Letters to the editor

Club Pittsburgh is a safe environment

In response to Bill Pewen’s Feb. 26 letter…

Club Pittsburgh is a safe environment

In response to Bill Pewen’s Feb. 26 letter (“Club Pittsburgh should not be promoted”), it seems he objects to Club Pittsburgh as an alternate venue for gay men to meet, socialize and, potentially, have intimate relations. Mr. Pewen should consider the alternatives – cruising Schenley Park, backrooms at adult bookstores, the Cathedral of Learning men’s room or picking up someone at a bar (with alcohol-impaired judgment) are familiar activities for many gay men. These venues provide no safe sex reminders or readily available condoms, not to mention the possibility of arrest.

Club Pittsburgh provides a safe, positive environment for gay men. STD education placards are posted in Club bathrooms, common areas and private rooms. Free condoms are available throughout. This is substantiated by our experience with the Allegheny County Health Department. ACHD has toured our facility, reviewed our safe sex promotions and had been providing free, biweekly STD screenings. They discontinued STD testing, however, because their findings showed no higher incidence of transmission at Club Pittsburgh than in the general population or bar scene crowd (at our request, they continue to provide free, anonymous HIV-only screenings).

Free condoms are available from Pitt’s Student Health Service and there are private rooms (i.e., dorms) on campus. Does Mr. Pewen consider these to be “negative messages”? I would bet that the prevalence of safe-sex reminders and the availability of condoms are greater at Club Pittsburgh than the Pitt campus. I would also suggest that more sex occurs on campus than at Club Pittsburgh.

Mr. Pewen is entitled to pursue life, liberty and happiness in his own way. Please allow our members these same freedoms. I invite Mr. Pewen to visit us so he can see firsthand our practices and policies, and to provide his professional input on ways to improve.

Peter Karlovich

Club Pittsburgh

Article omitted commuter directives

In the Feb. 27 article, “Classification for Snow Day Faulty,” staff writer Christian Schoening paraphrases a Nov. 7, 2002, University memorandum concerning Pitt’s policy on extreme weather with an important omission. While the memo does indicate that employees absent from work owing to an official declaration of State of Emergency “will not be required to use accrued vacation or personal days,” that provision applies when the employees “abide by … directives” associated with such a declaration. On Feb. 17, 2003, the Governor’s Office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issued a Proclamation of Disaster Emergency unaccompanied by commuter directives. Neither did City of Pittsburgh nor Allegheny County officials issue commuter directives prohibiting travel.

Consistent with University Policy, the University remained open on Feb. 17 to meet the needs of resident students. Although media announcements may have encouraged avoidance of travel, since neither state nor local officials prohibited it, employees of Pitt were expected to report to work in support of the range of out-of-class student needs. Of course, our policy urges employee discretion in deciding whether commuting to work is safe. When the University is open and an employee cannot report for work because of weather conditions – but public officials have not directed termination of travel – vacation and/or personal days are charged.

Robert Hill

University of Pittsburgh

Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs