University Times

At the board’s October meeting, Pitt trustees were presented with commemorative medallions to mark the University’s 225th anniversary.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg said the medallions were created to honor individual alumni whose achievements have “brought honor to the University and whose efforts have contributed to Pitt’s progress” and who had not received bicentennial medallions.

Four Pitt alumni, Olympian Roger Kingdom, Pitt wrestling coach Rande Stottlemyer, former Pitt African American Alumni Council president Linda Wharton Boyd and former Katz Graduate School of Business dean Jerry Zoffer, were awarded the 225 medallions during homecoming weekend.

“Each of those four initial honorees obviously was a very deserving recipient of our 225 medallion,” the chancellor said. “But, in thinking about Pitt’s recent progress, it seemed that no group has served a more sustained and central role in that progress than our Board of Trustees.”

The chancellor commended the board for its oversight, guidance and support, adding that he and the medallion selection committee decided that, “given its role in building what some call the ‘new University of Pittsburgh’, no group was more deserving of collective recognition on Pitt’s 225th anniversary than our trustees.”

The medallions were designed by University Marketing Communications executive creative director Marci Belchick, and are similar in style to those presented to honorees during Pitt’s bicentennial year.

One one side, the medallions depict Pitt’s progress as an institution “from a log cabin academy to a modern University with ambitions that match the soaring height of the Cathedral of Learning,” the chancellor said.

The other side of the medallion, which was inscribed with the recipient’s name, featured the names and likenesses of William Pitt and Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “two people who helped lay the foundation from which we do our important work of building better lives today,” Nordenberg said.

Speaking on behalf of the board, Chair Stephen R. Tritch thanked the chancellor for the awards, saying, “It’s a great honor for us and I do believe that the board, working with you and your senior team, has forged a partnership which has achieved some great things. And we can do more.”

—Kimberly K. Barlow