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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
40°26′33″N 79°57′19″W / 40.442399°N 79.955303°W
David Lawrence Hall is a major academic building at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, where it serves as the school's largest lecture hall and auditorium facility.
Lawrence Hall was constructed on the site former Pittsburgh Board of Education's central warehouse and maintenance shop which was acquired by the university for $300,000.[1] Designed by Johnstone, McMillin & Associates,[2] it was completed in the spring of 1968 at a cost of $2.2 million.[3] Lawrence Hall was originally known as the Common Facilities Building,[4] and contains a large lecture hall that is typically divided into two parts and nine classrooms on two floors.[5] Lawrence Hall is used for social sciences classes and other disciplines across the school's curriculum.
In 1969, Lawrence Hall became the center of one of the largest student protests at Pitt during the late 1960s era when many student demonstrations were occurring around the world. A group calling itself the Concerned Students and Faulty attempted a three-day, round-the-clock fast in the lobby of the building to protest academic and administrative policies at the university, including demands to open access to all meetings and files and to abolish grade averages.[6][7] Reaching approximately 350 protesters, the group gradually diminished to slightly over half that size by the time the building officially closed. A court order obtained by the university chancellor Wesley Posvar led to a peaceable relocation at 4:30 am, approximately 16 hours after the beginning of the sit-in.[8] The approximately 70 remaining protesters moved to the ballroom of the William Pitt Union where some continued their protest. The protest had little effect, although some of the students promised more sit-ins and the group continued on, but soon after folded due to a lack of student interest.[6][9] The events did prompt Posvar to attempt to hold an open hearing in the Commons Facilities Building in the spring of 1970 in order to let students air their gripes and opinions. However, the meeting was lightly attended.[10]
On September 16, 1970, the building is named in honor of David L. Lawrence, a trustee of the university from 1945 until his death in 1966, who was also the first Catholic Governor of Pennsylvania and a mayor of Pittsburgh from 1946 to 1959 during Pittsburgh's first urban renewal program dubbed Renaissance I.[3]
The hall housed the largest auditorium on campus which originally seated 998 people and was generally divided into two large lecture classes.[11] Four of the first floor class rooms were also redesigned in 2013 in order to create better faculty-student interaction and a more collaborative learning space.[12][13] A $7.4 million renovation of David Lawrence Hall was undertaken in 2014. The main lecture hall was split into two separate lecture halls which were reopened in 2015 with improved acoustics and capacities of 571 and 332 each.[14] Three new 50-seat classrooms were added to the second floor mezzanine, and the main lobby was overhauled.[15]
Virgil Cantini's 1966 steel with bronze and glass sculpture Ode to Space sits outside the entrance to David Lawrence Hall. The sculpture contains the inscription, labore as astra or "to work toward the stars."[16] The sculpture, weighing one ton and standing 15 feet high, was anonymously donated to the university as a memorial to Chancellor Edward Litchfield, who died in a 1965 plane crash.[17]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
David Lawrence Hall is a major academic building at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, where it serves as the school's largest lecture hall and auditorium facility.
Edward Harold Litchfield (April 14, 1914 – March 8, 1968) was an American educator and the twelfth Chancellor (1956–1965) of the University of Pittsburgh. He is best known for a major expansion of the university, but also a failure to raise sufficient capital to fund such growth, eventually leading to his resignation in July 1965. He earned the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. He taught political science at Brown University for a year, then from 1942 to 1945 taught public administration at the University of Michigan and also was Deputy Director of the Michigan State Civil Service Commission. In 1945 he served as director, civilian affairs in the U.S. Military Government in Germany, where he participated in the reconstruction of the occupied country. In 1953 he was appointed second dean of Cornell University's School of Business and Public Administration. His selection as Dean of the Johnson School coincided with a change in school curriculum, designed to bring the program into closer ties with the business community. Litchfield was born in Detroit, Michigan. He died in a plane crash over Lake Michigan along with his wife, mother, two sons, and the pilot. He was a member of the Executive Board of the International Political Science Association. Litchfield Towers, a set of three high-rise student residence halls on the University of Pittsburgh campus, are named in his honor. Virgil Cantini's 1966 steel with bronze and glass sculpture Ode to Space was commissioned as a tribute to Litchfield after his death. It sits outside the entrance to David Lawrence Hall and contains the inscription, labore ad astra or "to work toward the stars." [1]
Acrisure Stadium, formerly (and still colloquially) known as Heinz Field, is a stadium located in the North Shore neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. It primarily serves as the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL) and the Pittsburgh Panthers of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The stadium opened in 2001 as Heinz Field, following the controlled implosion of the teams' previous home, Three Rivers Stadium. In 2021, the owners of the Heinz name, now owned by Kraft Heinz, declined to renew the stadium's naming rights. The City of Pittsburgh approved Acrisure's bid to purchase the rights in 2022. Funded in conjunction with PNC Park and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the $281 million (equivalent to $510.93 million in 2025) stadium stands along the Ohio River, on the North Side of Pittsburgh in the North Shore neighborhood. The stadium was designed with the city's history of steel production in mind, which led to the inclusion of 12,000 tons of steel into construction. Ground for the stadium was broken in June 1999, and the first football game was hosted in September 2001. The stadium's natural-grass surface has been criticized throughout its history, but Steelers owners have kept the grass after lobbying from players and coaches. The 68,400-seat stadium has sold out for most Steelers home games, a streak that dates to 1972. A collection of Steelers and Panthers memorabilia is in the Great Hall. The stadium has hosted two outdoor hockey games: the 2011 NHL Winter Classic between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals, and the 2017 NHL Stadium Series game between the Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. The venue has also hosted numerous concerts; on June 17, 2023, Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour performance was attended by 73,117 people, the highest-ticketed event in Pittsburgh history.
The Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science center in Berkeley, California that offers hands-on science exhibits, designs curriculum, aids professional development, and offers after school science resources to students of all ages. The Lawrence was established in 1968 in honor of physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901–1958), the University of California's first Nobel laureate. The center is located in the hills above the University of California, Berkeley campus, less than a mile uphill from the University's Botanical Garden.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
