The Pitt News
T h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he U niversity of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | April 14, 2021 | Volume 111 | Issue 89
Alanna Reid | Staff Photographer
News
Student Government Board meeting pittnews.com
Shelter-in-place guidelines altered to include religious services after complaints
Punya Bhasin Staff Writer
Pitt enacted shelter-in-place guidelines on March 31, but it originally left one issue unclarified — guidelines for attending religious services at a time of year with major holidays for several religions. Within an hour of receiving the initial shelter-in-place guidelines, Ryan McDermott, an associate professor of English, initiated a request to Provost Ann Cudd and the COVID-19 Medical Response Office for the guidelines to include attending religious services as a sanctioned activity. “I thought it was really important that students know that if they did wish to attend service in person that they knew that this was included
in the policy despite it not being stated,” McDermott said. “So, we put together a little request encouraging the administration to make that explicit.” McDermott — the founder and faculty director of the Beatrice Institute, an organization that works to help people understand Christian intellectual and cultural traditions — said fixing the guidelines, especially during Holy Week, was important so students could properly practice their faith. He said religious observances are an important factor to consider when creating the shelter-in-place guidelines, as they support the mental and spiritual health of the students. “When something as important as religious observances is not explicitly listed, it would be
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easy for us to assume that you’re not allowed to go so,” McDermott said. “This shows that universities support the students’ mental and spiritual health.” Students are now allowed to attend religious services under clarified guidelines released a day after the original email. Pitt spokesperson Kevin Zwick said the University received concerns from individuals and families regarding religious services after Pitt released the initial shelter-in-place guidance, so the University decided to adhere to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instead. The CDC guidelines include suggesting communities of faith reduce the risk of spread when approaching their in-person worship, but encourage faith groups to continue their worship in accordance with their religious practices. “Following the initial shelter-in-place guidance, we received a number of questions from individuals and families with questions about Easter and Passover services,” Zwick said. “In order to clarify expectations, the CMRO pointed to CDC guidance for communities of faith to celebrate religious services as safely as possible.” Zwick said while attending religious services is now sanctioned by the University in the shelter-in-place guidelines, Pitt encourages the use of remote options whenever possible to reduce the risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We encourage all members of the University community to take advantage of virtual options whenever possible, and to participate in testing if invited or if they have not closely followed Pitt’s health and safety rules,” Zwick said. McDermott said safety is the main priority, with many traditions and practices having already adapted to follow social distancing guidelines before the shelter-in-place policy was enacted. McDermott said Catholic and Jewish communities have adapted by allowing people to attend services remotely instead of in person. “Normally, Roman Catholicism, it’s an obligation to attend Mass on Sundays, but since last March the bishops have released Catholics from
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that obligation, and said that for this Easter there is a pass to not go to Mass and instead there are many online services that you can attend,” McDermott said. “I know that’s also the case for Jewish communities in terms of Passover services.” Daniel Marcus, the executive director and CEO of the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh, said the Jewish community has adapted in order to follow social distancing guidelines by providing to-go meals for Shabbat and using Zoom for its events. “It has been very sad for us that we’ve not been able to have our in-person community experiences, especially when a large part of Passover is about being together and celebrating together,” Marcus said. “So, we’ve adapted that through using Zoom and supporting mental health activities, as well as safely providing kosher meals on Friday because we are focused on ensuring the health and safety of the student community.” Marcus said Hillel collaborated with the University to distribute more than 200 meals in front of Posvar Hall to University students on Friday during Passover, as part of Shabbat. “We’ve continued to build a sense of unity through that distribution of Shabbat, and holiday meals, because it is a chance to at least see each other, and our student leadership and staff have been able to keep a sense of connection and community,” Marcus said. Lauren Burnette, a leader at the Cornerstone Christian Ministry and senior chemistry major, said she felt safe attending religious services in person at Bellefield Presbyterian Church during Holy Week. “I felt very safe and there weren’t any COVID cases at Easter or any of the Holy Week services because I would have gotten a text to let me know from the contact tracing they have implemented, so I think it was fairly safe and I was like, really glad that I was able to go and be there,” Burnette said.
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2
Colm Slevin
Pitt alumna gets Dunkin’ drink named after her
Staff Writer
For Sophia Cosentino, her mornings often include a trip to Dunkin’. But this March, her order sounded a bit different. Cosentino, who graduated from Pitt last April, won the Dunkin menu contest on TikTok in early March and got her order named after her at her local Dunkin’. Dunkin’ and most-followed TikToker Charli D’Amelio asked TikTok users to submit a video of them explaining their order using the hashtag “Dunkin’ Menu Contest” to get their order named after them at their local store. The Dunkin’ menu contest hashtag on TikTok has over 36 million videos, and Cosentino was one of the 10 winners. In Cosentino’s TikTok, she says her order is a medium iced coffee with one pump french vanilla swirl, skim milk and one splenda — now known as the Sophia. The Sophia was available from March 17 to March 24, at the Dunkin’ on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield. Cosentino, who currently works as an administrative assistant in the Hillman Cancer Center, said she started drinking Dunkin’ regularly her first year at Pitt. She lived in Towers her first year and was in the business school, so she always went past Dunkin’ on Forbes Avenue and said she came to love the franchise. “I started drinking it really regularly freshman year,” Cosentino said. “We had one near my high school so I went every once in a while but definitely the Dunkin’ on campus at Pitt was the one that I started going to all the time.” Chelsea Halker, marketing and guest services manager for Dunkin’, said customers can order the Sophia even if they aren’t going to the Bloomfield Dunkin’. “A number of our locations specifically in the City and Oakland can also make the drink,” Halker said. “So we actually had a lot of customers coming into our other locations, requesting that drink and they can, they have all of the ingredients to make it. So it can really be done at any of our locations but it's on the menu
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board at the Bloomfield location.” According to Cosentino, the first time she tried to order the Sophia on the first day of the promotion, the barista didn’t know what she was talking about. She said while it was a “check to her ego,” she thinks ordering a drink named after her is fun. “I was like, ‘okay I need to check myself. I'm a little too excited about this,’” Cosentino said. “But it's definitely fun. They know me there now for me being in there with a couple of different little press things and wanting to do pictures so I think I'm just gonna keep ordering it with my name just because it's fun. And we'll see as they hire new people and they're like who is this girl? Who does she think she is? But you feel special. I feel like Charli D’Amelio.” According to Halker, the Sophiasee the Sophia stick around a bit longer than the duration of the promotion,” Halker said. “Because I think it's something that has gotten picked up from a lot of media here locally in Pittsburgh and a lot of local people are pretty excited about it. We've had just random guests coming in to, like, all stores far and wide, so I could see it definitely sticking because I love that tie to Pittsburgh too.” Manushree Karthik, a first-year psychology major, said she ordered the Sophia at the Dunkin’ on Forbes Avenue, but they didn’t know what it was at first. “I tried the Sophia and it was good,” Karthik said. “I don’t usually get sweet coffees but I saw the drink in the news and decided as a Dunkin’ fan and a Pitt student I had to try it. Even though they didn’t originally know what the Sophia was, I really liked it.” Cosentino said she loved seeing her name on the menu at Dunkin’, and even though her drink isn’t available under her name anymore, she still wants it to be known as the Sophia. “I'm trying to convince them to keep it up,” Cosentino said. “And also I think I'm going to try and convince them to put it on the menu in Oakland. I don't
even know who to call. I was with one of their PR people and someone who works for the company that kind of owns that franchise and they were saying people were liking it so … never say never — it might stick around.” Halker said she would not be surprised to see another contest like this one sometime in the future as Dunkin’ Donuts is successful on TikTok and other social media platforms. “I wouldn't count it out for sure,” Halker said. “Dunkin's always finding new ways to engage with fans on social media and they've really been kind of ahead of our competitors when it comes to TikTok, and I think it's just such a young brand that has done a lot of really great and innovative things on social media so I for sure see it coming back something similar.”
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Teaching Surveys Open April 5-25. Look for an e-mail, or you can find survey links in My Pitt or Canvas. Instructors want your feedback, responses are anonymous. Go to teaching.pitt.edu/omet for more information or email omet@pitt.edu teaching.pitt.edu/omet/
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Opinions
Voter suppression pittnews.com
Sometimes neutral is positive Anne Marie Yurik
Senior Staff Columnist It was a beautiful, 80-degree day in Pittsburgh. Colorful hammocks dotted Cathy Lawn and Schenley Park with pops of color, the clouds looked like thick dollops of whipped cream painting the sky and campus felt like life was pulsing through it once again. As I walked through campus, I welcomed any breeze that provided a temporary respite from the heat. I looked around at everyone lounging in the grass, playing spikeball on the lawn and soaking in the gift of Mother Nature. It felt like the weather almost knew that we needed a kiss of sun to wake us from the monotony, burnout and inevitable onslaught of an imminent finals season. But as I made my way down Fifth Avenue, I fidgeted with my clothes and my anxiety started to bubble. It was hot, much hotter than I anticipated considering I spent the majority of last summer inside. I was in a long pair of jean pants, a cotton shirt and the longer I walked the hotter and stickier I became. My inner dialogue took a turn for the negative as I kept passing people in shorts and crop tops, dresses, skirts and flowy tops. I felt so out of place, and — naturally — I started blaming myself. The denim began to suction onto my thighs, and my jeans turned more into leather pants from the way my sweat painted them to my body. I was so frustrated at myself for not being comfortable in shorts and crop tops and sports bras. I must be a failure, I thought. I couldn’t even take the positivity that I preached to others about their bodies and apply it to myself. The whole time when I was putting myself down for what I wore and then critiquing myself for not being a good advocate, I was missing the point. Sometimes waking up and feeling like a sexy animal is too tall of an order. Instead, focusing on
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actions that range from day-to-day chores to big accomplishments like reaching a personal best or even getting an assignment done can be more manageable. That’s exactly what the practice of body neutrality encourages. Body neutrality focuses on a body’s nonphysical attributes. It looks more closely at your body’s abilities as a way to disengage your mind from the aesthetic debate that goes on around us all the time. Body neutrality talks about ability over appearance, recognizing that not every day will be a day that you can love yourself, and encouraging constructive dialogue over toxic positivity. However, my discussion of body neutrality does not eliminate the importance of the body positivity movement, which was started by fat, queer, Black women, as a result of the marginalization of their bodies by the maintstream culture. Since its founding, the body positivity movement has been white-washed and coopted by bodies of all sizes. Although the concept of self love at any size is important, the message of the body positivity movement became diluted, and the fat and socially stigmatised bodies it seeked to liberate remain marginalized. These ideas are not mutually exclusive and in fact can be used in tandem. Using body neutrality and taking a moment to acknowledge all that your body can do certainly does not silence the negativity, but it does add another voice to the dialogue. Our bodies change, grow, shrink, stretch, move, flow and carry us through every day — including the ones that legitimately felt like they couldn’t have gone any worse. On the days when you can’t find the words to love your body, body neutrality encourages you to find the words to respect it. I cannot love something that I do not respect, even if it is my own flesh and bones. Finding a way around the appearance debate forced me to change my internal dialogue. All bodies change and grow. Especial-
ly during COVID-19, when over 61% of adults reported undesired weight change, weight fluctuation is normal and does not indicate a lack of self control. We’ve all heard it more times than we care to count, but we’re living through a global health crisis. Gaining 15 pounds after your entire daily routine was changed is not a moral failing. Gaining weight in general needs no explanation. To be perfectly candid, fear of gaining weight is internalized fat phobia and stems from weight stigma. Your body does not exist to look a certain way or be a certain number. Our worth cannot be quantified by looks and appearance. The number on a scale is not a measurement of how far you can go, what you can accomplish or your impact on others. No number can define you, and you shouldn’t define others by their numbers or appearance. As the weather continues to grow warmer, discomfort around weight can rise. Conversations about summer bodies, trying on clothes we haven’t worn in months and even the change in fashion and clothing type can be alarming and discomforting for many people, myself included. In the midst of those feelings and insecurities, it’s harder to find the voice inside of yourself to be confident and positive. Instead of jumping on toxic positivity and ignoring your feelings, change the narrative completely by not addressing how you look and focusing on what you can do. Body neutrality to me is congratulating myself for getting through a walk in full jean pants on an 80-degree day. It’s saying, “I might not feel sexy or beautiful, but I did so many other things.” The things that I do each day — no matter how big or how small — will always outweigh the importance of my looks. Anne Marie typically writes about unapologetically doing her thing. Write to her at any41@pitt.edu.
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from the editorial board
Recent increase in anti-trans legislation is a step backwards Legislation targeting LGBTQ+ people has increased significantly in 2021. Arkansas’ law, which prohibits transgender youth access to gender-affirming health care, is not the first of its kind. Many state legislatures are considering several bills that restrict trans people’s access to physical health care, or activities in dayto-day life such as participation in school sports. Trans people have been around since the dawn of time — well before they were more widely recognized in American culture, such as when Marsha P. Johnson fought for LGBTQ+ rights in the Stonewall riots of 1969. The recent increase in antitrans legislation is harmful and a step backward for America in acknowl-
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edging and accepting the LGBTQ+ community. Trans people need access to health care just as much as any cisgender person does, if not more, and their needs must be respected just like anyone else’s. Anti-trans legislation blocking access to health care is first and foremost harmful to transgender children because they are being forced to hide who they are out of fear of being discriminated against medically and in everyday life. Freedom of expression is one of the most important things one can have to uphold their own mental health. Because many of these children struggle with their families and communities accepting their gender identity, the suicide rate among transgender teens is one of the highest in the world — 85% of transgender teens
have seriously considered suicide, and over half have attempted it. A lack of access to health care for transgender people is quite literally killing them. Legislation pending in the state of New Hampshire defines using genderaffirming treatment as child abuse unless the child is intersex. The sentiments expressed in this bill are not limited to New Hampshire, but also in many other states, such as Texas. These bills make it nearly impossible for supportive parents to help their child through a gender transition process that can be extremely beneficial for a child’s mental health. When given access to health care, the number of transgender teens considering suicide decreases drastically. A study in the United Kingdom found that when given access to the proper
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health care, such as hormone suppressants and transition surgery, thoughts of suicide dropped from 67% to nearly 3%. The suppression of their identity can cause significant mental health issues and mental illness. Depression and anxiety affects 50% of the trans community, and due to an estimated 44% of transgender people experiencing some kind of violence throughout their lives, there is an increased prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Transgender people need and deserve access to the same amount of health care resources as cisgender people, and the recent legislation blocking this access is damaging to the LGBTQ+ community and the country as a whole.
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Culture
Women in horror panel pittnews.com
JFilm festival shares Jewish culture, stories from around the world
Hayley Lesh Staff Writer
The iconic face of Howie Mandel lights up the computer screen as the documentary “Howie Mandel: But Enough About Me” begins to play. This year, the JFilm Festival will carry on its legacy — even online. Hosted by Film Pittsburgh, the 28th annual JFilm Festival will take place virtually from April 22 until May 2. The festival features 18 American and international films that highlight Jewish faith and culture. This year’s line up includes a variety of films like “Sublet,” “Thou Shalt Not Hate” and “Upheaval,” and features directors such as Sam Hobkinson and Talya Lavie. Patrons have the option to purchase tickets for a single screening or
multiple films. While the event normally happens in-person, organizers plan to host Q&As and postscreening discussions online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filmgoers will also have the opportunity to vote virtually for their top films at the festival. In order to highlight a diverse film selection, the JFilm festival does not follow strict criteria for its film selection. According to Kathryn Spitz Cohan, Film Pittsburgh’s executive director, film previewers search for a connection to Jewish culture. “All the films have some relationship to Judaism, whether it's significant, or whether it's tangential,” Spitz Cohan said. “Although the Israeli films are almost always digital films about people, they're speaking Hebrew. That's enough for us to be included in the Jewish Film Festival.” According to Alison Shapiro, the chair of JFilm, the festival prides itself on its inclusive film selection, and she agrees with Spitz Cohan that the festival curates a broad range of films for viewers to watch. “It enables our content to be much more broad,” Shapiro said. “We will show everything from Holocaust films to U.S. films. We work very hard to strike a balance between Jewish history, Jewish art, Jewish culture and Jewish content.” Selecting films to showcase at the JFilm Festival is not an easy task, according to Shapiro.
She said curating the festival requires the work of several staff members and volunteers to preview each film and organize the festival’s events. “There's a variety of people that work with us locally to preview and provide their feedback that helps us curate our selections,” Shapiro said. “We have developed certain criteria that we look for and we're trying to maintain a really diverse set of film previewers”. But adapting to the festival’s completely online format has posed some challenges. Spitz Cohan said organizing the JFilm festival has been a learning process. “We are learning a completely different way of doing business, so we had no experience at all in virtual programming,” Spitz Cohan said. “Just learning how to do that seems like an entirely new job or at least a new part of our job. I'm glad that we are in a medium that lends itself to be shared digitally.” Meanwhile, filmmakers and directors also needed to adapt to a virtual landscape. Barry Avrich directed his documentary “Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me” as the COVID-19 pandemic began. The documentary centers on Howie Mandel and his mental health struggles, as well as his career in comedy. Avrich said his friendship with Mandel inspired him to direct the film, and he thinks it provides an insightful look at Mandel’s life. “It was going to be a candid look at his life
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April 14, 2021
and show people a different side. So I loved doing it because for Howie, it's all about his audience and his family,” Avrich said. “It's not about him, hence the title “But, Enough About Me.” It's never about him, but what can he do for you.” Avrich said directing the film made him realize how similar he is to Mandel. “Any time I could spend with him is the best because he is kinetic energy, like a spinning top, like me, and we both don't sleep. We both thrive on finding comedy,” Avrich said. The COVID-19 pandemic also posed some challenges while filming the documentary. Avrich said he needed to get creative. “Another favorite part was figuring out how to pivot because we were shooting as COVID hit last March. We had to find a way to keep filming,” Avrich said. “I would send the crew to film somebody, but I would be directing and asking the questions through Zoom or teleconference.” One of the most important aspects of the JFilm Festival is its connection to the Jewish community. Avrich said cultural film festivals like JFilm provide an outlet for creative expression that brings people together. “Cultural film festivals or film festivals that center on a certain aspect of our culture and our diversity are vitally important because it lets you explore certain cultures' sense of comedy, their drama, their individuality, their emotion,” Avrich said. Even though JFilm has a cultural aspect, it does not significantly differ from other film festivals — Spitz Cohan said the process is very much the same when compared to other festivals. “I'm not really sure that it has a lot of differences in the sense that we go through the same processes of previewing a bunch of films and engaging volunteer previewers,” Spitz Cohan said. “They're the same steps, it's just the only difference is that the content has some relationship to Judaism.”
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6
Sports
Women’s lacrosse gears up for inaugural competitive season next year
Jessica McKenzie For The Pitt News
The Pitt women’s lacrosse team began gearing up for 2022 — its first competitive season — in summer 2019, when Emily Boissonneault was introduced as the varsity women’s lacrosse head coach. As the end of spring approaches, Boissonneault’s newest team is preparing for an uphill battle in 2022. Boissonneault signed the first five lacrosse players to the team in fall 2019, and the roster has grown to 14 since. As small as the team is right now, the team has focused on improving the skills of individual players through games of seven-on-seven and one-on-one. According to Boissonneault, 19 additional first-year players will join next year when the competitive season begins in spring 2022. When recruiting players, Boissonneault sought out natural leaders who had a deep passion for the sport and a strong desire to compete. “It's a different kind of commitment when you're coming to a starting program,” Boissonneault said. “I talked to the girls about the competitiveness of the ACC and how hard it is. It's going to be a grind every single day and we have to love it, we have to be resilient.” The team begins each day with strength and conditioning workouts for an hour and a half, followed by a two-hour practice. According to Boissonneault, on Wednesdays the team participates in a leadership academy program to help the players develop off the field, in addition to honing in the leadership that is necessary to succeed next year. Boissonneault and the team’s assistant coaches, Regy Thorpe and Haley Hicklen, have prepared the team for the competitive season by implementing strategies to win games into daily practices — including draw control, which Boissonneault believes plays an essential role in winning games consistently. This plan of action proved effective re-
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cently, when the team played its first scrimmage against Slippery Rock University on March 5. Although the squads didn’t post an official score from the scrimmage, sophomore attacker Carlie Leach felt that the team communicated well in its first time playing against another opponent. “As a group, we communicated efficiently and bought a lot of energy into [the game],” Leach said. “I was nervous that my teammates
Oregon, in the state she calls home, to Pitt this semester. Although the idea of transferring to a school nearly across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic initially intimidated Leach, she has since formed strong relationships with her teammates on and off the field. “I've made some of my best friends in the time I've been here, which is crazy to think about because I can't picture my life without some of these girls,” Leach said. “I've only
The Pitt women’s lacrosse program will make its highly anticipated competitive season debut in spring 2022 Image courtesy of Matt Plizga, Pitt Athletics were going to be super nervous to play another opponent … but I was really confident in our group. We did really well.” Boissonneault thought the scrimmage was a great opportunity for both teams to get a taste of some game action as well as provide the coaching staff with an opportunity to evaluate how the team was developing. “We tried to make it as gamelike as possible,” Boissonneault said. “It was an opportunity for us to see what we would like in a game — and we took a lot away from that.” Leach transferred from the University of
known them for about three months now.” While the pandemic pushed most people out of their comfort zone, it offered the athletes in the senior class of 2020 another year of eligibility to compete. Graduate student defender Therese Pitman decided to redshirt before her fifth year of collegiate lacrosse, granting her the opportunity to play during both of her years of graduate school at Pitt. A Siena College graduate, Pitman was attracted to Pitt’s program because of Boissonneault’s impressive resumé as a coach. Before coming to Pitt, Boissonneault coached James
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Madison University to four consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament and a National Championship victory in 2018. Additionally, Pitman was thrilled at the idea of being a part of history and helping to prepare the Pitt women’s lacrosse team for its first competitive season. “I'm a person that's constantly looking to make a difference,” Pitman said. “I'm a public policy student, so it was really cool that I could have the opportunity to come to a place where every practice and every competition and every game and every person we interact with is a moment in history.” Pitman credits her coaches with building her confidence as a player. The coaches boost their players’ confidence through a positive and engaging environment — including practicing in costumes and putting the sticks down for a little bit and playing team bonding games such as kickball on Fridays. “[The coaches] really truly care about growing our leadership and personal skills beyond the field,” Pitman said. “They really truly care about what we're doing outside of lacrosse. They’re really supporting what our dreams and goals are on the field and off the field.” Although next year’s competitive season seems like a long ways away, Pitman and the rest of the team can focus more on their individual skills at their positions, ultimately building a stronger chemistry as a whole. Approaching the summer, half of the team will stay on campus to train together. In the fall, players are expecting a normal season of tournaments. The following semester, the much anticipated competitive season will begin. “I like to think that this isn't just about me, and it isn't just about the team we have right now, but it's about building this program for years and years to come,” Pitman said. “It’s empowering women that come after us to be able to play in this really cool space.”
7
“The Pitt News is ultimately what helped me land my dream job.”
Panthers set sights on tournament
Alex Lehmbeck Sports Editor
More than 16 months have passed since Pitt volleyball’s last postseason match, a devastating five-set loss to Cincinnati that spurred gutwrenching images of the seniors’ reaction following the shocking end of their careers. But the Panthers have returned to the NCAA tournament, looking to overcome the earlyround woes they’ve had in years past, starting with their late-night, first round matchup against Long Island University. The matchup will take place on ESPN3 Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. in Omaha, Nebraska. Amidst a season altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s difficult to gauge the Panthers’ resumé entering the tournament. The team only played 20 regular season matches across the fall and spring, 10 less than the previous year. More importantly, Pitt could only schedule two non-conference opponentsfirst NCAA tournament appearance under head coach Dan Fisher in 2016. The Panthers looked out of sorts in the fall, going 4-4 in a conference-only slate. But the team drastically turned things around in the spring, going 12-0 to launch itself back into the NCAA tournament conversation. But after failing to receive a national seed during the selection show, Fisher said the team started getting nervous, until it finally heard its name called late in the process. “The initial reaction, just because they announced us almost 45 minutes into the show, was like a relief of ‘okay, we did make it,’” Fisher said. “After that passed, I think we’re an 18 or 19 seed which is right around where we are in the coaches’ poll, so I think we’re pretty close to where we thought it would go.” The Panthers received LIU as their opening draw, a team coached by Ken Ko, a friend of Fisher. The Sharks didn’t start their season until the spring, going 8-5 to earn the No. 2 spot in the Northeast Conference standings, setting up a rematch against Sacred Heart University in the NEC championship to determine the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament qualifier. The Sharks lost two thrillers to SHU in the regular season, but the third match never occurred. The NEC cancelled the championship after a positive COVID-19 test in the Sacred Heart program, sending the Sharks to the Big Dance for
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April 14, 2021
the 12th time in program history. A strong defense has pushed LIU this far. The team ranks 19th in the country in digs per set, and junior libero Anastasia Scott ranks 12th individually. Pitt’s frontline will need precision with their attacks to end points quickly. Because of his relationship with Ko, Fisher said he already had a familiarity with some of the Sharks’ roster before this week. “They historically have had a fair amount of foreigners,” Fisher said. “Getting foreign players to want to go to New York City seems to be something that they are able to do. From what I’ve seen so far, they have some very good pin hitters that are going to cause us some problems.” If the Panthers defeat the Sharks, the No. 14 seed Utah Utes will stand in between them and history the following day at 10:30 p.m. Since its first season in 1974, no Pitt team has ever made it past the second round of the NCAA tournament. While sporting a 7-8 record in first-round matchups, the program has lost in all seven of its second-round appearances, including the past four seasons. The Panthers beat the Utes 3-1 in a road bout last year, but Fisher knows they will certainly have their hands full this time around, led by Pac12 Coach of the Year Beth Launiere. Utah senior outside hitter Dani Drews, the nation’s leader in kills per set, enters the tournament with some daunting attack numbers. “They’re one of the best teams in the country,” Fisher said. “They’re very good.” Drews’ capabilities present a potential nightmare matchup for the Panthers. Pitt’s last season ended at the hands of Cincinnati's Jordan Thompson, who had set the NCAA record for kills in a season shortly before the two teams met. Pitt will have to successfully navigate past yet another transcendent offensive talent to reach the third round for the first time ever. Because of COVID-19 protocols, the NCAA will hold the entire tournament in Omaha, Nebraska. This means for the first time since 2017, Pitt will not host its first round matchup. Senior outside hitter Kayla Lund — who recently became the first player in conference history to win the ACC Player of the Year award twice — said
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8
Cedric Humphrey An Era of Empathy Written by Megan Williams Photos by Clare Sheedy Cedric Humphrey is so much more than the Pitt senior who stumped President Joe Biden. Though Humphrey’s question to President Biden about Black voters at an October town hall catapulted him into national news — CNN, The New York Times and The New Yorker, to name a few — he’s made headlines at Pitt for years now. As executive vice president of Student Government Board, Humphrey oversees a lot of moving parts and moving people. “My job is to create different initiatives that would better the student body experience and pursue those over the course of the year,” Humphrey said. A tall order for a year marked by political instability and a pandemic — but Humphrey hasn’t let anything slow his plans. “This year, carrying on something that I brought from last year’s Board, we’ve been really focused on civic engagement,” he said. Humphrey’s whole life has been marked by his dedication to civic engagement. In high school in his hometown of Harrisburg, he was the treasurer of five clubs. Before joining SGB in 2019, he worked for Pitt Serves at the community engagement centers in Homewood and the Hill District. Placed in the latter’s Center That Cares, Humphrey taught basic coding to grade schoolers. “The community assistant program really showed me that the next year I wanted to continue my involvement in some way,” he said. It took a copy of The Pitt News, grabbed from a Centre Avenue news box, to show Humphrey his next step. After reading an article about SGB’s search for more students interested in getting involved, Humphrey called his girlfriend and then filled out a packet to run for office. “The rest is really history from there,” he said. As a member of SGB, Humphrey’s dedicated time to many projects, from writing The Year of Engagement’s initial proposal to serving on both
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the University Senate’s Athletics Committee and the Board of Trustees’ Athletics Committee, apt assignments for the vice president of Pitt Team Handball Club. He also helped establish, in conjunction with the Black Senate’s list of demands to Pitt last June, a subcommittee on the Chancellor’s Public Safety Advisory Council. But beyond committees, one of SGB’s main functions is to pass legislation, something that Humphrey says starts in a very simple place. “Most of the things we do come from talking with students, hearing about different issues, and then digging deeper into them and then trying to solve them,” he said. The core drive for SGB’s members is simple — help students. Humphrey spent much of his time working on an internship credit initiative, challenging a rule from Pitt stating that any student who completes an internship over the summer must do so for credit rather than money. Humphrey passed down his initiative to the Board’s Academic Affairs committee this year — its members have been meeting with Dietrich school administrators to discuss potential changes. “I didn’t understand why that had to be the case,” Humphrey said. “If a company wants to pay you, they should be allowed to pay you. I didn’t experience that myself — I had friends that experienced it, and they told me about it … it’s things like that, where you’re just having this dialogue with students and recognizing problems.” Not experiencing something himself but still seeking to change it speaks to one of Humphrey’s guiding philosophies. “We need to have empathy for everybody,” he said. Humphrey recalled a conversation with a friend during the 2016 presidential election where they both lamented the distinct lack of compassion in the world. “Ever since then, that’s something I’ve tried to keep in my mind,” he said. “We have to have empathy, and we have to be understanding, so that’s
something I definitely try to do in all situations.” The push toward prioritizing kindness stems from Humphrey’s mother, who he said is the single greatest person he knows. “If you go to Harrisburg and you walk down the street and you ask 10 people ‘You know Yolanda Goodwin-Humphrey?’ I’m pretty sure one out of those 10 people will tell you a story about how she’s been great in their lives,” Humphrey said. Goodwin-Humphrey feels much the same way about her son. “Cedric has taught me not to judge and to look for the good in everyone and accept people for who they are,” Goodwin-Humphrey said. She remembers Humphrey’s capacity for kindness from a young age. He once took a stand against some bullies picking on a friend in only fourth grade. Goodwin-Humphrey has no trouble picturing her son as a politician, even at an early age. Sometimes, Humphrey created that picture him-
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self, like when he dressed up as President Barack Obama in grade school. Humphrey catapulted from dressing up as the president in childhood to interning for Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in summer 2019. During his internship, Humphrey handled constituent services like replying to mail, gave tours of the office and trained to process the Board of Pardons’ clemency applications. He also helped finalize a special report on marijuana submitted to Gov. Tom Wolf after a 67-county listening tour. Fetterman recently announced his candidacy for United States Senate. Humphrey said he’s an avid supporter of the former mayor of Braddock. “I’m a big John Fetterman fan,” Humphrey said. “Working in his office for an entire summer was a really great experience. He is definitely
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Sydney Massenberg Building a community to house everyone
Written by Rebecca Johnson Photos by Joy Cao
Robinson Rice-Bonneau, an 8-year-old boy, is busy most days navigating online math and history classes amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But during his breaks, the only child sometimes gets lonely. That is until he opens letters from his pen pal — Sydney Massenberg, a first-year law student at New York University. The letters are simple, yet conversational. “I heard your school's going good” or, “What do you like to do?” Simple is perfect for Robinson, though. He got so excited after the first letter, he wrote back the same day. While finding time to write an elementary student between classes on contracts and property law is difficult, Massenberg doesn’t let obstacles — even a pandemic — get in the way of making new connections. Chris Bonneau, Massenberg’s former political science professor and Robinson’s father, said this story perfectly demonstrates Massenberg’s character. “She's somebody who's very forward-thinking, and who's concerned about larger issues and more than just herself and her own self-interest,” Bonneau said. When Massenberg graduated from Pitt last spring, she left behind an enduring legacy. A political science and psychology double major, Massenberg was involved with a number of community service and activist organizations during her four years at Pitt. She gained a lot of media attention last summer, following a petition she penned pushing for a Black studies course requirement. The petition — which has since gathered more than 7,000 signatures — eventually attracted the attention of the University. Pitt’s Faculty Assembly and Student Government Board each
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passed resolutions that supported her idea. A working group in the Office of the Provost is currently weighing the details of implementing the course requirement. The University also adopted a required one-credit asynchronous anti-Black racism class that began last fall for first-year students. Part of Massenberg’s desire to push for a more equitable campus came from last summer’s events — she released the petition just days after George Floyd’s brutal killing at the hands of Minneapolis police, which sparked massive protests nationwide, including in Pittsburgh. But she said a lot of it came from her experience attending Pitt as a Black student, compared to her more diverse hometown of West Orange, New Jersey. Pitt’s Black student enrollment has decreased by nearly two-thirds in the past 40 years, with Black students making up just above 5% of the student body. “It was definitely different from my high school, my public school experience at home, just because l had never been the only Black person in a room, and at Pitt I think there were definitely a few times that I was, especially in a smaller classroom,” Massenberg said. “I think people in leadership sometimes can't help but not pay attention to the minority. And I don't think that's an excuse. I don't think that's acceptable.” She said she was particularly impacted by Antwon Rose’s death, as well as former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory during her first year of college. She recounted professors crying during lectures and cancelling classes altogether, which helped her feel reasonable in her own grief. Trump’s election is what ultimately motivated Massenberg to pursue a career in poli-
tics, she added. “It was really crazy to be a part of such a widespread sense of sadness,” Massenberg said. “I'd never really felt anything like that before, and seen anything like that before. And I had to go to class the next day.” Massenberg is well on track for this career. She’s now completing her first year of law school at NYU, and is likely to become the first lawyer in her family. Massenberg said she chose this path because it’s where she feels she can most help her community — wherever that may be. “There's a lot of different causes I care about, and I think I've always found it sort of hard to figure out where to go to help address these things,” Massenberg said. “But I think being a part of the legal community just makes it really a lot easier to find out how to do these things.” One of the causes Massenberg has gravitated toward is prison abolition. During her senior year of college, she joined the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration — a volunteer organization dedicated to ending life sentences without the possibility of parole in Pennsylvania — and attended multiple protests in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Massenberg hopes to continue this work either directly or indirectly through practicing housing law. She hasn’t completely ruled out running for a political office either. “Housing is an issue for everybody,” Massenberg said. “But it's especially an issue for minorities, for Black people, for people who have just gotten out of prison who now can't secure housing because of their record.” A class piqued Massenberg’s interest in abolition — a common thread throughout her advocacy. For her senior year political science capstone, Massenberg took an Inside-Out
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class taught by Bonneau. The course had 32 students — 16 Pitt students and 16 incarcerated students from the State Correctional Institute in Somerset, located about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh. The students wrote papers, did presentations and discussed the topic of mass incarceration. When meeting her incarcerated classmates, Massenberg said she was “nervous.” The setting, she described, was quite different from a typical Pitt classroom. Students couldn't bring in metal, wear certain types of shoes or tight-fitting clothes or bring in technology. But after some time, the Pitt students acclimated to the environment. Even though Massenberg can’t keep in contact with her incarcerated classmates, she still considers them “really close friends.” “On the last day, and the last few days, they all sort of shared with us that they really weren't sure about this coming in, but toward the end, they were sad to see us go,” Massenberg said. “So that was really really cool.” I interviewed Massenberg for the first time last summer, right after she released the Black Studies course petition. At my job, I interview dozens of people — hundreds, really. But Massenberg stood out — her passion, her words and her drive to push for change at a University she no longer attended. “I think it’s important to enact change in your own community before you try to fix the world, and Pitt will always be my community,” Massenberg said at the time.
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John Norton Written by Maura Scrabis Courtesy photos John Norton truly believes that anyone can understand Albert Einstein’s work. To prove it, he has taken on the difficult responsibility of assuring that every student who comes through his classroom does just that. In his class Einstein for Everyone, Norton, a distinguished Pitt professor of history and philosophy of science, often points students to his website for further information. While many scholars and professors fill their personal websites with research topics and various achievements, Norton has turned his site into a combination of physics textbook chapters and digital journal entries of his life’s work and passions. While he is admittedly not one for travel, Norton’s many achievements and positions have taken him around the world. From pictures of university buildings in Kansas to images from bazaars in Istanbul, one can find evidence of Norton’s many trips on the “Moments” page of his site. A quick scroll through the page, and one can see pictures of Norton’s old home in Princeton, N.J., post-run poses in front of landmarks, Guinness World Record-breaking kayak trips and multiple shots from throughout Australia. Australia is Norton’s homeland. After completing a degree in chemical engineering at the University of South Wales in 1974, he moved back to his home city of Sydney to work for the local Shell oil refinery. Two years into the job, and he was already looking for a change of pace. While making gasoline as a chemical engineer was “a fine life,” in his eyes, it was not as satisfying as he had expected it to be. “At some point in your life, you’re going to have to decide how you’re going to spend the rest of [your] life,” Norton said. Norton’s next step was to apply to a doctoral program within the University of New South Wales’ School of History and Philosophy of Science. He knew the program might not work out as well as he hoped, but he felt that it was worth the risk.
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A life of learning “I thought, maybe I should give this other thing a shot and see what happens, and it worked out,” Norton said. “There’s no guarantee it will, and when you’re young you can take risks like that — professional risks — and I did, and I’m pleased that it worked.” When deciding exactly what to do after leaving Shell, he focused on the interest in philosophy and science that had “bubbled away” during his engineering studies. Reignited by thoughts of continuing education, his fascination with foundational concepts and history with physics-related classes inspired his change in fields. Like many students, Norton learned about Albert Einstein in his early science classes. He always found Einstein’s work to be fascinating, but could have never predicted just how much he would learn about the German physicist.
Norton really began to learn about Einstein after he came to the United States in the early 1980s with his wife, Eve, who moved to pursue an urban design degree at Columbia University. This move across the globe led him to Princeton, and the Princeton University Press, where the Einstein Papers Project was originally established. He was able to work through Einstein’s manuscripts, looking for various new findings. Mistakenly, Norton went into the project assuming that everything that could be written about Einstein had already been published. “I had assumed that everything to do with Einstein had been written and done. The time I started work on this in the late 1970s was the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s birth, there was a big hoopla,” Norton said. “So, I figured that it’s been worked, it’s been done, but maybe there are a few crumbs I can sweep up.”
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Norton soon realized that even a century later, there was still work to be done. As he read through every one of Einstein’s papers, he discovered a set of documents that would change his life. “I just hit upon this notebook of calculations that Einstein had kept at the crucial moment — it hadn’t been worked yet,” Norton said. “Halfway through he had the completed theory and he just dropped it. It was a misstep that led to three years of misery. There’s one moment that changes the direction of your life, and for me it was that moment when I opened that notebook and flipped through a couple of pages.” Norton wrote his doctoral dissertation about
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