University Times

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is attacking the constitutionality of a 1999 law that exempts Pennsylvania’s state-related universities (including Pitt) and state-owned schools from municipal ordinances requiring them to provide health benefits. In a brief filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court earlier this month, Pitt lawyers had cited the state act, among other […]

Pitt’s ongoing fundraising campaign, the largest in the University’s history, reached another milestone by topping $550 million in donations and pledges, officials announced this week. The announcement of the $550 million milestone includes a commitment from the Giant Eagle Foundation for a donation of $1.4 million, the 100th gift of $1 million or more during […]

Pitt employees have joined students in pledging money to the “Chancellor Challenge,” a protest/fundraiser to benefit the Pitt Program Council’s Endowed Book Fund — but only if Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg donates at least 14 percent of his new $390,000 salary to that fund. Pitt’s Institutional Advancement office announced this week that Nordenberg and Provost […]

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg and Provost James V. Maher each recently committed $50,000 to Pitt’s capital campaign, raising their total campaign contributions to at least $100,000 each, the University’s Office of Institutional Advancement revealed this week. Each man’s $50,000 contribution “will be used in ways that directly benefit Pitt students, principally through scholarships,” wrote Interim […]

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 […]