‘I Love Pitt Day’ celebrates University, met with pushback from student organization

 Students, faculty and staff commemorated “I Love Pitt Day” on Wednesday with games, free swag and a protest against the University outside the William Pitt Union. 

In addition to the University-affiliated departments that tabled throughout the day, the Fossil Free Pitt Coalition, a student-run organization that advocates for Pitt to divest its fossil fuel usage, also set up in the plaza. 

The majority of the day-long event focused on spreading school spirit, including free resources from the Counseling Center and basketball games hosted by Campus Recreation. Morgan Wilfong, a first-year communications major, enjoyed the festivities with her friends. 

“It’s bringing people together and showing our Pitt pride and showing our appreciation for the school we came to,” Wilfong said. 

Members of Fossil Free Pitt drew chalk messages on the ground around their table during this event specifically to counter the day’s “pro-Pitt” message with lesser-known information about the University’s use of fossil fuels, according to George Fritze, a senior chemistry major and member of the organization. 

“We really wanted to juxtapose the pro-Pitt message that they were putting out and expose the fact that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that people don’t know about,” Fritze said. “We wanted to get some publicity out there so people know more about us and recognize the danger there is in investing $450 million in fossil fuels.” 

While Fossil Free Pitt was tabling, University workers arrived with power-washers less than 10 minutes after the chalk drawings highlighting Pitt’s fossil fuel usage were finished and erased them. 

When asked for comment on the erasure of the chalk, University spokesperson Jared Stonesifer said, “While facilities management was readying the grounds for events in this area, a miscommunication occurred on chalking guidelines which led to this removal in error. We apologize for this and have reinforced guidelines with the facilities team to prevent this in the future.” 

Despite the pushback, Fritze said the event was a success for Fossil Free Pitt. 

“We’ve had a lot of good student responses and have gotten a lot of signatures for our petition,” Fritze said. “We’ve seen a lot of people who had never heard about us before, which is really the best kind of person we want to find.”