Time for New Leadership

City Council Testimony
December 27, 2012

The time has come for new leadership at the University of Pittsburgh and the end of the University’s never-ending expansion in Oakland. The local media often use the abbreviated term “eds-meds” to describe the numerous educational and medical facilities that help fuel our economy. However, eds-meds-beds is an apt description for the University of Pittsburgh. The beds refer to the 8,000 dormitory beds the University has constructed in Oakland and their stated desire for even greater expansion.

As I have testified before, prior to the invocation of eminent domain on South Bouquet Street in 1967, there were approximately a dozen students and 210 long-time residents living on that street. Today there are over 700 students and only two long-time residents. Administrators at the University of Pittsburgh see nothing wrong with this kind of domination and deterioration of our community.

Is Oakland Avenue, where the University owns numerous properties, going to be the next South Bouquet Street? One executive with an Oakland professional organization is concerned that Pitt’s dormitory expansion may extend even further beyond Oakland Avenue to the area of Bates Street and the Boulevard of the Allies. He is also frustrated by the increasing number of students being enrolled at the University because of the resulting community impact. Oakland’s organizations are currently helpless to stop the University’s enrollment increases because of the University’s far-reaching influence throughout our city and state.

There is a fundamental principle in life, which says that the means to an end are more important than the end itself. The educational and medical fields play an important role in job growth and sustaining our local economy. However, did Dr. Thomas Starzl, a pioneer in liver transplants, as well as other doctors and researchers at the University, need to witness the near destruction of the culture and heritage of the community in order for them to accomplish their innovative work? Certainly not!

Martin Luther King Jr. once remarked: “Segregation is the burden of black people and the shame of America.” I would like to apply that to the current situation by saying, “Never-ending expansion is the burden of Oakland residents and the shame of the University of Pittsburgh.”

There are over 50 links on the website www.oaklanddignity.com that chronicle the efforts of our grassroots movement, whose mission is to create a new beginning for the community of Oakland. These efforts will continue until the domination of the University of Pittsburgh ends, and until the long-time residents of Oakland can live in an environment of freedom and dignity.

Carlino Giampolo

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Update: On June 28, 2013 Chancellor Mark Nordenberg announced that he is retiring on August 1, 2014. It is our hope that the chancellor will move his retirement date forward to the present.