By SHANNON O. WELLS

At its April 23 meeting in Posvar Hall, Senate Council heard accolades and updates from Staff Council and the introduction of a free speech- and First Amendment-based resolution by the Student Government Board (SGB). 

President Lindsay Rodzwicz said Staff Council congratulates "our student counterparts who are graduating this spring (and) to all those staff who are using their education benefits and graduating as well,” she said, thanking staff “who help to make those graduation celebrations possible.”

In other Staff Council news:

• Nominations for the Staff Council Endowed Book Fund Award and Staff Council Mentor Award are closed. Recipients will be notified in late May and recognized at the University Staff Recognition ceremony in June.

• Staff Life Committee encourages participation in the Digital Spring Cleaning Challenge. “It's interesting that stale data generates about 5.8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year,” she noted.

• The Staff Relations Committee is working on a mentoring program and formed a subcommittee for non-represented staff to discuss items pertaining to the “significant amount of staff who are not part of a union,” Rodzwicz noted.

• Members of Staff Council’s External Relations Committee helped plant the Laura Lovett Memorial Garden on campus in celebration of Earth Day on April 22. The pollinator garden is meant to honor Lovett, a former professor in the Dietrich School’s Department of History and its Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program who unexpectedly passed away in March 2025. The committee also is collaborating with the Open Lab at Hillman Library to make Staff Council buttons, stickers and magnets to promote membership visibility.

• The Operations Committee is updating internal bylaws regarding inactive status from Staff Council and educating membership regarding the internal attendance policy.

• A new staff accolades form on the Staff Council website is available to collect information on staff members’ and groups’ professional achievements “in order to amplify that achievement, service and leadership,” Rodzwicz said, noting those are being shared with the Office of the Chancellor, Pittwire and the University Times and found on the website.

• Staff Council’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee has worked to advocate for best practices and resources regarding religious accommodations in the workplace. The committee is collaborating with the Senate’s Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee to “explore an educational opportunity for faculty and staff,” focused on campus immigration enforcement concerns, for faculty and staff “to be aware of rights, awareness and preparedness.”

Upcoming Staff Council events include the Spring Assembly on May 27. This year's theme is “Navigating Change, Staying Grounded and Adapting to an Ever-Evolving Workplace.”

“It's going to focus on well-being, adaptability and growth through evolving technologies and shifting institutional needs,” Rodzwicz said.

Staff Council also is hosting the annual Campus Safety Crawl on May 5. “This is a safety walk that we've done a lot of years in the past with the Pitt Police, various Pitt offices and the Oakland community organizations to really identify any concerns about pedestrian, vehicular and bicycle safety issues across campus,” Rodzwicz said.

Pitt’s Kennywood Day will be on June 27, and the next Staff Council open meeting will be May 20.

Student Government Board report

In her report to Senate Council, outgoing SGB President Marley Pinsky detailed a resolution that was unanimously approved by both the board and its assembly of student organizations. The resolution focuses on advocacy around freedom of speech, expression and other First Amendment rights on campus.

“This resolution we have spent nearly the entire year working on,” Pinsky said, giving a “special shout-out” to Amnesty International at Pitt. The student organization of undergrads brought its “Firewall for Freedom Resolution” to SGB, which then “took on and added some Pitt-specific concerns” and divided it into two resolutions, the first of which Pinsky read during her December report.

The resolution includes a call for the University to affirm “its unwavering support for the protection of civil and human rights, freedom of expression, and academic freedom for all members of the University’s community.”

It also urges the the University to “actively resist external pressures that seek to restrict lawful

expression or limit access to education or diversity-related programs;” and to “preserve, support and protect such programs by ensuring sustained funding, adequate staffing, and protection from undue restriction;

Pinsky thanked Pitt administration for follow ups since the previous resolution, including “the more proactive attempts to engage the student body around federal updates that may be impacting day-to-day activities at the University,” she said, noting a desire to “restate a lot of these concerns and demands” on SGB’s behalf as well as the entire student body, to “ensure that they are efficiently on the record and continuing to be implemented and improved upon.”

The SGB, she added, is “looking forward” to speaking with the administration and continuing conversations around the resolution’s implementation. “We're always happy to share ideas and student perspectives as to how the University can demonstrate its support for culture-enforcement activity on campus.”

Responding to Pinsky’s words, Rodzwicz referenced Kanthak addressing the importance of shared governance during her monthly report.

“We had a recent concern brought to Staff Council about speaking freely in shared governance and how that could potentially affect the staff member’s position. Their volunteer work through shared governance is separate from their employment in some ways, but (that) dialogue could potentially have repercussions,” Rodzwicz said. “I appreciate your statement on free speech.”

In other SGB news, incoming president Evan Levasseur and vice president Neil Gupta, along with seven Executive Board members: Audrey Wang, Kylie Baker, Sofia Doval, Ella O'Rourke, Patrick Ryan, Nina Rivera and Andrew Gambino, will take office May 3.

“Serving as Student Government Board president has been incredibly fulfilling, and serving on this body in particular has been a very meaningful part of this role,” she said. “I want to thank you all for being so welcoming, listening carefully and for allowing this to be a space for students to participate meaningfully in shared governance.”

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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