a profit of $6,517, which was split evenly between two SAC funds: the book fund, which offers textbook payment help to Pitt undergraduates whose parents are staff members, and the Pittsburgh campus beautification fund.

SAC also distributed 58 complimentary tickets.

In other news:

• Colwell reported that SAC officers have met with Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran and University Senate President Michael Spring for “very productive meetings” but added that details of these meetings would be reported only to other officers and committee chairs.

Of the meeting with Spring, Colwell said: “We agreed that we were going to work together on some of the issues.”

• Tom Waters has resigned from SAC after taking the helm of the new staff relations committee in July. Waters, director of information and communication services for the School of Pharmacy, previously had chaired the diversity and inclusion committee for SAC. He said he detailed the reason for his resignation in a letter to SAC but declined to discuss it with the University Times.

—Marty Levine