Looking Back - The '90s - and beyond

'90s brings Henderson - and Duquesne

Published 2/6/97

Point Park College continued some old-school traditions into the '90s, such as consecutive-year tuition increases and more alumni achievement. Also, long-anticipated campus additions were delayed, and in an ironic twist, coverage of national politics superseded that of United Student Government activity, which fell by the wayside.

The Globe almost failed to hit the stands during the fall of 1992, when the editor resigned when he found a full-time job with benefits. That would not have been so bad, had not the editor-elect faced opposition from the Publications Board when she wanted to print larger issues, but fewer of them. She quit only days after the editor left.

The small staff pulled together, and with an arsenal of articles and photos pertaining to that week's presidential election, they made the publication deadlines for the rest of the semester. Six of those folks eventually became editors-in-chief of The Globe.

More viewpoints appeared on the opinion pages of The Globe than in previous issues. Topics included President Clinton's crime bill, Lorena Bobbitt, Beavis and Butthead, and the national gang summit that took place in Pittsburgh during the spring of 1994.

During the '92 election, The Globe featured in-depth looks and commentary about each of the three presidential candidates: Bill Clinton, George Bush and Ross Perot. Previous issues only mentioned who had won the presidency or if a prominent public was in town for a special occasion.

After the election, coverage of the presidency continued to attain front-page status, primarily because education issues dealing with the restructuring of student loans and financial aid were at the forefront of Washington's agenda at the time.

The Globe was there when Vice President Al Gore made a visit to Pittsburgh. He gave a speech denouncing Republican plans to change the federal aid system in 1995.

That wasn't the end of Point Park and politics. Last summer, a handful of Point Park students attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and member of The Globe was there to document who was there and what they had to say.

Included was a photo spread of the event along with a firsthand account of what went on during the convention.

While national politics took the spotlight in The Globe, USG, suffering from a lack of student participation, gradually lost influence and was pronounced "dead" by Charles Quillin, dean of student development, in 1996.

The 1990s brought good time for Point Park alumni as well. Among those featured in The Globe were Jill Pergl, who took a leave from Point Park in 1994 in order to travel around Germany and appear in the musical "Starlight Express." Lee Wilkins, a '92 graduate, starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats."

In addition, former Globe sports editor and reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal, Michael Holley, contributed to a 1994 Pulitzer Prize for public service in a series called "A Question of Color," which featured the lives of blacks and whites in the Akron, Ohio, area.

In 1994, the Point Park Resource Center opened, along with the promise of opening another state-of-the-art learning facility called the Library Center.

Although Globe headlines first read "Library Center grant awaits Casey's signature," as the years passed, headlines changed to "The Library Center's waiting game" and "The center of our discontent."

Currently, the Library Center is scheduled to open April 27.

In 30 years, The Globe has grown by leaps and bounds as a student newspaper. From calling Vietnam protesters communists to attending presidential conventions, The Globe has become a Point Park fixture.

With current news events like the the Point Park/ Duquesne University alliance that almost took place last Fall and the newly chosen Dr. Katherine Henderson as Point Park's 6th president, there should be an interesting 30 more years to come, and The Globe will continue to chronicle every event along the way.

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