This year, like most before it, has seen a lot of change – good and bad – here at Pitt. The… This year, like most before it, has seen a lot of change – good and bad – here at Pitt. The campus and world provided us with plenty of fodder to rant about, as well as some events to celebrate. Here’s a brief look back at some of the more memorable happenings of the past year.

We lost a parking lot, but gained some green space in Oakland. Schenley Park, which isn’t quite finished, looks like a promising place for students to congregate and enjoy the great urban outdoors – that is, if they let us on the grass.

We also said goodbye to another old friend in order to make way for more green space in Oakland – well, kind of. Pitt demolished a building that once served as a Burger King and constructed what we can best describe as cement benches. It’s not really the oasis everyone was hoping for, but at least it gives us somewhere to sit and admire the stunning views of, well, the Law School?

Pitt’s Biomedical Science Tower is finished, ending years of congestion around the site. The Bio-Medical Tower is a testament to Pitt’s dedication to research and the overall expansion of opportunities at the University.

Speaking of expansion, with the addition of Pennsylvania Hall and two more student residence halls, Pitt is offering undergraduate and now medical students more options than ever. Goodbye, Towers life – well, for some freshmen. The new residence hall being built next to Pennsylvania Hall will offer “Living-Learning” communities to sophomore students. We do question, however, the idea of encouraging cliquey communities of students to form. The third new residence hall that was just announced will accommodate medical students. This move will free up Ruskin Hall for undergraduates.

Pitt is getting bigger. Our admissions standards are continually increasing as the university becomes more and more attractive to students.

Pennsylvania’s witch hunt of liberal bias in state-funded universities brought hearings to Pitt in November. The investigation probed universities across the state to evaluate if political views held by educators affected students. While results of the inquiry will not be reported until this summer, freedom of speech is one of the most valuable assets we have in all facets of life, especially here at Pitt.

Student Government Board has given us plenty to talk about this year. We started off the year with a board that sent four of its members to a leadership conference in San Diego three weeks before the members left office. Former president Brian Kelly admitted that the conference wasn’t all that they had hoped it would be. The current board is striving for a higher level of accountability financially, and despite changing the allocations process, they are still left with less money than last year’s board going into the summer and fall. Elections moved online this year, which translated into a higher voter turnout.

Students took to the streets a few times this year for vastly different reasons. The Steelers’ victories in both the AFC Championship game and the Super Bowl brought students out of the bars and onto the streets. Rioting ensued and we have to say we’re impressed with the mobilization of the police – who knew the city still had mounted police? Still, the vandalism that resulted was nothing we should be proud of. The Steelers wouldn’t want us to flip cars, torch furniture and destroy public property in their name. And everyone who knocked over Pitt News boxes should be ashamed.

War protests also brought students to the streets this year. A major protest commemorating the third anniversary of the Iraq War and protests outside of the local Army Recruiting center didn’t really accomplish anything. It’s time to try something else.

With lots of change going on this year, it’s comforting to know some things won’t change: PeopleSoft still sucks.