University Times

While screen-saver icons of flying toasters and swimming goldfish make computers fun to look at when not in use, they do absolutely nothing to conserve energy. Pitt administrators have launched a campaign to alert computer users about a simple to obtain — and free — alternative. As part of a larger Pitt effort to conserve […]

Pittsburgh campus service workers are now working under a contract extension. Their three-year pact expired Dec. 31, and union representatives have begun negotiations with Pitt on a new contract, according to a union official. The 350 campus custodians, which includes cleaners, maintenance workers, grounds-keepers and pool operators, are members of Division 29 of the Service […]

Born in the brothels of Argentina and Uruguay, the tango is about sex. “The closest thing you’ll find to a vertical expression of a horizontal desire,” wrote essayist Angela Rippon of the dance, notorious for its erotic rhythms, close embraces and intertwining of legs. But the tango also is about sorrow and loneliness. “A sad […]

Lovers in Shakespeare’s comedies have been likened to dance partners — drawing close, then pushing each other away, posing, pouting, teasing, despairing, only to end up in each other’s arms by the final curtain. W. Stephen Coleman will crank up the dance imagery in directing Pitt’s upcoming production of a favorite Shakespearean comedy. Coleman has […]

History professor Christopher Kopper taught a Pitt international service-learning course, “Holocaust Studies in Germany and Poland,” last summer. During the first week, Kopper lectured, led discussions and took his students — eight undergraduates and one grad student — on tours of historic sites in Berlin. Then the Pitt group spent a week at the former […]

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced this month that Pitt’s English department is one of six English departments nationwide selected to participate in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). CID, a multi-year research and policy project aimed at improving doctoral education at American universities, selected 32 partner departments nationwide in chemistry, […]

The Center for Minority Health in the Graduate School of Public Health at Pitt received a $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The grant will establish a center of excellence designed to support community partnerships, outreach, research and training needed to eliminate racial and […]

From building microscopic scaffolds for cells to grow into tissue to creating entire computers on a microchip, the promise of nanotechnology has engrossed much of the scientific community worldwide. Pitt has launched a research institute to coordinate and develop nanoscale technology. Provost James V. Maher introduced the Institute of NanoScience and Engineering last month during […]