Student Survives, RD’s leave, chancellors cruise

Pitt student is Ultimate Survivor

Jenna Morasca knows that it pays to be a swimsuit… Pitt student is Ultimate Survivor

Jenna Morasca knows that it pays to be a swimsuit model stuck in the Amazon.

The 22-year-old Pitt student beat 15 other competitors to win the million-dollar prize awarded to the ultimate survivor on the season finale of “Survivor: The Amazon” Sunday night.

A native of Bridgeville, Pa., majoring in zoology at Pitt’s College of General Studies, Morasca has modeled for Stuff Magazine and Maxim, and performs interviews for Pittsburgh’s local Fox Sports affiliate. She has competed in the Hawaiian Tropic and Venus beauty pageants and was the second runner-up in the Miss Pennsylvania USA beauty pageant.

Morasca, who lost nearly 20 pounds during the 39-day ordeal filmed last fall, announced on the CBS Early Show that she plans to use her prize money to pay off college loans and take her mom on a vacation. She said that, since returning to Pittsburgh in December after taping the show, she spent her time working out and enjoying chocolate to gain back the weight she lost in the Amazon.

Morasca’s love of chocolate became apparent to viewers in the seventh episode of the season, when she and fellow competitor Heidi Strobel stripped naked to earn a snack of chocolate and peanut butter.

The sixth season of “Survivor,” which featured sixteen contestants battling through obstacles in the Amazon wilderness, was recognized by many of the series’ fans as the best since the extreme game show premiered in the summer of 2000.

Three quarters of residential directors leaving Pitt

Six out of the eight residential directors in Pitt’s dorms have resigned for next year.

According to Alia Pustorino, the residential director for Brackenridge, Bruce and McCormick Halls, all six of the residential directors leaving Pitt have found jobs at other institutions. Pustorino, who received her master’s degree from Pitt this year, will leave in June, after working for a year as a residential director at Pitt.

Explaining that a high turnover rate is common among residential directors, she said many leave when they attain the degrees they are pursuing at Pitt or when they become married.

After combining Residence Life and the Office of Student Activities to form the Office of Student Life last summer, Pitt administrators worked at “harmonizing otherwise disparate components,” Pustorino said.

“It’s been a very interesting year,” Pustorino said, adding that she will continue to work in Residence Life at another local institution. “I think the transitions have impacted everyone.”

“I had a very good student-centered experience,” Pustorino said. “I really was fortunate to work with a very good group of students.”

Pitt administrators join top executives on luxury cruise

A 77,000-ton cruise ship set sail May 7 carrying hundreds of corporate leaders, executives from Fortune 1,000 companies – and the assistant and associate vice-chancellors of human resources at Pitt.

Each executives passage on the three-day cruise was paid for by vendor companies, which sent representatives to meet the executives and endorse their products in the intimate cruise environment, according to a report in USA Today. Richmond Events, a London-based company that regularly coordinates cruises for vendors and their top executive clients, organized the cruise.

-News briefs compiled by News Editor J. Elizabeth Strohm.