University Times

Faculty and administrators processed in full academic regalia at the Feb. 24 honors convocation held in the Carnegie Music Hall.

Citing a litany of important historical events in the University’s history, Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg launched a 225th birthday celebration at the 36th annual honors convocation. The Feb. 24 convocation recognized faculty accomplishments; staff service; undergraduate, graduate and professional student academic achievement, and student leadership.

Dating back to the University’s 1787 founding by the forward-thinking teacher, chaplain and lawyer Hugh Henry Brackenridge, whose vision for Pittsburgh’s future was prescient, the history of Pitt has been one filled with accomplishments that have benefited humankind, Nordenberg said.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg

“When Mr. Brackenridge moved west from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh became a principal beneficiary,” the chancellor said. “In all that he did, Mr. Brackenridge was driven by an extraordinary vision for this region. When he viewed the modest settlement that had become his home, he said, ‘This town must in future time become a place of great manufactory. Indeed, the greatest on the continent or perhaps in the world.’ He further asserted that ‘the situation of the town of Pittsburgh is greatly to be chosen for a seat of learning.’”

Brackenridge also saw a strong link between higher education and regional prosperity that’s still  evident to this day, Nordenberg added.

Pitt-Bradford President Livingston Alexander, left, swaps stories with Bernard D. Goldstein, former dean of GSPH and recently minted professor emeritus of environmental and occupational health.

“Two hundred twenty-five years of history have taught us this about our founder: He was right about Pittsburgh becoming a center of manufacturing might. He was right about Pittsburgh becoming a center of higher learning. And he was right about educational excellence as a driver of economic prosperity,” the chancellor maintained.

He said the list of life-changing and lifesaving contributions made by Pitt faculty and alumni include:

• The launch of the first heavier-than-air flying machines;
• The first transmission of voice by radio waves;
• The invention of the cathode-ray systems essential to the TV industry;
• The development of the polio vaccine, hailed by some as one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century;
• The development of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and the founding of the discipline of critical care medicine;
• The discovery of quasars;
• The synthesis of insulin;
• The development of the science of magnetic resonance imaging;
• The determination that breast cancer is a systemic, not a local, disease;
• The development of the science of recombinant DNA, the foundation for countless medical advances and for much of this country’s biotechnology industry, and
• The development of most of the surgical techniques and drug therapies that have made organ transplantation a widely available treatment option.

Juan J. Manfredi, vice provost of Undergraduate Studies; Donald S. Burke, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), and Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, dean of the School of Nursing, chat before the Feb. 24 convocation.

A watershed moment in the life of the University came in 1966, Nordenberg noted, when, under of the sponsorship of Pitt School of Law alumnus K. Leroy Irvis, then-speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, a bill was enacted that made Pitt a state-related university.

“The resulting [commonwealth] appropriation helped position us to become one of the country’s top research universities. It also made it possible for us to annually provide tens of thousands of students with access to the highest-quality higher education at a reasonable cost,” Nordenberg said. “Pitt has far exceeded any reasonable expectations that might have existed in the mid-1960s.”

The University has granted nearly 290,000 degrees over its history. Since becoming state-related, Pitt has maintained tuition levels well below those assessed by comparable private universities. In addition, Pitt students regularly earn top national awards and alumni continue to garner national and international honors for their achievements, Nordenberg said.

“Just since the dawn of the new century, Pitt graduates have received such awards as the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the National Medal of Science, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Poetry, the Fritz Medal in Engineering and the Albany and Shaw prizes in medicine,” he said.

During the last decade, Pitt also has become a center of pioneering research, ranking among the top American universities in funding from the National Institutes of Health and in overall federal science and engineering research and development support, the chancellor noted.

“Our faculty continue to claim the highest honors across a broad range of disciplines. And since we became a state-related university, we have imported more than $10.5 billion of research support into the local economy, an amount that is almost unimaginable,” Nordenberg said.

Pitt lies at the heart of the regional “eds and meds supersector,” which now accounts for one-fifth of the region’s employment and has been the most significant source of regional job growth for the past 15 years, the chancellor said. “In that role, we have helped shield this region from the harshest results of both the Great Recession and the jobless recovery.”

Referring to Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposal to cut Pitt’s appropriation by 30 percent on the heels of a 20 percent reduction leveled in the previous fiscal year, Nordenberg said that all is not rosy with the economy and daunting challenges to the University’s success persist.

“With the record that Pitt has built, from distant years to present days, it is hard to imagine that we again find ourselves facing budget cuts — totaling well in excess of $100 million,” he said.

“Such cuts have the potential for particular damage to the greater good as we move deeper into the highly competitive, innovation-based global economy of the 21st century by slashing investments in the very institutions that are a primary source of our most modern innovation,” Nordenberg continued.

“Building the best possible future depends directly on two of our principal products — education and innovation. An approach to budget balancing built on deep and disproportionate cuts to public support for public research universities, then, does inevitably sacrifice the dreams of tomorrow. And, as a matter of history, such an approach can fairly be viewed as undermining much of what Brackenridge and Irvis and all who embraced their visions built,” Nordenberg maintained.

Brackenridge’s vision was founded in the belief that, independent of economic circumstances, Pennsylvania should continue to produce scholars and innovators of the highest order, Nordenberg said. “That same goal sits at the heart of our modern academic mission. In fact, it is our achievement of that goal, through the work of our honorees, that we have gathered to celebrate today,” he said.

“Everyone connected to this University is contributing to the development of human potential, to the enhancement of human knowledge, to the deepening of human understanding and, in a broad range of ways, to the advancement of the greater good,” the chancellor said. “This is a community of exceptional people, whether measured by the power of their brains, the strength of their character or the size of their hearts.

University Senate President Michael R. Pinsky addresses the 2012 honors convocation.

“Congratulations, happy 225th birthday and hail to Pitt!”

—Peter Hart