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April 2, 2015

Senior administrators discuss planning process

Also making brief presentations and taking questions from the audience at the March 19 Senate plenary session were Patricia E. Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor; Kathy Humphrey, senior vice chancellor for engagement and chief of staff; Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor, Health Sciences, and dean of the School of Medicine; Arthur Ramicone, senior vice chancellor and chief financial officer, and Jerome Richey, senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer.

Senior administrators address the March 19 Senate plenary session. From left: Patricia E. Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor; Kathy Humphrey, senior vice chancellor for engagement and chief of staff; Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor, Health Sciences, and dean of the School of Medicine; Arthur Ramicone, senior vice chancellor and chief financial officer, and Jerome Richey, senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer.

Senior administrators address the March 19 Senate plenary session. From left: Patricia E. Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor; Kathy Humphrey, senior vice chancellor for engagement and chief of staff; Arthur Levine, senior vice chancellor, Health Sciences, and dean of the School of Medicine; Arthur Ramicone, senior vice chancellor and chief financial officer, and Jerome Richey, senior vice chancellor and chief legal officer.

KATHY HUMPHREY

“I do believe that the framework that you have seen will provide every single person at the University an opportunity to engage in this process of making Pitt better, making Pitt an incredible place for the future,” Humphrey said.

She posed for consideration several questions with the potential for making the University greater:

In working with government:

“How can we become better partners with our legislators so we can eliminate this constant fear of diminishing support from the commonwealth?” Humphrey asked.

“How can we become a major, intentional economic driver for the region so that we can support the state and the city’s financial growth and security?

“And how can we make it easier for them to support our work by being seen as a real partner for them, as opposed to merely being seen just as a dependent that they have to supply?”

On Pitt’s service mission:

Pitt provides “incredible service,” but “we are not as strong because we are not as tactical with our delivery of that service.

“… We are finding that we do not have a sophisticated system that will allow us to collaborate easily with one another, knowing what we are doing as a system and as a University,” she said.

“How can we provide better service by creating systems that will encourage internal and external collaboration, affording us additional opportunities to work effectively and efficiently to drive service to our community and maybe even the greater world?”

Inspiring giving:

“How can we continue to tell our story in ways that will continue to ignite others to give, and ignite us to give and ignite people who have not thought about Pitt to give?” she asked. “How do we impress on our current student body the need to give back to their alma mater?”

How do we ensure that students’ experiences on campus motivate them to become permanent stewards of the University? Humphrey asked: “How do we continue to identify opportunities for our alumni, especially our young alumni, to engage in the totality of the institution?”

Sharing Pitt’s story:

“No one should be surprised by how good we are, but their visits to our campus should just confirm our story, confirm our excellence,” Humphrey said.

“How can we eliminate the notion that Pitt is the best-kept secret and how will we communicate better internally, externally, globally, nationally and locally?”

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ARTHUR LEVINE

Levine addressed the challenges facing the University’s medical research.

“The opportunities in science have never been more profound,” Levine said. “We have learned more about human biology in the last 25 years than in the entire history of science.”

At the same time, he said, “the support to address those opportunities is on the wane. Federal support for research has declined, and challenges in the health care industry may threaten UPMC’s ability to fund research, if clinical revenues decline.

“We’re joined at the hip” with UPMC, Levine said. “That leverage we always had for undertaking research has in fact been predicated on UPMC funding of the medical school and the other health science schools,” he said.

“The NIH doesn’t pay to build a research building, or to renovate a lab, often not to buy equipment and certainly not to give a startup package to a newly hired tenure-track assistant professor: All of that money has to come from institutional funds. And most of that money historically has come from UPMC,” Levine said.

“For the first time in this country’s modern history, we are being afflicted not only by diminished federal support for research but the possibility of diminished clinical revenue to provide leverage for the research that will ordinarily translate to increased federal funding. We need to work intimately with UPMC to address this double challenge.”

Partnerships, such as the new Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance with Carnegie Mellon and UPMC, provide opportunity and University research in drug discovery, vaccine development, medical devices and strategies for human engineering is of interest to industry, Levine said.

“It’s an interesting time because the pharmaceutical industry in particular and to some extent the biotechnology industry have their own struggles,” he said. “Most of the blockbuster drugs are going off patent in the next two years,” he noted, adding that it costs about $2 billion to develop a paradigm-shifting drug. “Industry has gotten smart and they realize that maybe they should leverage what we’re discovering and what we’re inventing in the university,” he said.

“We have a magnificent opportunity if we can exploit it adroitly, taking some risks, moving as rapidly as we can.”

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JEROME RICHEY

Richey discussed his role in leading a task force focused on streamlining internal processes and practices in the context of commercialization and innovation.

The group, with representatives from the Office of Research, the Office of Technology Management, Purchasing, and Risk and Compliance, has been meeting since January. He said progress is being made in areas including visitors agreements, professional services agreements and contract management systems, among others.

“The opportunity is here to make change,” Richey said. “There is some very real, very low-hanging fruit, where we can really make a difference within a short period of time if we’re committed to it and bring the resources to bear.”

For the necessary changes to be made, “we have to do it together,” Richey said. “A partnership is a two-way street.”

He noted there are inefficiencies on the business side of the University. “But it is also true that there are inefficiencies between the research units and the administrators within those units,” he said, encouraging individuals in those areas to ask themselves: “What can you do on your side of the equation to change and strengthen the partnership?”

Some touchstones to focus on include communication, improved technology, transparency, training and adequate staffing.

He outlined a simple process for implementing change: Meet with stakeholders. Listen to the stakeholders. Ask for their suggestions. Analyze the issue. Develop a plan. Review it with the stakeholders. Test it with the stakeholders. Implement the plan.

“How can we work together? What can we do together and how can you help the business units change — for your benefit?”

Richey requested input from the University community. “Let us know what your pain points are,” he said, inviting anyone with issues of concern to email him (jrichey@pitt.edu) or Tom Ogoreuc (ogoreuc@pitt.edu).

“There’s an opportunity here to make change. The business units desire to work with you to make change. We need your help to make change. If there’s something we can do to help you, please let us know.”

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ARTHUR RAMICONE

Ramicone discussed planning in the CFO areas, highlighting how the new priority on partnerships with external business and industry may affect how the University issues debt.

He said the strategic plan that’s being developed won’t necessarily require the CFO’s area to change the mechanics of the planning process, “but it will allow us to better align the plans with the overall direction of the University,” he said.

“Although we don’t know the final shape of the plan, we have heard a lot about how the University wants to partner with external entities and be proactive in bringing ideas and activities to the for-profit world to aid in economic development.

“As many faculty know, when outside parties want to use the University’s facilities for private business use, there are complicated restrictions in place if any part of that building has been financed by tax-exempt bonds —– that’s typically what we and the commonwealth issue,” he said.

“So, to eliminate those restrictions going forward, on new construction or renovations, the University would need to issue taxable bonds.

“That’s something that we’re currently exploring so that we are ready to go if necessary when the strategic plan is finalized,” said Ramicone. “Once that plan is available we’ll likely have other examples of how we can better align the CFO’s planning activities with the University’s priorities.”

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PATRICIA BEESON

Beeson said Pitt’s people, its mission and its strong culture of planning and assessment all have been instrumental in the University’s success.

“This culture of planning and assessment and one that we’re engaged in right now has allowed us to focus our efforts in ways that we can achieve so much more than we could if we were all individually acting in pursuit of our own private goals,” she said, reiterating, as Chancellor Gallagher has said, that the new initiatives being introduced “aren’t intended to completely replace what we’ve been doing that has been so successful. Instead, they’re intended to build upon a very strong foundation that we’ve already established.

“When we talk about initiatives — things like commercialization — we’re not talking about replacing our traditional values in terms of scholarly impact, our desire to advance knowledge and understanding. This is core to our mission,” Beeson said.

“Instead what we’re talking about is: Are there other ways we can have impact? Are there other things that we can be doing to enhance the effectiveness and impact of the University?

“This can’t be top-down,” she said. “We need the input from everyone across the schools and campuses to think about how we’re going to move forward.”

What does it mean when we say “excellence in education?” the provost asked. “What is it that we are striving for?

“We’ve built very strong educational programs. We want to advance them further. What does that look like at the University of Pittsburgh?” she asked.

“When we talk about scholarly impact, what does that mean for us moving forward? When we look back five years from now, 10 years from now, what are we going to see that’s going to tell us that we’re better, that we’re having a stronger impact than we were before?” Beeson asked.

“We’re going to need to continue to talk about how we can enhance the environment in which our students succeed and our faculty succeed. Within the academic units we need to continue to talk about how we’re going to be a better institution,” she said. “We need to take this planning process to say: How can we advance our educational programs? How can we advance our research? And how can we advance the impact we have on society?”

—Kimberly K. Barlow