University Times

Last week at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) annual meeting, representatives from the nation's medical schools met to discuss the best way to integrate bioterrorism training into the curriculum, examining Pitt School of Medicine's curriculum as a model. "At Pitt, we have been training our students since 2000 how to identify and treat […]

Nathan J. Stark, who served as Pitt's vice chancellor for Health Sciences from 1974 to 1984, died of cancer Nov. 11, 2002, at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 82. A lawyer by training, Stark retired from Pitt to become a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Fort & Schlefer, specializing in […]

Pitt's chief Human Resources administrator said yesterday that his staff has reported "no reason to be concerned" about the reliability of UnumProvident, the company that, since July, has been providing short- and long-term disability insurance — plus an optional, employee-paid, long-term care insurance plan — for staff and faculty here. On Nov. 17, CBS-TV's "60 […]

Pitt officials say that a proposed new 0.5 percent tax on city employers' payrolls would place Pitt at a competitive disadvantage and would threaten "the economic well-being of the very institutions that are key to the future of the city." Mayor Tom Murphy, in his fiscal year 2003 budget address last week, called for a […]

Changing the University Senate's bylaws would no longer require a vote of the full Senate membership, under a plan that Faculty Assembly and Senate Council endorsed this month. The new system would streamline the amendment process considerably, said Frank Beatrous, who chairs the Senate's bylaws and procedures committee. Most Senate bylaws changes are minor or […]

If faculty and staff are allowed to exercise at the Petersen Events Center's Bill Baierl Student Recreation Center, it won't be until next fall at the earliest. That's because, until fall 2003, the administration will not have a complete report on student usage of the Baierl Center. Without those numbers — and assurance that employees […]

Almost a year after the initial release of the Pitt-produced "Black Papers on African American Health in Allegheny County," the health disparities that they report still make for shocking reading — even for the researchers who documented them. A few examples: * For every 1,000 live births in Allegheny County during 1999, 19 black babies […]

Because Pitt's I.D. validation process is automated and linked to the University payroll system, an employee's I.D. card is valid only during months that he or she is on the payroll. That can be problematic for part-time faculty members who don't teach here year-round. Among other things, it has meant that a new or returning […]

As a national research institution, Pitt boasts annual sponsored research support on the order of $425 million. Of Pitt's six schools of the Health Sciences — Dental Medicine, Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health — four (medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy) are in the current or recent top 10 of […]