10-26-22

Allison Radziwon Assistant News Editor

According to Matthew Swayne, au thor of “Paranormal Pitt,” experiences with ghosts often occur on college cam puses because much of the population is in a transitional period of life.

“You're going from a, you know, a child to an adult, and there's this in between phase and I'd like to refer to that as these ghost stories tend to hap pen in this liminal area, neither real nor dreamlike,” Swayne, a journalism professor at Penn State, said. “You're really trying to discover your direction as your occupation, but also spiritually. So a lot of these ghost stories speak to your transcendence about going to the next level.”

Since Pitt was founded as the Pitts burgh Academy in 1787, several ru mors have popped up among students and faculty to explain strange noises and incidents. Several campus build ings allegedly house ghosts, including the Cathedral of Learning and the Wil liam Pitt Union. Students also report experiencing ghostly incidents in their residence hall buildings, such as Ruskin

The Early American Nationality Room in the Cathedral “has a funny haunting story,” according to Nation ality Room Tour Coordinator Michael Walter. He said the former national ity room programs director, Maxine Bruhns, thought the ghost was her late grandmother, who was related to writer Edgar Allen Poe.

“Several decades ago, a Pitt custodi an who was friendly with Maxine told her he once was cleaning the upstairs area and part of what he did was make the bed. When he left the room, he said, he heard a sound and looked back and saw that the bedspread was turned down and a head sized depression was in the pillow,” Walter said. “When he told Maxine this, Maxine immediately thought it was her maternal grand mother, Martha Jane Poe, who was haunting the room, because it was her bedspread and several other items in the room that Maxine and her mother donated.”

Walter said Bruhns loved talking about these stories during her 54 years

Hall and Centre Plaza.

Ghost Stories, pg. 1

as the Nationality Rooms director. Bruhns re tired from her position in January 2020 and later passed away in July of that same year.

“After that, Maxine was very fond of tell ing people this story and embellishing it with the 'cradle rocking by itself,' and other things supposedly happening,” Walter said. “She even advertised this as an aspect of the Early Ameri can Room by having a Halloween night ghost watch.”

According to Swayne, the Croghan-Schen ley Ballroom in the Cathedral is also reportedly haunted. Swayne said people see apparitions of Mary Schenley, who ran off and eloped with British soldier Captain Edward Schenley at 15, in the ballroom. The room was originally part of a mansion built in the 1830s by William Croghan Jr. for Mary — his daughter — before the room was restored in the Cathedral, according to the 225 Years of Building Better Lives website.

“There was a rumor that people saw her ap parition or the apparition of a young lady there,” Swayne said. “There were other stories about furniture moving, even though the doors were locked.”

Swayne said he also investigated Bruce Hall’s 12th floor for his book. According to Swayne, someone either “committed suicide or was mur dered” on the 12th floor as a result of a love tri angle gone awry.

“The catering staff [in Bruce Hall] had in cidents where things have moved, glasses have broken and I think they even — when I got the story — they actually put out a Christmas stock ing for this ghost,” Swayne said.

Swayne said his favorite ghost story features a Russian ballerina who lived in the William Pitt Union back when it was a hotel. According to Swayne, the ballerina overslept through dance rehearsals and the leader of her dance troop fired her. Swayne said she committed suicide and be gan to haunt the former hotel, now the WPU.

“There's this kind of layer to this where the legend is, if you fall asleep waiting for class or waiting to take a test, she'll wake you up before,” Swayne said.

Some students reported other haunted buildings on campus, such as Ruskin Hall. Ac cording to Swayne, Ruskin Hall doesn’t have any folktales that may cause potential hauntings. But for former residents Camila Aguayo and Gianna Colon, the hauntings became so frequent while they lived there last academic year that they even named the spirit “Ruskghost.”

Aguayo, a senior marketing and art history major, said she often heard a random clapping

sound in the middle of the night when she lived in Ruskin last academic year.

“So I was in bed and my roommate was as well, but we were both facing the wall and sud denly we heard this loud clap. Like if someone randomly just clapped,” Aguayo said. “I go, ‘Javi, Did you just clap?’ and he goes, ‘No, I was about to ask you the same thing.’ And we started freak ing out.”

Colon, a junior majoring in sociology, said one time her speaker randomly turned on in the middle of the night despite no one touching it.

“We put our speakers up in the top part of the closets, because we were listening to mu sic. And then like a couple days passed and the speaker was still there. We're like laying in bed, it's super dark and then the speaker just turns on,” Colon said. “And like it makes the Bluetooth connection, so like you have to push the button so it sounds like that. So that also happened, and that was very scary.”

Colon also said an incident would happen about once “every week” in either her apart ment, Aguayo’s apartment or another friend’s apartment.

Centre Plaza also allegedly houses a ghost, according to junior emergency medicine major Joselyn Simmons. Centre Plaza again has no known folktales to attribute to these situations, according to Swayne. Though Simmons said her bed would start shaking randomly in the middle of the night every few days when she lived there during the spring semester of last academic year.

“It kind of felt like someone was jumping on my bed,” Simmons said. “And then, you know, I’d see these little things in the corner of my eye. I would just be like, ‘that’s just my ghost.’”

Simmons also said her bed had no logical reason to shake.

“I know it wasn't a train, because the train had come by before and all [fall] semester. And I don't have any issue,” Simmons said. “And I knew it wasn't people like banging next door. Because there was no noise, just my bed shak ing. And the side or the wall that my bed was on is the hallway, so I don't even have a neighbor there.”

Swayne said he likes the lesson aspect in the folklore surrounding ghost stories.

“We could go through these stories, and they're very interesting to kind of read on a deeper level. You'll get the sense of, ‘Hey, there's a lesson in the story,’” Swayne said. “There's his tory in the story, and I think that's what really doesn't come out a lot in most of the pieces I read. They stick to the stories, but the interesting thing is just how varied and how deep some of these stories are.”

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FAIRBANKS, BUZZERIO HEADLINE GOLDEN STATE INFLUENCE ON PITT VOLLEYBALL

Richie Smiechowski Assistant Sports Editor

Up one point late in the fifth set against the second-best team in the country, Pitt right side hitter Courtney Buzzerio looked unfazed. She’d done everything in her power to get the Panthers to this point of the game, leading the match in kills with 19, including three in the abbreviated fifth set.

Everyone in the Fitzgerald Field House knew who the ball was going to with the game on the line — including the Louisville defense — and there was nothing they could do to stop her.

With the Panthers up 12-11, sophomore set ter Rachel Fairbanks lofted the ball to Buzzerio from just beyond the attack line. The right side hitter didn’t hesitate for a second, smashing the ball across the court, well out of reach from the Cardinals’ back line.

The next point Fairbanks did the exact same thing, and this time Buzzerio, with sheer force, spiked one straight through the Cardinal block.

At match point senior libero Ashley Browske perfectly received the Louisville serve, sending the ball toward the net. Fairbanks settled under it and set it high to — who else — Buzzerio, who completed the upset with perhaps her most em phatic, powerful kill of the day.

Buzzerio, Fairbanks and graduate student outside hitter Serena Gray make up the trio of California natives who’ve led the Panthers to their stellar start in 2022. Their impact on the team was never more noticeable than it was against Lou isville, with Buzzerio and Gray leading the team with 22 and 15 kills respectively along with five block assists apiece. Fairbanks also put together one of her best performances of the season, tal lying 37 assists, 10 digs and eight kills — nearly scoring her second triple-double of the season.

For head coach Dan Fisher, a California na tive himself, recruiting out west is very inten tional. Along with Texas, California is considered a hotbed of high-school volleyball recruiting. Ac cording to Fisher, a number of those players have a desire to move east for their education.

“I think a lot of west coast kids, if you divide them up, you can see that there’s two types,” Fisher said. “There’s one that wants to stay close to home and then there’s the other type that’s willing to go away, and I think a lot of them think, ‘Go east coast.’ They’re not thinking ‘Hey, I want to go to the Midwest necessarily’ … they have this idea of going to an east coast school.”

Some of Fisher’s best recruits throughout his tenure came from California, including former first team All-American outside hitter Kayla Lund. This year’s team features four players from the Golden State, as well as Utah, Colorado and Hawaii.

For Buzzerio, Pitt certainly wasn’t her first choice out of high school, and she spent her first four years of college playing at Iowa. After being the star of a 6-24 Iowa team last season, Buzzerio decided that it was in her best interest to look else where for her fifth year.

“My big things were team success, making the tournament, going deeper into the tournament and a stable culture, environment and coaching staff,” Buzzerio said. “Both were my big points and so [Pitt] obviously hit all those marks.”

Fisher said Buzzerio was extensive in her re search, making sure that Pitt checked every box before commiting. Some of her main priorities were academics, NCAA tournament aspirations and development into a professional player.

“She’s not emotional, she’s not going to make a rash decision, so she really did her homework on us,” Fisher said.

So far, it’s looked like the right decision for both Buzzerio and Pitt.

The team is off to a 20-2 start to the season and Buzzerio currently leads the Panthers in kills with 288 while also racking up three ACC player of the week awards. Lund is the only other Pan ther to win the award three times in a single sea son back in 2018.

For the Panthers, Buzzerio’s transfer came at the perfect time. After losing Lund and former All-Americans Chinaza Ndee and Leketor Mem ber-Meneh, they desperately needed a replace ment weapon on the outside, and hoped that Buzzerio would be their answer.

According to Buzzerio, the former players’ legacy is still felt in the locker room, and she was aware of the pressure that came with filling their shoes. Still, she recognizes that this year’s team is completely different and requires new leadership.

“I definitely felt that early on [Pitt] was recruit ing me to fill [Ndee’s] spot,” Buzzerio said. “In the beginning, like preseason, I wanted to be able to fill that role, but now I think me and [Ndee] are very different in many different ways … We’re building something different — like we have the same goals, but we’re just all new and this is our team this year.”

While Buzzerio headlines a litany of new

faces in and around the team this season, Fair banks had a much different route to Pittsburgh. She committed to the Panthers in her sophomore year of high school and, in her first year, saw a me teoric rise to prominence, playing a massive role in the Panthers’ Final Four run last season.

Fairbanks’ play style is eye-catching — while listed as a setter, she does a little bit of everything, playing essentially every rotation and often flying above the net with hitter-like athleticism. She said playing everywhere on the floor is what she’s al ways known.

“Growing up I played a ton of different sports, so in every sport I was just playing, messing around,” Fairbanks said. “But then when I started playing volleyball, I’ve always ran a six-two so I would set in the back row and hit in the front row, and I’ve done that all throughout club as well.”

Fisher said having a player like Fairbanks who does a bit of everything can be intimidating to op ponents.

“I think all around good players are scary,” Fisher said. “Because when you’re good at every thing, you keep getting a little bit better at every thing, it’s a pretty nice package.”

Against Purdue in the Elite Eight last year, Fairbanks put on a show, recording 10 kills, 28 assists and eight digs. After battling injuries for most of last season, she burst onto the scene in the team’s last regular season game against Louisville and hasn’t looked back since.

While the faces in the Pitt locker room are different, and not the ones fans have grown ac customed to seeing the past few years, make no mistake — the team’s goal hasn’t changed. Opti mism is as high as it’s ever been within the pro gram thanks to an influx of new talent.

“Oh yeah, we definitely have the highest stan dards,” Fairbanks said. “We lost those three strong players, but the players currently here have devel oped, and we got two amazing freshman transfers … Our standard’s just as high as it was last year.”

Sophomore Rachel Fairbanks (10) serves the ball during Pitt volleyball’s match against American University on Sept. 9. Hannah Wilson | Senior Staff Photographer

BIG

Students perform in “The 39 Steps” at the Henry Heymann Theatre last Friday. Image courtesy of Samantha Saunders Studio

The thrust stage in Henry Heymann Theatre in the basement of Foster Memorial has seating on the three sides bordering it, offering audiences and performers intimate interac tions. The cast of “The 39 Steps” climbs over audience members, asks them questions and runs frantically around the small theater.

Pitt Stages presents “The 39 Steps,” a play comedy that follows the story of thick-accented Richard Hannay, whose mundane life turns upside down when he meets a mysterious wom an at the theater. The play is a parody of the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock movie “The 39 Steps.” The show is a student-run production with Theatre Arts professors acting as mentors.

Pittsburgh Panther’s Quarterback, Kedon Slovis, has teamed up with Gussy’s to create our biggest breakfast sandwich ever, the “BIG KEDON!” Available for a limited time, a percentage of proceeds will benefit UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation.

from the editorial board

Young people in Pennsylvania, get out and vote

As Nov. 8 approaches, the mid term election and its importance looms large. Hot topic issues such as abortion, the climate and transgen der rights are all up to whoever wins seats in our state government — and the impact of these changes will stick around for a long time.

Only 14% of young Americans say they will vote in the midterm elec tions, even though they’re the ones most affected by the policies put in place. This election — especially in Pennsylvania, which is a crucial swing state — will de termine our fu tures for years to come. Now more than ever, young people need to get out and vote and exercise their democratic right to choose their represen tatives.

Both the gubernatorial race and the Senate race have long-term effects on our daily life in Pennsylvania — gov ernors are in power for a minimum of four years and a maximum of eight, and senators serve at least six. Despite this pressing fact, many young people still choose not to vote. Why would you allow others to make the choice for you when election results will af fect almost a decade of your life?

Additionally, there is a larger amount of older people who vote in this country — 90% of Americans aged 60 and older are registered vot ers. Older Americans are overly rep resented in our government, despite the fact that their futures aren’t as tied to the elections. Younger Americans have to worry about education, job security, child care and other factors

that the government has a big hand in regulating, yet older people seem to be making these decisions for them. This is not how it should be.

Local politics and midterm elec tions are often ignored by younger people — however, these are some of the most important races. The bu reaucracy that our local government carries out has a far greater impact in our lives than what the president does. Issues that are left up to the state such as taxation, infrastructure, abortion and pandemic response immediately affect the lives of Pennslyva nians, and most are determined by midterm and local elections.

Because Pennsylvania is a swing state, every vote real ly does matter.

Young people often make the excuse that their votes don’t matter — that they are a drop in the bucket. This is definitely not the case, because elec tions such as the one between Conor Lamb and Rick Saccone in Pennsyl vanian’s 18th congressional district in 2018 came down to just 627 votes. Those 627 votes were just enough to push Lamb over the edge even if the margin was razor thin.

Before this election, we urge you to check your voter registration status and find out where your polling place is located. Applications for mail-in ballots must be received by the county office by Nov. 1 at 5 p.m., and the bal lots must be returned by Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. This election more than ever, we urge you to get out and vote and get your friends to as well. Our futures depend on it.

G

Promiti Debi | Senior Staff Illustrator

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Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Lewis

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There will be record high turnout in this year’s midterm elections. VOTE

ELECTION DAY IS TUESDAY NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Problems voting? Call or text 866-687-8683 to speak with a trained Election Protection volunteer.

Pennsylvania has early voting and Election Day voting. Find out where to vote: voteamerica.com/where-to-vote Learn more about voting as a student: voteamerica.com/students