University Times

Long known for his efforts to reduce the amount of lead in the environment, Pitt professor Herbert Needleman has joined a new campaign — against another gasoline additive. Responding to a request from the Environmental Defense Fund and 36 other environmental, medical, religious and consumer groups, 15 of the nation's oil companies recently announced that […]

As Pitt and other universities struggle to reduce their drop-out rates, especially among minority students, a national expert on student retention told an audience here last week that "retention is not, and never has been, the real issue. "If the only question you're asking is how you can keep more students, then you're asking the […]

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has established an endowed professorship in honor of pioneering transplant surgeon Thomas Starzl. UPMC raised $1.5 million in contributions to endow the Thomas E. Starzl Chair in Transplantation Surgery. The chair is part of a larger effort by UPMC to establish an endowment for its Transplantation Institute, which […]

In a move that surprised some members of the University community, Provost James Maher on March 14 named Gerald Holder as dean of the School of Engineering without conducting a search. Holder, who has been associate dean of engineering since July 1995, will replace H. K. Chang, who is leaving Pitt to become vice chancellor […]

Former U.S. President George Bush will be the featured speaker at the 1996 Pitt Ambassadors scholarship dinner on April 18 at 6 p.m. in the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers. Pitt Ambassadors is a partnership between the University and area businesses committed to education. Each year, the program awards two four-year scholarships to area high school […]

Yesterday's University Senate panel discussion of "The Role of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Pittsburgh" dealt less with the future of big-time sports here than it did with Pitt's inadequate recreation facilities for students who don't play NCAA sports. "If good facilities and programs are necessary to recruit intercollegiate athletes, then they are equally […]

Pitt's graduate library science program is ranked fifth in the nation in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey of deans, administrators and senior faculty around the nation. Several other Pitt graduate schools and programs also made the magazine's 1996 list of "America's Best Graduate Schools," including the School of Medicine. This was the […]