Letters to the editor

Thank you, volunteers

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy would like to thank the Pitt … Thank you, volunteers

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy would like to thank the Pitt Student Volunteer Outreach Program for the successful launch of the Pitt Park Steward Program. More than 200 volunteers turned up in Schenley Park for a phenomenal cleanup. We had an unprecedented outpouring of hard work and dedication. The Schenley Park foreman, Bob Henke, said he had never seen anything like it.

A group made up of members of the baseball team and the football team cleaned off a Panther Hollow hillside. The results filled four 10-ton Public Works trucks. The Outdoors Club brought its rappelling skills to Pocussett Ravine, retrieving normally unreachable trash to fill several trucks. They plan to offer rappelling lessons to interested students at the upcoming clean-ups scheduled for Oct. 27 and Nov. 10. The remaining groups tackled grapevines in Panther Hollow, trash and bottles under the Coral Bridge behind the new Schenley Park Visitor Center and weeded and cleaned the Westinghouse Pond.

The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy is so grateful to the students, to Dr. Terrence Milani and to the Student Volunteer Outreach professionals for the job they did.

Thank you for a job well done.

Meg Cheever

President, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy

Homecoming coverage inadequate

Hi, my name is Nkemjika Ofodile. I was crowned the Homecoming Queen 2001 for Pitt this past Saturday. Today, which is Oct. 15, I expected to see a good-sized article on homecoming, the court, and the king and queen. Something elaborate enough to take 50 copies and mail them to family and friends.

But this was not to be so as all there was was a picture of the back of my head. I went into your offices and inquired as to why this was. I was told, by one of your editors, and I can’t quite remember her name, that all of you on the staff felt that homecoming had been covered quite accurately.

But I as well as many others beg to differ. You had one article on Friday, which covered everyone, not just the court. It was a candidate article. There have been articles in the past on those who made homecoming court, so therefore, it is not clear to me as to why not this year.

I feel as though there have been great accomplishments made within the minority community this past weekend, and yet, for some odd reason, your newspaper is making its best attempts to suppress that information from being completely released to the public, or even just those that might not have known. This is not just an issue that I have for myself, as I feel that you putting in the back of my head was unjust, but there could have been some type of picture of Penny in there.

The court could also have had pictures together as everyone on the field seemed to have been snapping away. One of those pictures had to have come out. The point is that your newspaper has taken some of the joy and prestige out of this event by refusing to put all of the pictures and the articles that should have been in the newspaper, and simply settling on what I guess is your view on how important this was: the back of my head.

Nkemjika Ofodile

CAS senior

Editor