Happy week four of classes, Pioneers! It is hard to believe that we are already one month into the semester. We hope you are all doing well in your classes and well mentally. A new month can bring a little boost to all of us, putting the struggles of the past month behind us.

To put it plainly, a lot has happened this month. Some very exciting announcements were made. On-ground full-time students will receive U-Passes for Pittsburgh Regional Transit in the fall, something that students and others have been advocating for several years. Also, Canvas will be replacing Schoology in the fall. 

However, some more difficult things have happened as of recent, like the resignation of university president Don Green and a shooting at the Wood St. T subway station. In terms of national news, there have been 39 mass shootings (as of Saturday) in 2023 so far, and another horrible instance of police brutality occurred, resulting in the death of Tyre Nichols. 

There are a few things that we would like to touch on. As a student-run and independent newspaper that employs students of this university, we assure you that we are doing everything we can to report university news and find out what truly happened with Don Green’s resignation. Unfortunately, we do have a right to not publish sources when they choose to be off the record, and that is something we stand by, as we want to establish as much credibility for this paper as possible. 

With that being said, we know as much as you do about this situation, which is the little information that was said in the email. We will have updates on this story as we receive them, but we also have to accept that we might never know what truly happened. If Don Green’s resignation was truly due to “private, personal, and family reasons,” then we need to respect his privacy. That does not mean, however, that we dismiss the university’s lack of communication and information on a pivotal systematic change. We will have updates on the presidential search as they arise.

Keep it up, Pioneers, and happy February!