Staff Council president confirms Pitt Day at Kennywood is back

By SHANNON WELLS

Staff Council President Lindsay Rodzwicz had some welcome positive news for the Pitt community during her Senate Council presentation — Pitt Day at Kennywood will return  for the first time since the pandemic on June 17.

Details will be coming soon on discounted tickets and the picnic in the pavilion included in the price, Rodzwicz said. She thanked the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Business and Operations, Dave DeJong, for supporting the event, which Staff Council has sponsored annually for 28 years through June 2019.

At the Senate meeting, Rodzwicz also congratulated Ann Cudd on her new role as president of Portland State University in Oregon, thanking her for supporting Pitt staff and “for your dedicated work at Pitt as well.”

Regarding the controversial anti-transgender speaker events on campus, Rodzwicz said Staff Council “as an organization recognizes the intersecting identities of our members and the greater Pitt community, and we stand in support of the LGBTQIA-plus community. We commit to protecting and championing inalienable human rights, and we respect the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States and recognize that opinions and perspectives can be complex.

“And we appreciate all of this good-faith dialogue,” she added, “but we do want to echo the concerns over the upcoming events on campus that may promote hate speech, and we also want to extend solace and safe spaces to all of those who are sexual- and gender-minoritized people with particular emphasis to those who identify beyond the gender binary and those who identify as transgender.”

In other Staff Council news:

  • The next Staff Council spotlight will be at noon April 12. “It’s a unique take on mental health and wellness along with campus safety,” from representatives of Pitt Police and the University Counseling Center.

  • A Spring Assembly event will take place May 12, at the O’Hara Ballroom and via Zoom, with the theme echoing Pitt’s Year of Emotional Well-Being. Presenters include Michelle Schein and Laura Dietz from the Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

  • The next Staff Council meeting is at noon April 19 in 102 Benedum Hall as well as on Zoom. Tom Potter, assistant vice chancellor for policy development and management, will give a presentation about policy development at Pitt.

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

 

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