University Times

After 20 years as a Pitt fiscal administrator, Associate Vice Chancellor for Budget and Administration Rhonda Gross will leave Pitt to become Lehigh University's chief financial and administrative officer, effective Feb. 1.

Her title will be vice president for finance and administration.

"I really have mixed emotions about leaving Pitt, but this will be a job at a higher level," Gross said. "It's a better position for me, both professionally and financially. I wasn't looking (for a new job) at all. The search committee from Lehigh contacted me." Besides currently serving as a Pitt associate vice chancellor, Gross is vice president for finance and treasurer of the University of Pittsburgh Trust.

Gross's Pitt supervisor, Senior Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance Ben J. Tuchi, said a search committee will be formed to nominate candidates to succeed her. The goal is to begin the search while Gross is still on campus, Tuchi said.

He added that the job duties of some Business and Finance administrators, including Gross's successor, may be reconfigured. "Rhonda has been handling a large number of things because she's been here for such a long time," Tuchi said.

Lehigh president Peter Likins, in a press release announcing Gross's appointment, said Gross "has demonstrated at Pitt her capacity to deal with complex issues requiring both a keen mind and a stout heart. She's proven herself to be a team player." The co-chairpersons of Lehigh's vice presidential search committee — history department chairperson Roger D. Simon and trustee Karen Stuckey — said Gross was the committee's unanimous choice. She will succeed John W. Woltjen, who is retiring after 15 years at Lehigh.

Gross is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and earned an MBA from Northwestern University. She is a member of both the American and Pennsylvania Institutes of Certified Public Accountants.

— Bruce Steele