Student Newspaper Goes High Profile

A runner and cancer survivor. A legal graffiti artist. A political science assistant professor who predicted the result of the 2016 presidential election. These campus community members and more are featured in the fourth edition of Silhouettes — an all-profile, magazine-style special edition of the daily student newspaper, The Pitt News.

In a first, this year’s magazine also features a grand piano called Baldwin and a favorite neighborhood cat, Matisse — such non-human subjects had never been profiled before.

But equally impressive to the stories told and photographs captured is the team who put it all together, said news adviser and Department of English instructor Harry Kloman.

“It’s an enormous amount of work, along with daily publication and all of their classes — plus the occasional social life,” Kloman said. “It never occurs to them that Silhouettes isn’t a part of the newspaper now.” For its regular coverage, the newspaper’s staff has won many state and national awards this year.

Natalie Daher (A&S ’15), the 2014-15 Pitt News editor-in-chief who started Silhouettes, said the special issue was designed to be “an opportunity to illuminate the lives of people across campus who didn’t maybe fit the ‘typical college student’ mold. The people who might not have appeared in a promotional pamphlet for the University” but who all help to shape the place we know as Pitt, she said.

Creating Silhouettes

Fourth-year student and this year’s editor-in-chief, Ashwini Sivaganesh, said Silhouettes continues to be one of the most highly anticipated issues of the year, both for Pitt News staffers and for the University at large. Sivaganesh is expected to graduate with a degree in nonfiction writing and minors in political science and legal studies this April.

She estimated that a team of well over 100 people — from secondary sources to the printers — had a hand in publishing the 24 stories and photographs that made up the edition. Planning for this year’s issue began before winter break.

“The students really do this all on their own, turning to me when they need some advice,” said Kloman. “But this year, Ash and her team just flew with it. They hardly needed anything from me.”

Sivaganesh said it was a labor of love. “The group effort always shocks me. It’s amazing to see that many people so passionate about the work that they’re doing,” she said.

Last year, thanks to funding from the Office of the Provost's Year of Diversity initiative and support from the Student Government Board (SGB), The Pitt News was able to publish Silhouettes as a glossy magazine, rather than just online and in newsprint-style special editions. That presentation continued this year.

“We wanted to showcase the diversity of thoughts, backgrounds and stories that are part of the Pitt community by turning the annual Silhouettes into a nicer magazine,” said current SGB President Max Kneis, who is also set to graduate in April with a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting. “SGB was excited to fund once again due to the great reception.”

Kloman said he hopes the whole University community gives the issue a read. “The chancellor, the provost and the top deans need to see what our students do all on their own.”

“We’re lucky to be situated on an urban campus with so many different types of people. To see a profile-driven project continue to thrive editorially and financially is really remarkable,” said Daher. “I can’t wait to keep watching how future generations of students bring their own ideas for improvement, which is exactly how a project like Silhouettes should go,” she added.

Said Sivaganesh, “It’s definitely stories worth telling, and that’s kind of the whole point.”