Point Park Globe Spring 2019 Issue 2

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@PPUGlobe January 16, 2019

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Woodstock’s co-creator announces a 50th anniversary festival Jordan Slobodinsky looks at Steel City’s industrial past and polluted present Competitive cheer and dance holds program’s inaugural home meet ppuglobe.com

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Issue 2

Former student, among cast members of President ‘Hamilton’ hold discussion with students attends meeting USG By Mitchell Drake USG Beat Writer

Nick Koeler | The Globe

Edred Utomi speaks about his journey to reaching his role on the broadway US tour. He sits alongside Peter Matthew Smith in the PNC Theater at the Pittsburgh Playhouse By Nick Tommarello For The Globe

From the man who will kill your family to remind you of his love, to the man who’s not throwing away his shot, Peter Matthew Smith plays King George III and Edred Utomi plays Alexander Hamilton in the national tour of “Hamilton: an American Musical.” The actors paid a visit to the Pittsburgh Playhouse last Thursday afternoon to talk about their experience

performing on stage. After graduating from Quaker Valley High School in 1995, Peter Matthew Smith attended Point Park University, but he never finished his degree. After his junior year, he auditioned in New York City for the hit Broadway musical, “Rent,” and was cast as the youngest member in the company. “20 years ago, “Rent” was ‘the show’ at the time.” Smith said. “It was my end

all be all show.” Smith knew that he couldn’t pass up this once-ina-lifetime opportunity. “Everyone’s like, you need to go do this because this is what we’re training you to do” Smith said. “I had such a great time when I was at [Point Park] and had that support system. It just felt that everything was right to go into that gig.” Smith also performed in the 2001 production of

“Mamma Mia” in the ensemble, was a replacement in “Fiddler on the Roof” as Motel and played the original Brad in the 2002 production of “Hairspray.” He didn’t want to be a carbon copy of previous performers, and knew how important it was to put himself into his roles. Smith has a 4-year-old daughter, Addison, with his TV news anchor wife, Amy Lutz.

University president Paul Hennigan visited the second United Student Government (USG) meeting of the Spring 2019 semester to discuss how Point Park will adjust its tuition pricing structure. Hennigan detailed how the faculty have been studying ways to form comprehensible and fair tuition pricing structures for prospective and currently enrolled students. He presented the idea of using student focus groups to USG. The focus groups will be comprised of 10 students that are geographically, ethnically and educationally diverse in order to gauge a reaction from a range of different perspectives across campus. Hennigan stated that the aim of these focus groups is to provide data on how well students can understand current and possible future models of tuition pricing by having them choose which model is the most comprehensible. While most of the details on the focus groups remain confidential (three

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Point Perk officially open for business one semester By Hayley Keys For The Globe

A 2018 study published by the National Coffee Association says that approximately 48 percent of college aged individuals drink some form of coffee every day, creating a high demand for the hot beverage on university campuses. Point Park is no exception. When the old Starbucks on the corner of Fort Pitt Blvd. and Wood Street closed its doors in May of 2017, many students wanted a new coffeehouse. “Point Park students put together this video when it closed and how all they wanted was coffee,” Director of Dining Services Zachary Schmidt said. “It was actually hilarious.” Point Park’s response: Point Perk, located at 100 Wood Street near Village Park has now officially been open for one semester and has been busy so far, according to Schmidt. Point Perk is open to the University and the general public. It is run by CulinArt and sells Starbucks coffee and a mix of food from the popular coffee chain and the Point Café. “We’ve been working our hardest to blend ourselves into the university,” Schmidt

said. “We want to be just as intertwined and into the frame and help the student body get along.” Throughout the fall semester, Point Perk was host to a variety of student-run performances, including open mic nights and comedy shows. “So whether it’s through booking talent through the University, or looking into outside talent, we’re getting involved in booking the space so there is constantly activities going on in here,” said

Schmidt. However, Schmidt mentioned that event attendance was a notable issue in Point Perk’s first semester, which he attributed partially to a lack of advertising. “Because of the lack of marketing we don’t have that call to action, so our performances were somewhat lacking in attendance,” Schmidt said. “The vibe is nice,” Porscha Tresler, a freshman psychology major who enjoys the cof-

fee house said, noticing a lack of attendance at the events. “Whenever my roommate and I went for karaoke night, there were about eight people. They don’t advertise anything.” “We try to push the student groups to not be deterred since this was only our first semester open,” Schmidt said. The dining services director discussed his team’s plan to boost publicity which included ideas for community bulletin boards, the Instagram page, new neon signage and

Robert Berger | The Globe Freshman Brandon Bruce watches as a barista at Point Perk finishes preparing his coffee.

special meal deals with punch cards. Some of these changes have already been implemented including the Instagram page where students can find weekly deals on coffee and snacks. The meal punch cards can be found at any of the three dining locations on campus. “Buy 10 coffees and get one free and if you spend more than $1.50 towards breakfast, you get a punch on the card,” said Schmidt. Schmidt also talked about involving Point Perk in the curriculum of select marketing classes to provide students with hands on experience booking venues. Even without planned events, Point Perk’s coffee alone attracts a large number of students daily. Tyeisha Walker has been an employee of CulinArt for the past two years and now specializes as a barista for the coffee shop. “I like getting to know everybody and just interacting with the students,” Walker said. “That’s my favorite part of the job.”

Hayley Keys hekeys@pointpark.edu

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