2-28-17

The Pitt News

Column: Kimmel could have done better at the Oscars page 6

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | february 28, 2017| Volume 107 | Issue 132

PITT PHARMACY EXTENDS REACH

Emily Suruda Staff Writer

Second-year pharmacy students Olivia Berger, Josh Zimardo and Chris Randall spent two hours in mid-February asking strangers about their daily routines.

Specifically, the students wanted to know how often customers were taking their medicine: Do you ever forget to take your medications? Do you ever have problems remembering to take your medications? If you feel worse, do you stop taking your medications?

And if you feel better, do you stop taking your medications?

They weren’t just being nosy. For the third year in a row, all second-year Pitt pharmacy students, from Jan. 15 to March 16, are taking part in the Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge — which Pitt School of Pharmacy has won two years running. The winner gets a trophy at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy summer meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, this July.

The annual competition encourages health profession students and faculty across the nation to develop solutions to raise public awareness about the importance of medication adherence — the extent to which a person takes their medication as prescribed by a doctor.

“Usually just talking about their adherence can lead to other conversations, and other See Pharmacy on page 3

Students get a quick lesson in language page 2

Pitt students had the opportunity to learn Turkish, among other languages, during an event sponsored by the Department of Linguistics. Evan Meng STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Remembering John Goldsmith Caroline Bourque Staff Writer

On a cold Sunday afternoon at the end of January, about 50 people gathered outside the home of John Goldsmith, retired director of the Heinz Chapel Choir, to serenade him one last time.

Even in his last few days, Goldsmith could make his choir laugh. “[Goldsmith] was singing along and then

he made a joke when we were finished, he was like ‘I’d like to take you guys on tour,’” Adam VanGorder, a fifth-year senior, said.

The alumni and current choir members sang the very music that Goldsmith spent 25 years instilling into the hearts of generations of Pitt students, including “Brother James’s Air” and a Valentine’s song with lyrics rewritten by Goldsmith.

Four days later, on Feb. 2, Goldsmith passed away at the age of 71 after a battle with cancer.

From 1989 to 2014, Goldsmith was the director of the HCC. Lovingly referred to as “J.G.” by those who knew him, Goldsmith left behind a legacy of unmatched musicality and skill in the group that he spent a quarter of a century cracking jokes with, teaching and directing.

Before he came to Pitt, Goldsmith graduated from Capital University in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in music education and from See Goldsmith on page 7

News

Maggie Medoff

John Hamilton VISUAL EDITOR

After two years of racing and repairing bikes and a slew of leisurely Sunday brunch-and-rides, Kimmy Dinh and five of her friends decided to shift gears.

After Dinh, a senior biological science major, and her five cohorts — Sinjon Bartel, Hana Swift, Lora Matway, Ang Urban and Naomi Anderson — formed the Pitt Bicycle Collective in 2015, they decided to expand their impact on campus by developing a bike co-op this year. While there are other programs in the area, such as the Alley Bike Co-Op in East Liberty and Free Ride in the East End, there wasn’t one near to the University, Bartel said.

“While [Dinh] was really into those other models and realized the importance of their place in the community, she also became aware of how far away they were,” said the junior mechanical engineering student. “We want to give people the confidence to navigate places in a sustainable and self-dependent way.”

Dinh and other Bike Collective members

BICYCLE CO-OP TO POP-UP ON CAMPUS

For The Pitt News

have been working on funding, advertising and finding space since November 2016. The group received about $2,106 from the Pitt Green Fund, $1,052 from Student Government Board and a guaranteed yearly expense of $5,600 from Intramurals and Recreation this fall to provide bike repair tools for community cyclists and host informational sessions about riding techniques and safety.

The Collective currently meets in the William Pitt Union the first Thursday of every month to plan organized group rides and provide pop-up repair services for students’ bikes.

The repair shops generally “pop up” twice a semester in front of the William Pitt Union or between Wesley W. Posvar Hall and Hillman Library.

“The repair shop aspect makes you more confident as a biker,” said Hana Swift, a junior studio arts and art history major and member of the Collective. “Pittsburgh has been trying to develop a lot of safer bike policies. But if you’re more confident as a rider, that’s going to help make the streets safer,” Swift said.

See Bicycle Co-op on page 10

STUDENTS SPEED-LEARN UNCOMMON LANGUAGES Zoe Pawliczek Staff Writer

Junior Desislava Iolova knows seven languages, but wanted to learn more Monday night — at least as many new words as she could in 15 minutes.

“I love learning languages, but I’m focusing on my major, so I have to learn them in my free time at events like these,” Iolova, an electrical engineering major, said. “I like to know a little bit of each language just in case I meet someone and have the opportunity to have a conversation with them.”

Professors from Pitt’s Less Commonly Taught Languages Center — or LCTL — provided more than 90 students with 15-minute language lessons and snacks in the Lower Lounge and Kurtzman Room of the William Pitt Union.

Of the over 40 languages Pitt offers, the event, which ran from 6 to 8 p.m., featured 12 of the 16 less commonly taught languages at the University.

Several stations switched between languages, allowing up to 10 participants at once to expe-

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rience a fast-paced exposure to languages and cultures, while getting to know professors and different language program options.

Claude Mauk, director of the LCTL, and Gretchen Aiyangar, a language program coordinator for LCTL, brainstormed the “speed-dating lessons” together with no real expectations for how their event would turn out.

Professors prepared their own lessons and practiced teaching each other at a faculty meeting a few weeks beforehand, ultimately using flashcards and interactive activities to provide each group with a basic introduction to the languages they teach at Pitt.

“It’s not easy to teach for such a short amount of time and have them walk away with something tangible,” Aiyangar said. “It gives students the opportunity to try out a language instead of being exposed for the first time in the classroom.”

Students learned lessons ranging from greetings and introducing themselves to asking where someone lives and whether they like or dislike a certain color.

Professors shared facts about the languages as

well, displaying maps of the countries where the languages are spoken and explaining differences between English and the languages represented at the event. Filipo Lubua, a Swahili professor at Pitt, taught students the protocol for greeting each other and saying “goodbye” in Swahili.

“The best way to learn another culture is through the language,” Lubua said. “Language carries everything a culture has.”

Quechua is a language spoken in Peru and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador by the Quechua people in the South East Andes.

At its station during the event, participants practiced counting to four and naming types of food.

Quechua professor Alana DeLoge said it was inspiring to see groups quickly pick up on the elements of Quechua she taught to the groups.

“This event gives students a chance to experience the diversity of languages the world has to offer,” DeLoge said. “It’s a way to celebrate that diversity and how special everyone is.”

Many attendees already came to the event with backgrounds in other languages. Sophomore Zach Rehrig studies Spanish, Portuguese

February 28, 2017

and Latin America studies, but left with plans to add Quechua and Arabic to the mix.

“Spanish is not a less commonly taught language, so I wanted to get more experience with some that are,” Rehrig said. “It was surprising to see connections between some of the languages linguistically.”

The LCTL has not hosted any events like this previously, but Irish professor Marie Young said the center plans to advertise to more students and get them interested in their programs sooner.

“Unfortunately, at events like these, we often get students within a semester or two of graduating, and so they leave Pitt and can’t take much of the language,” Young said.

As students exited the event, they picked up pamphlets about the programs the LCTL offer and thanked organizers Mauk and Aiyanger in their newly learned tongues.

“It gets people to step out of their shells and try something different,” Aiyangar said. “We’re happy to give students that opportunity in an easy and acceptable way.”

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The article “Maggie Nelson reads work on identity, freedom,” published Feb. 24, said Maggie Nelson read about in vitro fertilization in one of her passages from “The Argonauts.” This is not the method of assisted reproduction Nelson describes in her book. The Pitt News also reported that her partner Harry Dodge identifies as a “female-to-male trans” person, and that his surgery was a gender reassignment surgery. Harry Dodge does not identify as a trans male and does not refer to his surgery as gender reassignment. These changes have been made to the online version of the story. The Pitt News regrets these errors.

In “Welch adds policy to platform during third public rally,” published Feb. 26, a statistic from the Education Rights Network was misinterpreted to signify that 79 percent of black students in Pittsburgh have served a suspension by fifth grade. This is not true, as 79 percent of students suspended in grades kindergarten through fifth grade — 10 percent of all students — from 2015 to 2016 were AfricanAmerican. These changes have been made to the online version of the story. The Pitt News regrets this error.

Pharmacy, pg. 1 questions that they may have on their other medications, and we can help them with that, as well increasing their adherence,” Berger said.

In order to make their initiative successful and to improve patient care across Allegheny County, the students set up their informational tables once a week for two hours at local pharmacy practices, from CVS and Rite Aid to smaller independently owned pharmacies.

Once the students ask customers inside the local pharmacy about the medications and health problems they were experiencing, the patient gets a score from zero to four, with lower numbers meaning better medication adherence. Then the students provide advice — anything from how to maintain a healthy blood pressure to how to properly request and take medications as directed.

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“We give many suggestions so that we can better improve their compliance with their medications or we give them strategies that they can implement in their daily lives to help them take it everyday — to eventually living a longer, healthier life,” Randall said.

By early February, the class of more than 100 students had spoken to more than 930 customers at pharmacies and nursing homes.

In order to win the challenge, they must talk to 1,250 patients and exceed last year’s results of 1,140 patients.

“It’s always a little nerve-wracking to start approaching patients, especially when they are not expecting you to approach them,” Hannah Hoseyni, a second-year pharmacy student and social media outreach co-chair for the team challenge initiative, said. “Some will say ‘No, I don’t want to talk to you,’ and you can’t force them. But it’s always nice when you get a meaningful interaction.”

The class is also planning to partner with the Birmingham Free Clinic in the South Side to help patients manage their health care.

About 50 percent of patients do not take their medications as prescribed and about 90 million adults have inadequate health literacy — meaning they do not understand basic health information to make appropriate health decisions, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The issue can be costly because patients who aren’t taking pre-emptive medication may make more trips to the emergency room or the doctor’s office.

“Medication nonadherence is a $300 billion problem, and spending even a few minutes discussing how patients take their medications can greatly impact our community,” Hoseyni said.

Hoseyni said there are three possible reasons why a person may forget to take their

February 28, 2017

medication as prescribed. A common problem, she said, is confusion caused by multiple medications. In that case, she suggests patients use a pillbox to organize their medications.

Patients may neglect to take their medication if they have negative side effects — like a dry hacking cough, Hoseyni said. If financial reasons are the case for not taking medication, Hoseyni also recommended taking generic versions of medications and scouring for coupons online.

But, the pharmacy students’ main focus isn’t just on medication adherence — it’s also helping people transition to healthier lives.

“The whole point is to start that conversation,” Hoseyni said. “So even if you can tell they are hesitating, you can start that conversation with them and create that dialogue that would help them better manage that medication.”

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Opinions from the editorial board

Wolf’s budget benefits public university students With last year’s state budget crisis still uncomfortably recent, it was already likely that higher education in Pennsylvania should expect more funding drama this year — but now there’s a twist.

The budget released earlier this month from the office of Gov. Tom Wolf, D-Pa., contained no surprises in planned expenses for Pennsylvania’s state-owned and state-related universities. But planned cuts in state support for private universities came as a surprise.

Wolf’s plan for the upcoming fiscal year will cut state funding for the Commonwealth’s private colleges by $13 million in the interest of increasing funding for state-owned institutes. And, while the move has drawn some anger from private school advocates, it’s a smart trade-off in the best interests of the largest amount of students.

It’s worth noting at this point that, under the governor’s proposed budget, state aid for Pitt would stand to continue at its current level — we are one of the four state-related institutions projected to see no change in funding. Nevertheless, if the state is going to decrease funding for higher education in Pennsylvania, the cuts should go to private colleges’ funding.

One of the strongest arguments in favor of continuing state support of private schools is the high number of students here who attend and graduate from the Commonwealth’s private institutions. 42 percent of all students in Pennsylvania attend one of these private colleges as of last academic year. A cut to funding for these students’ schools could be seen as an assault on affordable education for nearly half of all college students in Pennsylvania.

But for the 58 percent majority who attend public schools in the Commonwealth, stateowned schools are already considerably more expensive than their components in other states.

Four of the top-10 public and state-related colleges with the highest tuition for in-state students — Pitt, Penn State, Temple and the Pennsylvania College of Technology — are in our state.

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It’s easy to see why this might lead to higher graduation rates from the state’s private institutions, as students with the most financial difficulties are unable to pay for all four years of their undergraduate education.

Patrick Leahy, president of private Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, said the proposed cuts would do little to change his university’s bottom line.

“Reducing [funding] by 50 percent constitutes a small portion of the university’s overall budget,” Leahy told the Scranton Times-Tribune.

The University of Pennsylvania, one of the largest private recipients of state aid in the state, draws only 1 percent of its annual budget from the state. It’s also receiving almost twice the amount that the next-largest beneficiary — Johns Hopkins University in Maryland — gets from its state government, suggesting that the proposed cuts will have little real effect on student tuition at Penn.

While there’s little to lose from the loss of some private funding for private institutions, the state’s public and state-related schools stand to gain considerably from the freed-up funds.

Wolf’s plan would reallocate nearly 9 million of the nearly $13 million cut from private universities to state-owned ones. And given past funding cuts — the University lost four million dollars in funding last year — and expectations earlier this year that there was more to come, new or even stagnant funding would be best used at state colleges. Low-income students at public institutions have everything to gain from the increase in spending, while private school students will likely see little to no change to their tuition and the affordability of their education.

Reducing the money spent supporting private universities like these with massive endowments will hurt students at neither public nor private institutions in the Commonwealth.

Wolf’s proposal is a common-sense way to return higher-education spending to a more equitable system.

column

AS HATE CRIMES RISE, SO SHOULD PENALTIES

Rashi Seth Columnist

When the Honorable Jeffrey Manning sentenced a Pittsburgh resident three to six years in jail last week, the ruling was about more than serving justice to one victim.

Ryan Kyle, 22, was the first person sentenced under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in Western Pennsylvania. The law — passed in 2010 — provides for additional penalties for crimes based on prejudice against people of a certain race, gender, sexuality or other protected classes.

Kyle, a white man from the South Hills, hurled a black man off the subway tracks at a Downtown T station last spring and beat him unconscious in a racially motivated attack.

Despite the fact that Kyle used a racial slur the night of the incident, members of his family came before the bench in the moments before the sentencing to convince the judge that he was not a racist. The defendant himself blamed the violence on alcohol, calling it a “very bad drunk incident,” according to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

His sentence — the first of its kind — wasn’t about drunken behavior. It was legal recognition that in a society where racial tensions are still intensely real, acts of violence like this one actively contribute to increasing that tension.

“It’s not a crime in this country to hate,” Manning said as he handed down Kyle’s sentence. “It is a crime to hate and act upon it.”

We are in a dangerous time — one in which people are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than each other’s hands. Despite passage of some progressive legislation nationwide in the last ten years, a rapid increase in hate crimes against minorities of all kinds — racial, ethnic and sexual — has made modern American society seem to repudiate rather than celebrate the diverse elements in our country’s population.

February 28, 2017

Heightened tensions have shown themselves in even uglier ways even since Kyle’s hate crime sentencing. In what the Pittsburgh Islamic Center feared may have been an act of hate, a Somali cab driver was beaten to death last week in the South Hills. He was found unresponsive a day after the attack. While the crime doesn’t seem to be motivated by racial or religious hatred, the ICP is on high alert and the death nevertheless left Pittsburgh’s Somali community shaken.

Former refugees who now call Pittsburgh their home claim they and their children face harassment in neighborhoods, on buses and in schools. Somali women in particular are often harassed because of their clothing, language preferences and religious practices.

Wasiullah Mohamed, executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, stressed to WPXI that last week’s tragedy wasn’t an anomaly.

“This is not a single incident,” Mohamed said. “This is a continuation of a trend that’s happening around the country. It’s happening around the state and now we know it’s happening down the street.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the U.S. has more than doubled since 1999, as more and more anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, antiLGBTQ+, white nationalist, black separatist, neo-Confederate and neo-Nazi organizations have taken hold in the public sphere. The SPLC’s report showed that the number of anti-Muslim hate groups alone rose 197 percent from 2015 to 2016 — and it’s not hard to see how hate crimes would be plentiful in this atmosphere.

This prevalence of prejudicial violence gives the impression that minorities in this country can never attain the privilege of being truly American. What’s more, this impression feeds into and continues to back up anti-Muslim legislation that suggests certain groups are

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intimidation” across the country in the month following last November’s presidential election.

The incidents ranged from yells of “white power” from high school students in York, Pennsylvania, to spraypainted swastikas and racist graffiti in South Philadelphia and middle schoolers chanting “build that wall” in Michigan.

A middle school in the South Hills also saw a rash of racially charged vandalism last December.

In this context, fears among minority

groups in the United States are more than justifiable. Yet Trump and other political leaders continue to characterize threatened minorities as the perpetrators of terror, rather than its victims.

This has generated a toxic environment and gravely impacted the malleable minds of future generations — perpetrators demonize minorities and scapegoat them for problems that are out of their control.

Raka Sarkar It’s clear SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR that this culture of hate is only going to keep expanding without any action — half of all hate crimes in the United

States today are committed by people between the ages of 15 and 24, according to a report this year from the National Crime Prevention Council. As college students, hate crimes aren’t something separated from us by a generational gap.

Education plays a big role in influencing the likelihood of hate crime onset, introducing subjects such as history of sexuality or even a new language in schools harbors respect for minorities and their respective cultures. A 2003 study from the University of Michigan found that college students who were exposed to diversity programing in their first year were significantly more interested in learning about other social groups and more likely to respond that they found it easier to see things from someone else’s perspective.

Initiatives like these — and promising words from judges like Manning — remind us that there is not one single mode, restricted to particular religions, races or sexualities, of being an American. This, if nothing else, is a good start for our efforts to ensure that people from all social and ethnic groups feel that their identities are respected and safe.

Rashi primarily writes on politics and social issues for The Pitt News.

Write to her at ras206@pitt.edu.

The Pitt news crossword 2/28/17

un-American by the very nature of their identities.

In South Carolina’s state legislature, for example, a Republican proposal in January 2016 would have barred Islamic jurisprudence and other forms of international law, including Sharia law, from being used as a form of defense in American courts. The bill was nonsensical, since our courts are already constitutionally obliged to follow American laws and jurisprudence. Instead, it was a result of uninformed fear mongering that does nothing but stigmatize Muslim religious practices. Just three months earlier, 26 state governors across the country pledged to refuse the resettlement of Syrian refugees within their state borders in a move the Council on American-Islamic Relations called anti-Muslim.

At the national level, the Trump administration has already introduced radical policies that promote continued othering of minorities, including the controversial travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries and the withdrawal of federal protections for transgender students.

Following his rhetoric, it’s easy to tell that these policies all create tensions and work against immigrants, Muslims and transgender people.

According to the SPLC, there were 1,094 bias-related incidents involving “harassment and

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February 28, 2017

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Culture column

INSTEAD OF SOCIAL COMMENTARY, KIMMEL STICKS TO TIRED JOKES Ian Flanagan

Senior Staff Writer At the 2017 Academy Awards Sunday night, host Jimmy Kimmel used the Oscars stage to take digs at President Donald Trump — and occasionally to talk about this year’s nominees.

During the show, Kimmel — in his first gig at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles — spent the majority of his time wryly alluding to Trump and trying engage him in a social media battle.

At one point, Kimmel sarcastically trashtalked Meryl Streep before calling out a “totally undeserved round of applause” for her. The bit was presumably a response to Trump’s January tweet against Streep after she gave an antiTrump speech at the Golden Globes.

When Trump’s social media continued to be silent during the show’s first two hours of jabs and jokes, Kimmel even live-tweeted the president onstage.

“Hey @realDonaldTrump u up?” Kimmel tweeted. He followed up immediately with another tweet — “@realDonaldTrump #Merylsayshi.”

In a rare display of what might have been self-control, Trump didn’t take any of Kimmel’s bait.

Although Kimmel did a better job buoying the live entertainment than Justin Timberlake’s opening performance of “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” his messages of unity and punchlines about Trump felt less genuine than the continuation of his long-standing feud with Matt Damon. Early on, viewers heard an unavoidable joke about “The Great Wall,” followed by Kimmel teasing Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo.” Kimmel parodied the film in a bit introduced this year in which presenters discuss their favorite movies while reacting in a theater

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setting to certain scenes.

Kimmel’s monologue reached for the lowhanging fruit of political blows and cheap laughs, and his material took relatively little time to discuss the nominated films. The talk show host used the Oscars stage not to explore new material related to the people gathered in the room, but to recreate the monologues he regularly makes on his show.

Kimmel could have instead used the time to either discuss the films themselves, or to bring attention to issues within the Academy itself — like last year’s #oscarssowhite controversy, which Kimmel mentioned only in passing.

“Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?” Kimmel asked the audience.

Some of the winners did take their time in the spotlight to advocate for social and political issues and made bigger waves than Kimmel managed.

For instance, the leads of “Hidden Figures” brought out the real-life Katherine Johnson — portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in the film — as they presented the award for Best Documentary.

Then, Ezra Edelman — whose film “O.J.: Made in America” won Best Documentary — dedicated his award to victims of racial violence.

Similarly, director and two-time winner Asghar Farhadi — whose Iranian film “The Salesman” won Best Foreign Language Film this year — tweeted last month that he would boycott the Oscars following Trump’s travel ban. And he did. His absence from the show left viewers to consider the impact of anti Muslim sentiment, as well as the legislation Trump has rolled out in recent weeks.

A sharp change from last year’s #oscarssowhite debacle, two of the acting trophies went to black actors. Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the 2017 Academy Awards on Sunday. PHOTO VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

went to Viola Davis for her powerful performance in “Fences” as a struggling mother and wife in 1950s Pittsburgh. Davis gave a lengthy and emotional acceptance speech, mostly spoken through tears, akin to her own performance.

More subdued in reaction in his win, Best Actor in a Supporting Role went to Mahershala Ali for his memorable role as a father figure and drug dealer in “Moonlight.” Along with its surprise Best Picture win, the film also won Best Adapted Screenplay for three coveted awards.

These accolades were very much deserved, resulting from the hard work and talent of both Davis and Ali — but don’t get the Academy off the hook for the #oscarssowhite controversy.

The Academy’s results are intrinsically linked to the social state of Hollywood. Without diversity in the casting of films to begin with, there certainly won’t be any diversity on award nights.

The continued issue of underrepresentation of people of color Sunday night, then, can be traced directly back to the selections that Hollywood directors make when they’re choosing their cast and crew. If #oscarssowhite is ever going to be reversed, it has to start with

February 28, 2017

increased representation of minorities in all roles of film production.

This is a social justice topic that Kimmel could have touched on with more impact than his repeated soft blows at the presidency.

Ultimately, “Moonlight” deserved the three awards it came away with — including the win for Best Picture that was mistakenly and temporarily awarded to “La La Land” in an envelope mix up. “La La Land,” as a result, did not dominate the evening as expected following its record-tying 14 nominations. The film still received six wins, including Best Director for Damien Chazelle, making the 32-year-old the youngest director to win the award. As one of many splits between Best Director and Best Picture in recent years, this year has two of the strongest films you could hope would receive such attention.

While Kimmel’s jokes were topical, didn’t matter half as much as the socially and politically focused speeches of the winners.

Kimmel’s jokes also didn’t hit hard enough to send an actual message, relying instead on tired references to Trump’s Twitter presence.

Next year, maybe the Academy will find a host willing to breach new subject matter.

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Goldsmith, pg. 1 Westminster Choir College in 1975 with a master’s degree in conducting. He was also a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers and the male choral group Chanticleer.

After retiring from Pitt, Goldsmith re-

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERISTY OF PITTSBURGH MUSIC DEPARTMENT

ceived the Pennsylvania American Choral Directors Association’s Elaine Brown Award for Choral Excellence in 2015, which recognized him for his lifelong commitment to and excellence in music.

According to Adam VanGorder, a fifthyear senior who joined the choir in 2014, Goldsmith also started the High School Chamber Choir Festival to encourage high school students to come to Pitt and sing in the choir.

After Goldsmith’s death, students, alumni and community members gathered at a memorial in Heinz Chapel Friday. Each pew was completely filled as loved ones took turns telling stories of their friend, some bringing the crowd to laughter, others to tears.

The memorial was livestreamed on YouTube — though it’s since been removed — so that alumni who couldn’t attend could still take the time to remember their choir director.

Toward the end of the memorial, all of Goldsmith’s past students were invited to the front to join the choir for a final song.

Half of the people in the room rose from their seats and headed toward the altar.

Again, the choir sang together, just as they did a few days before Goldsmith’s

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quickly.”

Despite his talent as a director, Goldsmith kept rehearsals interesting and upbeat, according to Poost.

“He was a jokester,” Poost said. “He was the type of person who would crack a oneliner in the middle of rehearsal.”

Even choir members who knew Goldsmith for a short period of time said that he made a large impact on them, particularly since Goldsmith knew “every single person” in the choir, according to VanGorder.

“Everyone gave him the utmost respect and wanted to make him happy, because that’s what he commanded,” VanGorder said. “He didn’t have to try.”

Goldsmith’s dedication to his work and his students allowed him to craft a choir that included students with nontraditional musical education — causing Goldsmith’s impact to reach nearly as far as the countries his choir toured.

“People would get into HCC who couldn’t read music, and I didn’t understand that. But he could tell that they could sing and that they could hear music, and he was able to capture that and bring that out in them,” VanGorder said. “That’s something I’ve never encountered in any musician I’ve ever met.”

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death.

Brian Urbaniak, a fifth-year senior who joined the HCC as a first-year student and witnessed Goldsmith’s final directorial years, sang alongside three other members of the choir on that cold day in January.

“Him and [his wife] Elaine were just standing in the doorway, mouthing the words along,” Urbaniak said. “It seemed to really brighten his day.”

During his time as his director, Goldsmith took the HCC on tour around the world.

“He brought the choir to international fame,” VanGorder said. “They’ve gone on tours to Europe, Asia and South America.”

Urbaniak went on one of those tours in 2014 — a two-week tour through the Balkans Region, with stops in Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro. It was the first time Urbaniak had been to Europe, just as it was for most of the other choir members.

Stefan Poost, a fifth-year senior, joined the HCC as a sophomore during Goldsmith’s last year as director.

“That year was an especially powerful one, just because it was his last year,” Poost said. “It was kind of a special year. He was a very good director, I picked up on that

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Sports

Photos by Jordan Mondell CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

ROZELLE NIX: BIG MAN ON CAMPUS Known for his size and sense of humor, the junior center has become a standout on Pitt’s floundering team Kevin Bertha self to get in shape with help from his loved ones.

Staff Writer

After years of rigorous work on various courts, Rozelle Nix finally saw his dedication pay off this season.

Pitt trailed by five with seven minutes left in the game against the winningest coach of alltime, Mike Krzyzewski, and the No. 21 Duke Blue Devils. Sophomore guard Cameron Johnson missed a jumper, but Nix was there to pull down his third offensive rebound.

The redshirt junior center always wanted to play against the best Division I basketball teams, and it was finally happening—and he was actually succeeding.

“Playing inside Cameron Indoor Stadium was one of the greatest feelings I have ever had in my life,” Nix said. “It was surreal, I couldn’t really explain it. [I thought], ‘Wow, this is for real.’

My performance was like the ‘arrival’ of me. It showed that I could play with the big boys.”

Pitt went on to lose, 72-64, but Nix finished with seven points and five rebounds over 16 minutes in the home of one of college basketball’s most storied programs and most rabid fan bases.

Those aren’t exceptional numbers by any stretch, but the goofy, affable fan-favorite is a long way from where he was just two years before.

Slimming down The road to his breakout game against the iconic Duke program involved twists and turns and a great deal of hard work for him to make his way from Ohio to Florida and, finally, to Pittsburgh.

The hefty Nix struggled with a weight problem that followed him all the way to his graduation from Withrow High School in Cincinnati.

At one point, he was pushing 400 pounds, preventing him from receiving much interest from Division I programs.

Rather than quit the game, Nix pushed him-

pittnews.com

“My mom and great-grandparents...kept me motivated to do the right things every single day, like eating right, working out every single day and putting 100 percent into everything that I do,” Nix said. “I know it’s tough, it is really tough right now. We go on road trips and I have to discipline myself to eat salads and chicken.”

Pitt sophomore guard and Nix’s best friend Damon Wilson says “Big Ro” hasn’t stopped managing his weight since becoming a Panther, despite already having lost nearly 100 pounds.

“When we lived together last year, every day around 9 p.m. I would see him get up and go back to the gym to do more cardio,” Wilson said.

“Every night he would go to the gym by himself [in addition to his work with the team.]”

Nix attributes much of the grit and resilience that enables him to work so hard to the influence of his late great-grandparents.

“They raised me through my childhood,” Nix said. “My great-grandfather helped me out with the game, so I dedicated to them that I would never give up.”

Building bonds During the first two years of Nix’s college career at Pensacola State Junior College in Pensacola, Florida, he dedicated himself to improving his game and continuing to lose weight.

His hard work paid dividends, as he earned first-team All-Panhandle Conference honors following the 2014-2015 season.

His efforts eventually landed him a three-star ranking according to Rivals, announcing to the world that he had the ability to play at the top level of college basketball. Soon afterward, the offers started to trickle in.

Loyola Marymount University in Southern California and the University of South Carolina expressed interest in Nix, but he turned both schools down. Eventually, he decided to transfer to Pitt prior to the 2015-2016 season.

Nix was attracted to Pitt by the school’s proximity to his childhood home in Cincinnati.

“Pitt gives me the opportunity to play at the highest level and it is close to home, so I like it,” Nix said.

He’s formed deep friendships with many of his teammates but none closer than that with Wilson.

“I met Rozelle last year. We both came to Pitt at the same time, the same date. We played pickup together on the first day [at Pitt], too,” Wilson said. “My first impression was that he was big and goofy. And he acts just like me. He was cool, so we kicked it and became really close friends from the jump.”

A preseason foot injury forced Nix to redshirt in his first year at Pitt, but he continued to press on after his injury.

Nix’s penchant for hard work quickly en-

February 28, 2017

deared him to teammates like Wilson and senior forward Sheldon Jeter, and the junior college transfer had no problem fitting in with members of the team — most of whom had been scholarship players at Pitt from the start.

When he’s not hanging out with Jeter or Wilson after a practice or game, Nix is probably at home watching TV or playing NBA 2K. But he has another hobby that people might not picture for a man of his stature.

“Last month, we went go-karting,” Wilson said. “We were racing and I actually did something illegal — I hit his car and he started steering out of control. But until I did that, he was beating me the whole time. They had to pull some strings for him to fit in that go-kart, though.”

Everybody loves Rozelle In Durham, North Carolina, the Pitt Panthers felt the verbal blows Duke fans launched See Nix on page 9

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PITT EXTENDS FISHER’S CONTRACT AS COACH

Bayard Miller

Assistant Sports Editor Head volleyball coach Dan Fisher has restored the Panthers’ program to national prominence, and he’s being rewarded for his efforts.

Interim Athletic Director Randy Juhl announced Monday afternoon Pitt has extended Fisher’s contract for another two years. He is now signed on to stay with the Panthers through 2021.

Fisher started coaching at Pitt in 2013, assuming control over a team that hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2004. Since then, Fisher has led the team to a 92-38 record, three straight 20-win seasons and, finally, a return to the NCAA Tournament in 2016. The Panthers advanced to the second round of NCAAs this fall for the first time in 13 years.

“It is an honor to work at Pitt and continue the journey we started four years ago,” Fisher said Monday in a press release. “I am grateful to be at a place that supports volleyball and val-

Nix, pg. 8

ues what we have accomplished. Pittsburgh has become my home and I am excited about our future.”

Fisher has enjoyed success as a coach on the international stage as well, having led the U.S. women’s national team to a gold medal in the Pan-American Games in Toronto in 2015. The United States hadn’t won the top spot in that competition since 1967.

He then coached the team to a bronze medal finish at the 2016 Pan American Cup in the Dominican Republic last summer.

Before arriving at Pitt, Fisher steered Concordia University in Irvine, California, to the NAIA National Championship with an undefeated 38-0 season. Fisher dropped only two games in his two years at Concordia, both in his first year as head coach.

The Panthers will commence their spring season March 3. After two weeks of practice, the team will play four scrimmages. The schedule for these matchups will be released March 2.

their way. It was in this hostile environment that Nix finally got the chance he had waited so long for.

One person who was not surprised about Nix getting minutes was Wilson, who had seen his friend’s work ethic first-hand.

“I was happy for him,” Wilson said. “I was glad that he could actually prove what I know that he’s had inside him the whole time and actually show people what he can do. It wasn’t a shocker to me, but I’m pretty sure it was a shocker to everybody else. He seized the opportunity very well.”

Panthers fans might remember another powerful post presence who made the move from Pensacola to Pitt in the glory days of the early 2000s — graduate manager Ontario Lett.

Lett was a two-time first-team All-Panhandle selection in 2000 and 2001 before helping lead the Panthers to back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances in 2002 and 2003. He returned to Pensacola as an assistant coach in 2014-2015 for Nix’s sophomore season, overseeing his development into a Division I prospect.

“We all knew he had the ability. He just had to get his weight down,” Lett said. “[He] can re-

ally move for a big guy ... he just had to get in shape.”

Nix said Lett has played a big role in helping him rise from a junior college standout to a productive player in the ACC. “He helped me out with progressing to this level,” Nix said. “He helped me get better on the court. I think of him as a mentor.”

Nix knows he likely won’t play basketball forever, but the justice administration major has contingency plans.

“I would like to be a detective,” Nix said.

“My dad does security for famous rappers and I would be interested in that field as well.”

Currently an enforcer on the court and potentially one off of it in the future, the gentle giant has become a cult hero at the Petersen Events Center – where he has offered a reassuring presence during a disappointing season. The Oakland Zoo escalates into a frenzy every time Nix sheds his warmups and makes his way to the scorer’s table.

“It really motivates me when I’m in the game ... it gives me more adrenaline and more energy,” Nix said. “At first, I did not know I was going to become a fan favorite, but I really appreciate it ... all I do is go out there and play ball and be myself.”

The Pitt News SuDoku 2/28/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

pittnews.com

February 28, 2017

9

Bicycle Co-op, pg. 2 Most of the employees and volunteers at the Bike Cave, the name for the co-op space, come from the Bike Collective.

Located in a former locker under the Posvar pass-through, The Bike Cave will store tools and supplies for student bike repair access, and employees will respond to any questions that students have about maintenance, riding trips and biking in general.

Employees will work at the Bike Cave for four hours a night, three nights a week, with additional shop hours supported by volunteers.

Aside from monetary support from Intramurals and Recreation and SGB, the Collective also won $10,000 at Pitt’s Sustainable Solutions competition Feb. 7, to continue founding the co-op.

Sam Vescovi, assistant director of operations for the Department of Campus Recreation, agreed for the department to fund two student worker positions at the co-op, as well as all recurring expenses like brake pads and grease tools for the Bike Cave. Vescovi was motivated by the realization that there aren’t many bike repair shops close to campus.

“Most of the repair shops are located in East End neighborhoods and aren’t as accessible for many of our students,” Vescovi said. “The bike co-op will offer that opportunity to more of our students who may not have had the notion to travel to Free Ride or another location.”

Community and social involvement is another essential piece of the co-op mission. The Collective hosts breakfast and brunch rides every Sunday, and will partner with WPTS Radio in the future for its Radio Ride, which combines bike riding with charity.

While the co-op will meet many functional needs of cyclists in the Pitt community, it will also operate with the intention of making the biking scene safer for women and queer people, according to Bartel.

“Oftentimes, the bike scene is dominated by men,” Bartel said.

According to Dinh, it doesn’t make sense that ads and commercials sell the image of a “hip white dude on a bike” since low-income individuals and people of color use biking as a means of transportation more often.

pittnews.com

February 28, 2017

“It’s very intimidating for people to feel like they are a part of it — even if they do ride bikes — if they’re not white cis men,” Dinh said.

The Bike Collective hosted a Women and Queer Night bike ride at Free Ride on Nov. 23.

The co-op is forming in the midst of what some might dub a cyclist movement in Pittsburgh, where bike lanes are prominent in some neighborhoods and completely nonexistent in others.

A steady increase in bike fatalities over the years has motivated the Oakland community’s push for wider bike lanes.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has even advocated for more bike lane installation as an improvement on safety and economics in the long term.

Some community members disagree with this solution — believing that attention needs to be placed on speed control, a more immediate fix to the safety issues that occur from biking in Pittsburgh.

The most recent bike fatality on campus was in October 2015 when Susan Hicks, a long-time Pitt professor, died after she was fatally hit at the intersection of Bellefield and Forbes avenues while riding her bike.

Although several efforts have since been made to monitor driver-biker dynamics and create safer pathways of transportation — such as bike lanes and wider crosswalks — many people still do not feel comfortable coming to Oakland to bike.

“There’s a stigma that biking in Oakland isn’t very safe,” Sidney Ovial, a Pitt senior finance and business information systems major and the coordinator of the Pitt Green Fund, said.

Although there is still work to be done, the Pitt Bicycle Collective is making strides to develop a recreational and social foundation here at Pitt.

“With cycling, there’s a built-in community that comes with traveling by bike,” Bartel said. “As you ride more and more, you come to see that it’s a more engaging way to get around; you can identify with and connect more with people. That’s what gets me super excited about biking.”

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