OT: Only at Pitt!

[Pitt_Boss]

Only at Pitt do they have a Penn State alum give the commencement speech! There isn't one Pitt man or Pitt woman accomplished enough to do this?!

I guess it's only fitting since we also put Penn Staters on the Board of Trustees. Do you think Penn St or WVU would have a Pitt person giver their commencement speech? We are the most clown university in the country, no sense of Pitt pride in the Pitt leadership, all a bunch of carpetbaggers.

'Magical': Pitt honors graduates at class of 2024 commencement

On a day that was supposed to be all smiles, boos punctuated the ring of cheers at Petersen Events Center on Sunday. For nearly 10 minutes at Pitt’s...

www.post-gazette.com

 

[303vND]

JUST DUMB - AND NO AWARENESS!!

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Only at Pitt do they have a Penn State alum give the commencement speech! There isn't one Pitt man or Pitt woman accomplished enough to do this?!

I guess it's only fitting since we also put Penn Staters on the Board of Trustees. Do you think Penn St or WVU would have a Pitt person giver their commencement speech? We are the most clown university in the country, no sense of Pitt pride in the Pitt leadership, all a bunch of carpetbaggers.

'Magical': Pitt honors graduates at class of 2024 commencement

On a day that was supposed to be all smiles, boos punctuated the ring of cheers at Petersen Events Center on Sunday. For nearly 10 minutes at Pitt’s...

www.post-gazette.com

There is some weird love that Pitt has for Penn State. You see it all the time as nearly every Pitt legacy football recruit goes to PSU. 130 other schools to choose from but they cant not go to Penn State. This is a guy who was on the PSU BOT.

 

[pierre93]

JUST DUMB - AND NO AWARENESS!!

Yes very dumb and that's why Pitt has been struggling for years in athletics. Inner fighting etc and everyone not on the same page. Can't decide if it's academics or athletics they want. H2P

 

[upj87]

Only at Pitt do they have a Penn State alum give the commencement speech! There isn't one Pitt man or Pitt woman accomplished enough to do this?!

I guess it's only fitting since we also put Penn Staters on the Board of Trustees. Do you think Penn St or WVU would have a Pitt person giver their commencement speech? We are the most clown university in the country, no sense of Pitt pride in the Pitt leadership, all a bunch of carpetbaggers.

'Magical': Pitt honors graduates at class of 2024 commencement

On a day that was supposed to be all smiles, boos punctuated the ring of cheers at Petersen Events Center on Sunday. For nearly 10 minutes at Pitt’s...

www.post-gazette.com

only thing worse would be Nitter Mark Singel (I know from experience)...

kids at Pitt now don't care about Penn State.. if it were Penn State alum Keegan-Michael Key up there they would be going nuts with elation.. Guy Bluford would be an excellent choice and should not be discarded from consideration because Joe Paterno was once an asshat, right?. The problem with this guy in their eyes is that he is now an evil oil man...

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

only thing worse would be Nitter Mark Singel (I know from experience)...

kids at Pitt now don't care about Penn State.. if it were Penn State alum Keegan-Michael Key up there they would be going nuts with elation.....the problem with this guy in their eyes is that he is now an evil oil man...

To be fair Keegan-Michael Key is awesome. And only has a grad degree from PSU.

 

[pittdan77]

I always found it curious that schools insist on having someone speak at these things. It's all BS and nobody really cares.

 

[upj87]

To be fair Keegan-Michael Key is awesome. And only has a grad degree from PSU.

and you nothing about this speaker and assume he is not....par for the course...

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

and you nothing about this speaker and assume he is not....par for the course...

Served on the PSU BOT while the football program was harboring a mass child rapist. That's enough for me to pick any of the other 8.1 billion humans to give the speech. Lots to pick from.

 

[Pitt_Boss]

I understand all the boos for this speaker weren't just because of his PSU affiliation but because of his lines of work. That just makes it doubly tone deaf that they thought this is who the young people of Pitt wanted to hear from on graduation day. But almost certainly they weren't even thinking of the students when selecting the speaker, they were thinking of whose ego they wanted to feed in the elitist club.

I just wish someone in Pitt's senior leadership/administration has a little Bo Schembechler in them.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Only at Pitt do they have a Penn State alum give the commencement speech! There isn't one Pitt man or Pitt woman accomplished enough to do this?!

I guess it's only fitting since we also put Penn Staters on the Board of Trustees. Do you think Penn St or WVU would have a Pitt person giver their commencement speech? We are the most clown university in the country, no sense of Pitt pride in the Pitt leadership, all a bunch of carpetbaggers.

'Magical': Pitt honors graduates at class of 2024 commencement

On a day that was supposed to be all smiles, boos punctuated the ring of cheers at Petersen Events Center on Sunday. For nearly 10 minutes at Pitt’s...

www.post-gazette.com

He's on the board of trustees and donated $1 million to Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health. If you give a million to Pitt, maybe they'll let you speak.

He was booed because he used to be president of Marathon Oil, before he was CEO of US Steel, so a certain group of students labeled him as an "Oil Tycoon" with blood of the planet's future on his hands. LMFAO.

 

[Pitt_Boss]

He's on the board of trustees and donated $1 million to Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health.

He was booed because he used to be president of Marathon Oil, before he was CEO of US Steel, so a certain group of students labeled him as an "Oil Tycoon" with blood of the planet's future on his hands. LMFAO.

Yeah this just reinforces that picking the speaker was not about who the students might want to hear from, but rather who in the elites need their ego stroked. Guess the commencement speaker seat is for sale at Pitt.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Yeah this just reinforces that picking the speaker was not about who the students might want to hear from, but rather who in the elites need their ego stroked. Guess the commencement speaker seat is for sale at Pitt.

As it should be.

This is also the guy that fired Paterno when he was vice chair of PSU's board. Needless to say, he's not well liked there.

He's also the chair of UPMC's board of directors and raises a bunch of money for Pitt's cancer institute.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I always found it curious that schools insist on having someone speak at these things. It's all BS and nobody really cares.

It's tradition. If Pitt was the only college in the country to not have a keynote speaker, you'd hear a lot louder complaints.

 

[Slick Manager of Champs]

This is also the guy that fired Paterno when he was vice chair of PSU's board. Needless to say, he's not well liked there.

He's also the chair of UPMC's board of directors and raises a bunch of money for Pitt's cancer institute.

yep, the only nitter with a brain when it came to handling the whole situation.

 

[CrazyPaco]

BTW, because Surma is the chairman of the board of trustees for UPMC, he is automatically granted a special trustee slot on Pitt's board. It has been a non-voting slot, and he wasn't elected by Pitt's board. However, they are transitioning it to a regular term trustee voting position over an unknown length of time. But the UPMC board chair will have a voting ex officio slot after the transition instead of just a non-voting special trustee.

 

[HailtoPitt]

He's on the board of trustees and donated $1 million to Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health. If you give a million to Pitt, maybe they'll let you speak.

He was booed because he used to be president of Marathon Oil, before he was CEO of US Steel, so a certain group of students labeled him as an "Oil Tycoon" with blood of the planet's future on his hands. LMFAO.

They aren't wrong. And $1 million is nothing for a large university these days.

 

[pittdan77]

It's tradition. If Pitt was the only college in the country to not have a keynote speaker, you'd hear a lot louder complaints.

No, I understand. Just usually a lot of fluff.

 

[cbpitt2]

I understand all the boos for this speaker weren't just because of his PSU affiliation but because of his lines of work. That just makes it doubly tone deaf that they thought this is who the young people of Pitt wanted to hear from on graduation day. But almost certainly they weren't even thinking of the students when selecting the speaker, they were thinking of whose ego they wanted to feed in the elitist club.

I just wish someone in Pitt's senior leadership/administration has a little Bo Schembechler in them.

You mean the guy that knew about and kept Dr. Anderson on staff to molest his son and hundreds of student athletes?

Schembechler knew of U-M doc's abuse, says son

A son of Bo Schembechler said the former Michigan football coach ignored him when he revealed that former team doctor Robert Anderson molested him during a physical exam in the 1960s.

www.espn.com

 

[CrazyPaco]

No, I understand. Just usually a lot of fluff.

Not usually, always.

Pitt's never really gone out and gotten really high profile people, unless they have a direct connect to Pitt like Dan Marino...which also means Pitt isn't wasting a ton of money on honoraria.

But giving out honorary degrees is a great way to cultivate additional support from someone deeply involved in the local philanthropy scene. His wife, btw, is a grad of Pitt's GSPH. He and his wife are also listed on the most recent donor roll recognition of annual Commons Room society members, which means a minimum of $100K in annual giving for that year (his $1m gift to renovate the GSPH facilities was back in 2012), so it seems he and his wife have consistently been big Pitt supporters.

 

[Pitt_Boss]

You mean the guy that knew about and kept Dr. Anderson on staff to molest his son and hundreds of student athletes?

Schembechler knew of U-M doc's abuse, says son

A son of Bo Schembechler said the former Michigan football coach ignored him when he revealed that former team doctor Robert Anderson molested him during a physical exam in the 1960s.

www.espn.com

In hindsight, he wished he'd done more

 

[Pitt_Boss]

Not usually, always.

Pitt's never really gone out and gotten really high profile people, unless they have a direct connect to Pitt like Dan Marino...which also means Pitt isn't wasting a ton of money on honoraria.

But giving out honorary degrees is a great way to cultivate additional support from someone deeply involved in the local philanthropy scene. His wife, btw, is a grad of Pitt's GSPH. He and his wife are also listed on the most recent donor roll recognition of annual Commons Room society members, which means a minimum of $100K in annual giving for that year (his $1m gift to renovate the GSPH facilities was back in 2012), so it seems he and his wife have consistently been big Pitt supporters.

You make some interesting points. If he will come out publicly and renounce his Nitter ways, I'll reconsider.

 

[Ray-Ray]

There is some weird love that Pitt has for Penn State. You see it all the time as nearly every Pitt legacy football recruit goes to PSU. 130 other schools to choose from but they cant not go to Penn State. This is a guy who was on the PSU BOT.

And he is the guy who publicly fired Joe Paterno. I remember his son/s left school at PSU due to ridicule from students there after that happened. I think they ended up at Pitt but could be wrong. I will give this guy a pass for publicly firing JoePa.

 

[CrazyPaco]

You make some interesting points. If he will come out publicly and renounce his Nitter ways, I'll reconsider.

Being the public face of firing Joe Paterno and then leaving their board, and then joining UPMC and Pitt's board, is pretty much the definition of publicly renouncing Nitter ways.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

And he is the guy who publicly fired Joe Paterno. I remember his son/s left school at PSU due to ridicule from students there after that happened. I think they ended up at Pitt but could be wrong. I will give this guy a pass for publicly firing JoePa.

I don't. Paterno harbored a child rapist. He should have gone to prison. Of course you fire him. I see this Shurma guy as part of that whole problem.

 

[Panthergrowl13]

So what.

Pitt has professors (Penn State grads) who now teach at Pitt and Penn State has professors (Pitt grads) who teach at Penn State.

HAIL TO PITT!!!!

 

[303vND]

Not usually, always.

Pitt's never really gone out and gotten really high profile people, unless they have a direct connect to Pitt like Dan Marino...which also means Pitt isn't wasting a ton of money on honoraria.

But giving out honorary degrees is a great way to cultivate additional support from someone deeply involved in the local philanthropy scene. His wife, btw, is a grad of Pitt's GSPH. He and his wife are also listed on the most recent donor roll recognition of annual Commons Room society members, which means a minimum of $100K in annual giving for that year (his $1m gift to renovate the GSPH facilities was back in 2012), so it seems he and his wife have consistently been big Pitt supporters.

Disagree, it's not always fluff. Some keynote speakers touch on real life situations and issues. They have a story to tell based on their journey and struggles - those are the people I would like to hear from irrespective of their university association. Not someone who puts down a few coins and get's on the dais.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Disagree, it's not always fluff. Some keynote speakers touch on real life situations and issues. They have a story to tell based on their journey and struggles - those are the people I would like to hear from irrespective of their university association. Not someone who puts down a few coins and get's on the dais.

They aren't TED talks.

 

[ChiefJusticeMarshall]

Only at Pitt. I have outlined this above, but it bears repeating.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Only at Pitt. I have outlined this above, but it bears repeating.

Who is the guy sitting next to Cal who was given a gift Arkansas hat?

I've said this before but Pitt fans have some weird like Stockholm Syndrome going on with rivals. Most Pitt alums love Penn State and make sure they send their kids there to play football. Now, Pitt boosters have become Arkansas fans.

 

[Slick Manager of Champs]

Who is the guy sitting next to Cal who was given a gift Arkansas hat?

I've said this before but Pitt fans have some weird like Stockholm Syndrome going on with rivals. Most Pitt alums love Penn State and make sure they send their kids there to play football. Now, Pitt boosters have become Arkansas fans.

remember there was a contingent that was strongly pushing for Bradley to be head coach back in the day.