University Times

Before attending his first Pitt Board of Trustees meeting in summer 1991, then-Chancellor-Elect J. Dennis O'Connor telephoned an administrator here to check on logistics for the visit. "By the way," O'Connor asked, "where do I park my white horse?" In his self-deprecating way, O'Connor was acknowledging the sky-high hopes that many people at Pitt had for him in the closing, scandal-ridden months of Wesley Posvar's administration. O'Connor pledged a new era of openness and accountability. He said he would oversee a decision-making system in which administrators shared power with faculty, staff and students. Pitt's medical center and the lower campus would be united "in a single, encompassing University of Pittsburgh." In a letter to the University community dated Aug. 1, 1991, his first day on the job, O'Connor wrote that Pitt had "an enormously talented faculty and student body" and that his job would be "to give them resources, to provide an atmosphere for discovery, and to facilitate their dreams." Some of those dreams were buried on a gray, drizzly afternoon this week when O'Connor issued another letter to the Pitt community. In this one, dated April 10, 1995, O'Connor ended months of rumors and speculation by announcing that he will resign at the end of the 1995-96 academic year — or sooner if a successor is found before then.

O'Connor, 53, declined all interviews this week. He said in a written statement that the decision "is one of mixed emotions of pride and sadness. Pitt is a remarkable university of international reputation and it is poised to ascend ever higher. I have been privileged to serve as its chancellor." The resignation followed increasing, privately expressed complaints by top Pitt trustees that the University's academic mission and fundraising have suffered under O'Connor. According to a Pitt administrator who spoke on condition of anonymity, board chairperson Farrell Rubenstein and J.W. Connolly, who will succeed Rubenstein in June, discussed the complaints with O'Connor during at least two meetings since March 24.

As recently as the last full Board of Trustees meeting on Feb. 16, the three men denied, in separate University Times interviews, that O'Connor planned to leave the chancellor's job voluntarily or otherwise.

In the University statement announcing O'Connor's resignation, Rubenstein said he accepted the resignation "with sincere regret," thanked O'Connor for his "significant contributions" and said he was pleased that O'Connor has agreed to remain as chancellor until a successor is named.

Connolly, in his written statement, thanked O'Connor on the board's behalf for his service to the University and pledged to move quickly to find a successor. "The primary challenge facing the board is to find an experienced leader who has the imagination and vision to move the University forward in the midst of a dramatically changed environment. I plan to seek input from people within and outside the University to determine the qualities they believe are essential in a new chancellor. In the near future, we will appoint a search committee to select that individual," Connolly said.

O'Connor will continue to receive his $221,500 annual salary until a new chancellor is hired, said Leon Haley, vice chancellor for Student and Public Affairs. O'Connor would then begin a one-year sabbatical, after which he could choose to return as a full-time faculty member in Pitt's biological sciences department, where he is a tenured professor, Haley said.

O'Connor's compensation during the sabbatical and as a professor would be set by the trustees' compensation committee and "would be consistent with the treatment of deans' and provosts' compensation when they return to professional status," Haley said in a written statement.

According to Haley, the conditions of O'Connor's post-chancellor sabbatical and salary agreement were spelled out "under a previous resolution approved by the compensation committee of the Board of Trustees in August 1994." However, that resolution covered an "involuntary termination" of O'Connor by the board, not a resignation. Haley said he could not explain the disparity, and neither Connolly nor Rubenstein returned phone calls this week from the University Times.

According to members of the Pitt community interviewed by the University Times, O'Connor will leave behind a mixed legacy. (See story beginning on page 1.) The University announcement of O'Connor's resignation cited numerous accomplishments during his administration, including: establishment of the new undergraduate College of Business Administration; launching of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (a joint research and training enterprise with Carnegie Mellon University) and a training program to educate Eastern Europe's first generation of free market economists and business persons; "the opening up of the University's budgeting process and the establishment of the University Planning and Budgeting Committee"; modernizing of several residence halls and upgrading of classrooms; improved campus access for the physically impaired; diversification of student food services; establishment of the Blue and Gold Society of undergraduate student leaders, and installation of lampposts around the Cathedral of Learning grounds, "adding elegance as well as enhanced security."

— Bruce Steele