Opinions

Surprise! I just returned from presenting some of my research at a conference to a union busting email from the provost. One of my personal favorite lines: “The education, not the financial support, is the goal of graduate study.” Buckle up kids, if you can’t afford your medications, rent, food or childcare — take heart! […]

Dear Editor, I read the message from the provost, Patricia Beeson, about the graduate student union yesterday with some interest and reservations. My first concern, and I quote the provost’s message here, is when she says, it is “the education, not the financial support, is the goal of graduate study.” It is indeed true that […]

Since we still operate over the summer, many Pitt News editors and writers get the chance to spend their school-free months in Pittsburgh. And in our last print edition of the summer, we wanted to reflect on a trend we’ve noticed here year after year — we’re far lonelier in Oakland from May to August. […]

It’s a sweltering Friday evening in Oakland as I sit on my porch. I’m craving something sweet, creamy and icy. I pull up Google and dig into my recent searches — yes, this is a weekly occurrence — for “ice cream near me.” The options abound. I could pay $8 for a fancy, not-so-fantastic double […]

Fake news is like a bad game of telephone — one source reports their truth, then everyone else runs with it, imparting their own spin upon it. Serious problems arise when people get their news from just one source, because that source could be the last person in the line. And when the president gets […]

Since the Spanish claimed Puerto Rico for their own in 1493, the land saw independent rule from July 17 to July 25 1898. Eight days. The American invasion of Puerto Rico on July 25, 1898, changed the land, politics and people forever. And today, it’s for the worse. Puerto Rico is in serious economic distress, […]

At Penn State’s fraternity Beta Theta Pi’s Bid Night, on a cold February night in State College, Timothy Piazza fractured his skull and ruptured his spleen when he fell down a flight of stairs. His fraternity brothers called an ambulance nearly 12 hours later after slapping him, sitting on him and repeatedly punching him in […]

The Board of Trustees at Pitt has some serious power — by its own words, the Board “retains ultimate responsibility for all University affairs,” meaning its diversity is all the more important. Pitt appointed four new board members on June 30, three of whom are women. And while there’s still a lot of progress to […]

Regardless of what Sen. Pat Toomey may say, the new Senate health care bill does cut federal spending to Medicaid, and does so in a significant way. Medicaid is a federal program designed to provide health insurance to those who otherwise cannot afford it, and as of April 2017 nearly 75 million Americans were enrolled […]

“I mean, I voted, but why does it matter? London will never listen.” When I asked my new Scottish friend about the United Kingdom’s recent election, he responded with pure ambivalence. He truly cares about the issues at hand, but he, like many other Scots, has long struggled with misrepresentation in government. And this feeling […]