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The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | November 2, 2016 | Volume 107 | Issue 69
BONNER CALLS FOR CIVILITY
Emily Brindley
Assistant News Editor Vice Provost and Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner wrote a letter to Pitt students reminding them to be civil this week, despite clashes between pro- and anti-Trump students on campus. The first clash between political opponents on campus came last week, on Oct. 26, when the student group Youth for Trump set up a table outside of Hillman Library to garner support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. As they passed out pamphlets and flyers, an unidentified person flipped over their table, spreading papers across the sidewalk, a video posted by the newly-formed online publication The Pitt Maverick showed. While the group was tabling again Monday, another unidentified person can be seen in a second Maverick video tearing down the Trump supporters’ banner from the tree behind their table. Other students and community members who confronted the tablers in the videos shouted Sophomore Evan Burlew plays the bagpipes as part of the talent portion of the Deepher Dude pageant Tuesday at the supporters from several feet away. night. Meghan Sunners SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Bonner emailed his letter to students on the same day as the second incident. But Shawn Ahearn, a Student Affairs spokesperson, said the letter was unrelated to the tabling events. “Dean Bonner is certainly aware of and concerned about last week’s incident, but that in itself did not prompt his letter,” Ahearn said in an email. The Innocence Project, a group that works with wrongfully convicted inmates, recently opened a Instead, Ahearn said the letter was an effort to chapter in Pittsburgh after large demand from inmates in Western Pa. | by Rebecca Peters | Staff Writer commit to the Pitt Promise, which Pitt students The Project expanded after its Philadelphia agree to when they enroll. The promise includes Law students from the University of Pitts- to Pittsburgh. In September, the project opened burgh and Duquesne University are learning to an office in the Tribone Center for Clinical Legal office — which opened in 2009 — received about six statements, including refraining from disrup5,000 letters from inmates in Western Pennsylva- tive behavior, supporting diversity on campus look at cases differently — guilty until proven Education at Duquesne University. “This is where the Project, law enforcement nia. The Pittsburgh office allows the organization and valuing freedom of expression. innocent. Pitt junior Marlo Safi, co-founder and editorThe Pennsylvania Innocence Project, a and the district attorney come together. We want to “have a presence for the community and more in-chief of the right-leaning Pitt Maverick site, nonprofit organization that works to exoner- to make sure the right person is in jail,” said Liz easily litigate in Western PA,” Delosa said. said she is not personally a Trump supporter The 5,000 letters represent just 10 percent ate wrongly convicted people and prevent fu- Delosa, supervising attorney for the Project in but attended the tabling events to report on any ture wrongful convictions, recently expanded Pittsburgh. See Innocence on page 4 See Bonner on page 5
WORKING FOR THE INNOCENT
News
GREEN PARTY SUPPORTERS RALLY DOWNTOWN Preena Patel Staff Writer
A health issue might have stopped Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein from traveling to Pittsburgh, but her absence didn’t keep supporters from rallying around her platform. Green Party supporters gathered at 7 p.m. Tuesday night at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh, filling up half of the auditorium. The Green Party of Allegheny County held the rally to garner recognition for Stein and bring her to Pittsburgh for the first time this election season. But her campaign announced on Facebook on Tuesday prior to the event that a “health issue” prevented her from traveling to the city. Sans Stein, the evening began with music by Mike Stout, who was announced as a socially conscious singer, songwriter and community leader who has lived in the Pittsburgh area
since 1997. The speakers included Michael BagdesCanning — Green Party candidate for Pennsylvania’s District 64 State Representative — as well as the chair of the Hill District Consensus Group Carl Redwood Jr. and YahNe Ndgo, an activist who delivered the keynote speech on Stein’s behalf. The speakers took the stage in front of a green screen hanging on the back wall and made impassioned speeches in favor of the environment and world peace to a crowd toting signs with the party’s campaign slogan, “People, Planet and Peace Over Profit.” Since Stein could not be there in person, party representatives projected a campaign video of her in Miami, Florida, from September. Representatives from the Green Party gave attendees buttons and signs for Stein and her running mate, American human rights activ-
ist Ajamu Baraka. The party representatives raffled off a miniature bulldozer that resembled the bulldozer on which Stein spray painted, “I support this message,” in Standing Rock, North Dakota. Stein was charged with vandalism for spray painting the machinery in support of the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Her supporters said they’d been in similar situations. During his speech, Bagdes-Canning said he had been arrested for trying to crash a Trump fundraiser at the Duquesne Club in September. “I walked in but couldn’t talk to Trump because I didn’t have the $50,000 ‘entry fee,’” Bagdes-Canning said. He said he wanted to talk to Trump about the lack of clean drinking water in Butler County, a part of his district, due to fracking. “We need to dump Trump, and we need Jill, not Hill,” Bagdes-Canning said.
The Green Party, along with other third parties like the Libertarian party, are picking up supporters disenfranchised with their choices in this year’s polarizing presidential race. Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton have both been criticized from those within their own parties, some of whom don’t ascribe to either candidate. “We’ve got the Clinton campaign that intentionally elevated Trump. We have Donald Trump because of horrible Hillary Clinton,” Ndgo said. Emma Alkire, a 25-year-old resident of the Chalfant neighborhood, said she usually votes Democrat but is a Green Party supporter this election. She said she chose Stein based on her opposition to the war and her support of singlepayer health care and abolishing student loan See Stein on page 5
PITT INNOVATORS The Aeronics team, made up of three Pitt students and an adviser, earned $25,000 for their slimmed-down version of an oxygen tank.| by James Evan Bowen-Gaddy | For The Pitt News Investors, entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals grilled the team of inventors for hours. The team — known as Aeronics and made up of seniors Blake Dube and Mark Spitz, graduate student Alec Kaija and advisor Dr. Chris Wilmer — had designed and developed an oxygen delivery device and had entered Pitt’s Innovation Showcase to pitch their product. The device, called Medipod, is a portable, lightweight oxygen-delivery system in the shape of a soda can. The team didn’t expect investors to latch onto it right away. “I was expecting us to learn about the market but not to win any money,” Spitz said. But the team ultimately came home with two titles and $25,000 in seed funding, a testament to the team’s self-starter attitude. The Aeronics team was one of 26 that participated in Pitt’s 15th annual Innovation
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Showcase. The showcase, which took place Oct. 19 in Alumni Hall, is a chance for undergraduate and graduate students to present new ideas and technology that they have developed with the help of Pitt advisors. For the past six years, the showcase has featured the Michael G. Wells competition, which focuses specifically on healthcare innovation. But this year, the Innovation Institute wanted to broaden the possibilities for competing students, said Jennifer Ireland, program manager at the Innovation Institute. To do this, Pitt added the Kuzneski Innovation Cup to focus on technology outside of the healthcare sphere. “Pitt has a reputation for life sciences innovation, so we wanted to encourage people who are innovating outside of life sciences to have that opportunity,” Ireland said. See Innovation on page 5
Student innovators Mark Spitz, left, Blake Dube, right, and Alec Kaija (not pictured) developed a portable oxygen device that has won them local and national honors. John Hamilton SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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SGB PROPOSES CHANGE TO FUNDING POLICY Leo Dornan Staff Writer
Board members Justin Horowitz and Sydney Harper expressively discuss allocations at Tuesday’s meeting. Will Miller SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
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Pitt’s Student Government Board took the first steps on Tuesday to ensure that Allocations Committee members can’t take advantage of a policy loophole to get their own funding requests approved. At last night’s meeting, judicial chair Jad Hilal presented Bill B 040, which would prevent SGB members and Allocations Committee members who are involved with other clubs from requesting or lobbying for SGB funding for those groups. Allocations Committee Chair Maddie Guido and SGB Vice President and Chief of Finance Max Kneis sponsored the bill. Although there is currently an unofficial agreement in place that prevents SGB and Allocations Committee members from filing funding requests, there is no formal policy forbidding the practice. “The practice in the past has been that each Chair asked their committee not to submit or defend any requests for organizations they are in,” Kneis said. Kneis said he does not know of any past is-
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sues of conflict of interest regarding allocations, but the Board wanted to make sure that no one would take advantage of the system in the future. “We wanted to write it in the code so there could never be an issue in the future,” Kneis said. The Board will vote on the bill at next week’s meeting on Nov. 8. In other news, SGB released the applications yesterday for its newly formed Communications Committee. The Communications Committee arose from discussions among Vice President Sydney Harper; Community, Governmental Relations Chair Nick Fisher and Communications Director Kara Boutselis about reaching out to the student body more efficiently. The students realized that if they wanted to reach more students to raise awareness about SGB, they needed to take a professional approach. Harper, who has been a multimedia editor for The Pitt News, discussed doing a series of videos showing students performing good deeds around campus. SGB would put these videos on their website or social media. Harper and Fisher See SGB on page 10
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Innocence, pg. 1 of the people who claim to be innocent in the United States, according to Delosa. Pitt Law students Sean Champagne and Kyle Watson in addition to four Duquesne law students will be working with the office, assisting attorneys. The externship involves weekly training about the issues that lead to wrongful convictions, such as junk science — when unproven theory is presented as fact — and false confessions, according to Champagne. Creating an office in Pittsburgh allows Pitt and Duquesne law students to gain crucial career experience, according to Ken Gormley, president of Duquesne University and previous dean of Duquesne’s law school. “This project is a spectacular new initiative that is going to have students from both law schools working with top notch lawyers and making the difference between life and death and life in prison,” Gormley said. The Project also unites the law community, Gormley said. “Pittsburgh’s lawyers care about the collective work, which is hard to foster in big cities,” Gormley said. “We have so many lawyers who work together on big initiatives to make a difference.” Champagne heard about the Project while applying for law schools and wanted to be a part
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of it after graduation. But he wasn’t always interested in law. At age 17, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012, five miles from where Champagne went to high school at Crooms Academy of Information Technology in Sanford, Florida. Champagne, who was particularly concerned with race issues, said Martin’s death solidified his pursuits. Two years later, after the Martin case concluded and the shooter, George Zimmerman, was acquitted, Champagne had a “crisis of conscious.” He concluded that his major at the time, anthropology, seemed irrelevant and became inspired by Charles Garry, an American civil rights attorney in the 1960s and ’70s who worked against the death penalty. “There’s a conflict between those who want to dispassionately observe social problems and those who want to do something about them,” Champagne said. Currently, the Project is litigating 22 cases and actively reviewing 250 cases statewide. To get there is not an easy feat, according to Delosa. The process moves in four stages. First, the Project receives a letter from a prisoner. The attorneys send back a 12-page questionnaire asking the inmate to recount his or her case: What happened? Where? Who was the judge? Who was your attorney? According to Delosa, Carlisle, Pennsylvania resident Letitia Smallwood’s seven year-long
process could be a monumental case if she’s declared innocent. Convicted in 1973, Smallwood wrote to the Project on Sept. 24, 2009. Smallwood spent 42 years in Muncy State Correctional Institution in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, after being charged with murder and arson. If Smallwood is exonerated, she will have served the longest sentence of any of the Project’s exonerees. In the second stage of the process, Pittsburgh attorneys volunteer pro bono hours to review the questionnaire for red flags. These can include untested DNA evidence or an inmate convicted on testimony of an eyewitness or an incentivized informant, also known as “snitch testimony,” Delosa said. Students, like Champange, help pro bono attorneys complete high-level review, tracking down every piece of paper associated with the case to recreate the scene and figure out why and how this inmate was convicted. “Studying anthropology was very helpful. It gave me a bit of background in forensic science and taught me to be inherently skeptical of anyone who says, ‘I’m right because science says so,’” Champagne said. In the initial investigation of Smallwood’s case, a state trooper noted that the fire must have been started on the second and third floors of the apartment building, according to the Project’s website. Two points of origin means that the
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fire was intentionally set. Since her arrest, advancements in modern science, such as discovering how a fire starts and analyzing the materials used, allowed evidence from Smallwood’s case to be tested. This new evidence means that the court can retry Smallwood’s case. The fourth stage is in the hands of the court. If the team believes in the inmate’s claim of innocence, a panel of criminal defense attorneys and former prosecutors assembles to review the case. The panel either approves the case for litigation, requires the team to investigate further and return for another evaluation or declares that the case is not worthy of their resources. The panel found Smallwood’s case worthy because of technological advancements. On April 20, 2015, Judge Edward E. Guido granted Smallwood’s petition and ordered a new trial. The Commonwealth appealed Judge Guido’s decision to Pennsylvania Superior Court, Delosa said. The court released Smallwood on bail. She lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she awaits the outcome of the appeal. For Delosa, cases like Smallwood’s, highlight how convictions dependent on “junk science” can now be prevented. The newly-established Pittsburgh office plans to do just that. “If there is evidence to be tested, it should be tested,” she said.
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Bonner, pg. 1
Stein, pg. 2
Innovation, pg. 2
possible violence. Safi has worked as an opinions editor at The Pitt News. “I was extremely overwhelmed with my own desire to reconcile, to try to post the footage that we had just to kind of get the school to react somehow,” Safi said. “I wanted the school to see what’s happening to conservatives on campus.” Bonner asked students to remain respectful and direct their political passion into appropriate channels, such as voting on Nov. 8. “[Pitt’s] diversity is what brings richness to our community and depth to the educational experience we offer,” Bonner said in the letter. With the contentious election coming to a close in less than a week, Safi said she’s felt targeted due to her vocal support of conservative issues. “I’ve never been scared to be on this campus before. I’ve never been fearful of my fellow students, because I thought there was that level of understanding at Pitt that we accept outside opinions,” Safi said. “I’ve never been scared because I’m a minority, I’ve never been scared because I’m a woman, but I’m scared to be a conservative.” After Bonner issued his letter, Safi called the action “noble” and said she appreciates Bonner’s effort to create a campus where students feel comfortable expressing their opinions. “As always, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other and take care of our community,” Bonner said in the letter.
debt. “Even if Jill does not win, I consider anything more than 5 percent for the Green Party [as] a win because it becomes federally recognized,” Alkire said. “My big aim is to break the two party system and introduce a third party.” Ndgo has been supporting Stein and her running mate since the beginning. She was arrested at Hofstra University for protesting Stein’s absence in the presidential debate in September. Ndgo talked about her experience targeting several issues with the Stein-Baraka campaign in California, Arizona and Montana. She touched on the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration and hunger but placed particular emphasis on her opposition to war. “I go around telling people that there are four candidates running, and my daughter says ‘Mom, shut up,’” Ndgo said. “And I say, ‘I don’t want you going to war.’” Ndgo warned the audience not to put their lives on the line for other people’s profit and admonished the current governmental system. “We have a government that is representing nothing that matters,” Ndgo said. “But we have a candidate that knows the truth.”
The first place winner of the Kuzneski Innovation Cup won a $10,000 award. The second and third place winners were awarded $5,000 and $3,000 respectively. This year’s Michael G. Wells Entrepreneurial Scholars Award was the highest yet, according to the Innovation Institute’s marketing and special events manager Mike Yeomans. The scholarship, from Pitt alumni Michael Wells, CEO of Princeton BioPharma LLC, awards $20,000 to the most robust and practical idea, $10,000 to the second place winner and $5,000 to the third. The Aeronics team placed first in the Wells competition for Medipod and second in the Kuzneski competition for a similar device called Redipod — which uses a lower concentration of oxygen — winning their $25,000 total. Medipod will most likely be used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, by giving patients easy access to medical-grade oxygen. Redipod, which is more multi-purpose, can be used by first responders, military personnel and athletes in emergencies. Dube said that people with breathing
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conditions often have to carry around large oxygen tanks, so the group created a more portable device with a porous lining that allows more oxygen molecules to fit inside. “If you want to go out to your grandkid’s soccer game or to the store, maybe you grab one of these or a six pack, and instead of lugging around this [tank] in a wheelchair, you just have this thing that fits in your pocket or your cup holder, and it’s a lot easier,” Dube said. Dube has been working on the idea since his sophomore year. In the summer of 2015, he took an engineering research job studying porous materials with the team’s advisor, Wilmer, who encouraged Dube to try and market his ideas. “[Wilmer] gives his students a lot of freedom to do the research they want and be the lead on it,” Dube said. Looking for one more member to join his team and help find a market for his idea, Dube brought on exercise science student Spitz — a friend from his hometown high school in York, Pennsylvania. Spitz had experience working with COPD patients at UPMC’s Center for COPD and Emphysema. Combining the business See Innovation on page 10
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Opinions from the editorial board
column
Political discourse on campus requires respect With the election less than a week away, we realize tensions are high at Pitt. But none of the presidential candidates will benefit from violence among their supporters. And anti-Trump Pitt students who flipped over a Donald Trump campaigning table and ripped down a Trump banner outside Hillman Library this week made that very clear. While college is meant to be a place where young people can engage in intelligent conversations and debate, there’s nothing intellectually stimulating — or particularly revolutionary — about flipping over a table and darting away or haphazardly tearing a banner from a tree branch. In the recent past, Pitt students have actively and vocally petitioned for an inclusive and safe campus environment. Creating that space means accepting the fact that people with a spectrum of ideas and opinions will be able to express themselves and campaign freely on campus. This doesn’t mean there’s no room for debate — there is, and there should be — but as Election Day draws nearer students should make an attempt to respect each others’ safety and property, regardless of political affiliation. Although Pitt administrators did not respond to the Trump tabling events directly, Vice Provost and Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner issued a letter reminding students of the Pitt Promise of mutual respect, civility and self-restraint and asked them to channel their energy into voting on Nov. 8. Bonner is right. The Pitt News editorial board has challenged Trump on numerous occasions for his violent rhetoric and baseless policies — we understand why people are upset about his history of harmful comments and actions. But we’ve criticized him in an effort to enhance and engage a purposeful discourse about the candidate himself, not to personally harass or defile his supporters. While we have said we disagree with Trump and his supporters, those students
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have every right to speak and campaign without the threat of harassment. Free speech is the foundation of public discourse, protected by the First Amendment. Additionally, protests, sit-ins and strikes take more effort and produce much more effectual change than temporarily lashing out at campaigners as you walk by them on your way to class. We should seek to understand each other through discussions, debates, organized and effectual forms of civil disobedience and asking one simple question: why? In some of the videos, students can be seen standing across from the tables making impassioned speeches against Trump. But once those speeches shift to comments like, “You guys have no place in America,” — which one person can be seen yelling at the group on video — the protests of neverTrumpers becomes a bit self-effacing. It’s counter-productive to criticize a political candidate for being a “fascist” and a “racist” — also shouted by anti-Trump passerby in the videos — and then immediately begin telling his supporters they don’t belong in the country. And those who oppose Trump can’t call for an inclusive, safe college community but physically attack those with views that differ from your own. Not to mention the fact that far right outlets and talking heads — including altright provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos — have since used these on-tape incidents to once again paint college students as free speech-hating, intolerant children. Degrading comments and childlike arguing doesn’t look good between presidential candidates on the debate stage, and it looks worse on Pitt’s campus. But more than the way it makes us look, we should consider the culture we’re trying to cultivate. Pitt is a community made up of opposing views. If we can challenge without personally insulting, discuss without physically fighting and question without condemning, then we can have a truly inclusive community.
Terry Tan SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR
TWO-PARTY SYSTEM INHIBITS POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE Nick Eustis Columnist
With two of the most unfavorable presidential candidates in American history on the ballot, third party candidates have received more press than usual this election cycle. Unfortunately, that press doesn’t translate to the possibility for a third party president. Third party contenders have to deal with a system that is overwhelmingly stacked against them. To address this, the major third party candidates have taken markedly different approaches. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson chose the strategy of broad public recognition, campaigning heavily with the goal of polling at 15 percent nationally, the required threshold for participat-
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ing in the presidential debates. This strategy has clearly not paid dividends for the Johnson campaign, since the highest he has polled nationally is 9 percent and has recently dropped to 4 percent. While he did make it on the ballot in all 50 states — a feat worthy of praise — his numbers have decreased significantly in recent months, most likely based on his inability to name a foreign leader and to identify Aleppo has the besieged capital of Syria. On the other hand, Jill Stein and the Green Party have chosen to focus their attention on changing the voting system itself. Stein’s platform includes reforms to a winner-take-all voting system that reduces competition in elections and depresses voter turnout. See Eustis on page 7
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Eustis, pg. 6 Stein is on the right track with these sentiments — a sentence you haven’t seen much this election. Winner-take-all voting is one of the biggest threats to the viability of third parties in America and is generally a flawed system that doesn’t always represent the majority of the voters. What exactly is a winner-take- all voting system, and why is it a problem? Winner-take-all voting systems, also known as first-past-the-post, are systems where the candidate who receives the most votes in the election wins, no matter how many votes put them ahead. Jae-Jae Spoon, a political science professor at Pitt, likened the system to horse racing, from which the term is derived. “Whichever horse crosses the finish line first wins, and it doesn’t matter if it’s by a whole horse, if it’s by a nose, if it’s by a mile — they still win,” Spoon said. In multi-party systems, the “post” can be surprisingly low. Let’s take a hypothetical four-party election as an example. Party A receives 20 percent of the vote, Party B receives 25 percent, Party C receives 25 percent and Party D wins with 30 percent. In a winner-take-all voting system, Party D has won despite the fact that 70 percent of the citizenry that person will be representing did not vote for him or her. Even within a two-party system, winner-take-all voting sometimes fails to represent the majority of voters. When positions of great power are being decided by popular vote, a scenario like this shouldn’t even be possible. A third party that pulls more voters from one side of the aisle than the other can completely reverse election results, even with a small percentage of the national vote. The most dramatic example of this scenario is Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, earning 100,000 votes in Florida — just 1.6 percent of the votes in that state — while Democratic candidate Al Gore famously lost to George W. Bush by around 500 votes. The Green Party is strongly left-leaning, focusing on issues of climate change, wealth inequality and social justice. Consequently, it drew more heavily from liberal voting blocs over conservative blocs. Strong Green Party supporters will point to other factors in that election to explain Gore’s loss, like the loss of his home state of Tennessee or the Supreme Court decision. However, Bill Scher of RealClearPolitics points out that “lots of factors can be blamed for such a paper-thin defeat. But the fact remains: One of them is Ralph Nader.” These incidents
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have fueled distaste for third party candidates, reducing them to “throw away votes,” in a phenomenon known as the spoiler effect. In this election in particular, third party supporters are taking a lot of heat for choosing to “vote their conscious” when voters on the left and right both think there’s too much at stake to do so. The good news is that there is a possible solution — preferential voting. Under that system, voters rank the candidates from one on down, indicating who they prefer the most and least. Third parties, in particular, would benefit from a preferential voting system, sometimes called the alternative vote or instant runoff voting. Using the 2000 election as an example, a preferential voting system would have allowed voters who wanted to vote for Nader to do so without fear of creating a spoiler effect. “If you happened to be in Florida in 2000, and you wanted to vote for Nader, you could’ve ranked Nader [first], and you could’ve ranked Gore second,” said Michael MacKenzie, a political science professor at Pitt. “Then... if Nader gets knocked off, your Gore vote would nevertheless help win against Bush.” In Maine, there is currently a Ranked Choice Voting system on the ballot this month for all statewide races. If the measure passes, it would be the first state to implement ranked voting. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that this kind of reform could take place at a countrywide level. In order to change the way we elect presidents, we would need to amend the Constitution. To do that, the change would have to be proposed either by Congress and receive a twothirds majority vote in both houses or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Both of these options would require the overwhelming bipartisan support of the Democrats and Republicans, who infamously hate working with each other and have a vested interest in keeping the current system in place. With the extreme difficulty involved in changing the way we vote in America, it makes more sense why candidates like Gary Johnson focused on other goals, like gaining access to the presidential debates. But no matter how many people recognize Johnson or Stein as candidates, neither has a chance of being elected without an overhaul of the electoral process. Federal funding and debate spots are just consolation prizes to third party candidates, and no amount of television screen time can make Johnson, Stein or anyone else competitive in a system where third party candidates are simply third wheels.
The Pitt News
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Sports Correction: Due to an editing error in a graphic printed on page seven of The Pitt News’ Nov. 1 edition, four names of ACC basketball key players were misspelled. Virginia’s key player should have read London Perrantes, Florida State: Dwayne Bacon, Clemson: Jaron Blossomgame and Georgia Tech: Ben Lammers.
NARDUZZI’S BARK NEEDS LESS BITE
Steve Rotstein Sports Editor
Pat Narduzzi was reprimanded and fined by the ACC after Pitt played VT. Theo Schwarz SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
If Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi isn’t careful, his self-described “Rottweiler” attitude on the sidelines could do more than dent the University’s wallets — it could cost his team a game. Narduzzi’s comments criticizing officials after Pitt’s 39-36 loss to the No. 25 Virginia Tech Hokies last Thursday night drew a public reprimand from the ACC and a $5,000 fine to the University. “I thought there were some things that were one-sided out there tonight that really irked me,” Narduzzi said at his postgame press conference Thursday night. “[Their receivers] did a great job pushing off all night.” Despite the institutional fine handed down on Pitt by the ACC, Narduzzi didn’t back off from his comments Monday at his weekly press conference — he doubled down instead. “You have a 6-foot-7, 250-pound wideout pushing off, making plays,” Narduzzi said about Virginia Tech wide
receiver Bucky Hodges, one of three VT wide receivers to torch the Panthers’ secondary for more than 100 yards in the game. The hotheaded coach also admitted he thinks there is a right balance between being too emotional and showing no emotion at all, likening himself to a dog. “The Rottweiler and the soft puppy, yes, there’s a balance,” Narduzzi said. “I don’t want to be the Rottweiler all the time. I want to be the in-between puppy that will go catch a frisbee once in a while. When somebody says sit, I’ll sit.” Narduzzi’s refusal to accept the officiating in Thursday night’s game and move on is concerning. But it’s his unwillingness to temper himself on the field during games that could come back to hurt the Panthers down the road. There’s nothing wrong with coaches showing emotion on the sideline — as long as they know when it’s time to tone down. For Narduzzi, that time was at
the end of the game against VT, when officials had just given the Hokies a first down on an extremely close third-andshort running play that effectively decided the game. Narduzzi believed the runner had been stopped short of the first down, which would have brought up a fourthdown play and likely forced VT to punt, thus giving Pitt the ball back and a chance to tie or win the game. But rather than simply asking the officials to review the play, Narduzzi berated them from the sidelines by yelling and wildly gesturing — to the point that one of his assistants had to hold him back — until they decided to review it. Yes, it was a close play and one that deserved a second look. And even if it wasn’t, it was still such a crucial moment in deciding the game that Narduzzi was right to ask for a review. But doing so while verbally admonishing the referees — the ones who have the final say on the ruling on the field See Narduzzi on page 9
VOLLEYBALL GETS BOTH ACC WEEKLY HONORS Ashwini Sivaganesh Assistant Sports Editor
The volleyball team not only swept two victories over the weekend at home but also weekly honors from the ACC. The ACC named junior Mariah Bell player of the week, and first-year Nika Markovic freshman of the week. Bell and Markovic were instrumental in Friday’s win against North Carolina State (overall 14-10, ACC 7-5) and Sunday’s upset over No. 8 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (overall 19-3, ACC 10-1 ACC) in which the Pan-
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thers (overall 17-7, ACC 8-4) handed the Tar Heels their first conference loss of the season. The Panthers’ outstanding back-toback performances helped the team move up from No. 42 to No. 30 in this week’s NCAA Rating Percentage Index rankings. Bell made the most contributions for the Panthers, recording a total of 40 kills, 21 digs, seven blocks and three aces in the back-to-back five-set thrillers against the two North Carolina teams. During the first night’s play against
the Wolfpack, she made a career-high 22 kills, accompanied by 11 digs for a double-double — meaning she earned double digits in two of five statistical categories in one match including aces, kills, blocks, digs and assists. She also posted 18 kills and 10 digs against the Tar Heels for her sixth double-double of the season. Markovic’s breakout performance tallied up to 29 kills and 19 digs for the Panthers over the weekend. In her appearance in Friday’s game, Markovic earned a total of 10 kills, nine digs, two aces, and one block. She was
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also the top hitter for the Panthers on Sunday with 19 kills, and in addition to the 10 digs she tallied, Markovic got her first career double-double. With the help of Bell and Markovic, the Panthers have now defeated their first top-10 team and their third top-25 team since No. 22 Michigan and No. 25 Colorado State. Bell and Markovic, along with the rest of the Panthers, will continue ACC play this weekend when Pitt takes on the Clemson Tigers at home on Nov. 4 at 7 p.m.
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PITT SPLASHES INTO NEW SEASON
Dominic Giordano was named ACC diver of the week for the second time this season. Jordan Mondell ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR Some of the most notable returnees for diving include senior Dominic Giordano and junior Assistant Sports Editor Meme Sharp. Both divers concluded their last After a spring and summer full of changes season at the NCAA Championships, with Giorfor Pitt’s swimming and diving program — from dano securing a national title on the 3m with a the addition of new head coach John Hargis to $3 score of 460.30 — Pitt’s first individual NCAA million in renovations to Trees Hall — the Pan- title by a swimmer or diver — and Sharp placing thers are in the pool once again. 13th in the same event with a score of 309.80. The men’s team — overall 2-2 and ACC 1-2 Senior Kinga Cichowska also returned as a — and the women’s team — overall 3-1 and ACC senior swimmer for Pitt after setting the school 2-1 — started off the season in Chestnut Hill, record for the 100m breaststroke last season in Massachusetts, against Boston College and Geor- the ACC Championships with a time of 1:00.90. gia Tech before falling to Virginia on the road and The Panthers kicked off their season on Oct. 8 then returning home last weekend to sweep the in Massachusetts to face ACC rivals Boston ColUniversity of Buffalo. lege and Georgia Tech. While the men’s and women’s teams have Both teams defeated the host school, but the 14 and 18 returning Panthers, respectively, both men’s team could not claim a victory against are almost doubling their roster with 11 and 13 Georgia Tech. In total, the Panthers won 12 events promising new swimmers and divers, respec- from performance by swimmers redshirt senior tively. Henrique Machado; junior Amanda Richey;
Ashwini Sivaganesh
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first-year Valerie Daigneault and Cichowska, and divers senior Zach Lierley; first-year Joe Ference and Sharp. “I was really pleased with how our freshmen women performed,” Hargis said in a press release after the first meet. “They were really strong and helped us in some crucial events. On the men’s side, Samy Helmbacher stood out as a freshman with lots of talent who could be a major factor for us this season and beyond.” The Panthers made their way to Charlottesville, Virginia Oct. 21 to face highly reputable teams. Virginia’s women’s team is the nine-time defending ACC champion and its roster includes 2016 Summer Olympics gold and bronze medalist swimmer Leah Smith — a native of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
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November 2, 2016
Narduzzi, pg. 8 — isn’t going to help Narduzzi’s chances of getting the call overturned. Worse yet, he was dangerously close to drawing a 15yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, which would have given the Hokies a free first down even if the officials overturned the call on the field. Florida State Seminoles head coach Jimbo Fisher — who received a public reprimand from the ACC the same day as Narduzzi and drew a $20,000 institutional fine for Florida State — did cross the line in his team’s 37-34 loss to Clemson, drawing a 15yard penalty when he refused to stop yelling at the officials over what he perceived as a blown call. The Seminoles ended up punting on the drive, and Clemson came back to win. Of course, there are several key plays over the course of a football game that decide the outcome, and one 15-yard penalty isn’t going to directly affect the result. But coaches should be focusing only on how they can help the team win –– anything they do to contribute to the team losing is a serious cause for concern. Narduzzi said he knows he should temper his emotions a little bit, but didn’t offer much hope for a more patient future. “I like to be emotional on the sideline. I know I don’t need to get out of control, but sometimes you do. It’s part of the game,” Narduzzi said. “That’s not who I would like to be … sometimes in the heat of a game, you’re going to be uptight and upset with different situations, whatever it is.” Narduzzi hasn’t directly cost his team a loss yet, but if he doesn’t start channeling more of his inner soft puppy, he and the Panthers may find themselves in the dog house.
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SGB, pg. 3 plan to ask students if they would be willing to go on video doing something positive — such as write a professor a nice letter or pick up trash. “We wanted to encourage kind things that would put a smile on people’s faces,” Harper said. “It would also just help get SGB’s name out there.” SGB is looking for applicants interested in areas including video, photography, social media and both graphic and web design. The positions will be unpaid. “If we want this and other initiatives to actually look good, we should get a group that can do this on a regular basis for SGB,” Harper said. The applications will be available on the SGB website for the next two weeks, and after that, Harper will begin reviewing applicants. Harper and Fisher’s goal is to have the committee set up by the spring semester as a permanent SGB committee. In an additional plan for the spring semester, Board member Sam Jankowitz and Natalie Dall will both help plan the next year of Pittsburgh Women’s Leadership Empowerment.
The program began last year as a collaboration between former SGB President Nasreen Harun and Senior Vice Chancellor for Engagement and Chief of Staff Kathy Humphrey. PWLE aimed to encourage and advise women on leadership through peer mentoring, and approximately 40 students were paired with mentors over last spring semester. Dall was a mentor last year and plans to make PWLE a permanent fixture. “Last year was really fantastic for the first year,” Dall said. “This year, I hope to do a weekend retreat and just condense a lot of it into that time.” Some organizers, such as Jankowitz, were not involved in the program last year but said they’re ready to infuse new ideas this semester. “I am really excited to work on this now,” Jankowitz said. “I would love to see an influx of women in leadership.” Allocations: Pitt Club XC: The Pitt Club XC requested funds of $1,671.70 for transportation and registration for the national competition in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Over 60 runners planning on attending. The Board approved the request in full.
Innovation, pg. 5 experience of Dube’s former coworker and chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate Alec Kaija, Spitz’ knowledge and Dube’s idea rounded out the team. With encouragement from Wilmer, the team entered both the Randall Family Big Idea Competition in April 2016 and the Pitt Innovation Challenge in Sept. 2016, winning a total of $50,000 from both to incorporate into and expand their business. Nobody expected the success. “When we started, we thought, ‘Oh, I don’t even know if we’ll get in. Oh, maybe we’ll get to the second round,’ and we didn’t realize we we’re going to win it until it happened,” Dube said. “We got to work on it and realized that we were working 30 [to] 40 hours a week and realized how much that does for a project.” With both undergraduate members of the Aeronics team graduating, they plan to make this product their focus post-graduation. Spitz has even decided to forgo his plan for a postgraduate education in physical therapy in the interest of putting his time into Aeronics. “I was going to be a physical therapy student — [I] had my papers lined up,” Spitz said. “In a two-week period, I decided it wasn’t
right.” In the coming year, the Aeronics team wants to work closely on producing prototypes of Medipod and Redipod. Dube said that the next step is using their award money to come up with a physical product. “We want something that we can hold in our hands and show to investors,” Dube said. Both Spitz and Dube strongly said undergraduate entrepreneurship is a possibility for anyone willing to search out an avenue for their ideas and a mentor to push them in the right direction. “I truly believe anyone can do this. It’s not out of reach,” Dube said. “When you develop your pitch and get it critiqued, it gives you an idea that, ‘this is possible,’ compared to just developing it in your basement and wondering, ‘where do I go?’” Layer Up took second place in the Wells Competition for a coating that stops the body from negatively responding to surgical implants. Emotion Prosthetics took third for a device that measures the body’s physical reaction to stress. Invisible Shield took first place in the Kuzneski Innovation Cup for a security mechanism for smartphones. TopoSystems took third place for a water filtration systems technology.
The Pitt News SuDoku 11/2/16 courtesy of dailysudoku.com
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