By SUSAN JONES
When the University Times publishes the latest list of Pitt retirees, there are always a few who get left out. Below find a few more who left the University in the first half of this year.
And get ready for an onslaught of departures of faculty and staff who decided to accept the retirement incentives Pitt announced in June.
David DeJong, vice chancellor for Human Resources, said of the 242 faculty members who were eligible for the retirement incentive, 60 decided to take the package, although they can change their minds up until the Aug. 31 deadline to retire. To qualify, faculty members had to be age 65 and older and have been at the University at least 10 years.
Of the 840 staff members eligible for the early retirement package, 482, or 57 percent, declared their interest. Of those, 238 have already signed an agreement to retire on Sept. 30. The rest have until the end of September to decide. DeJong said some staff members will be coming back as All-Temps to finish projects. Staff members had to be 59 or older as of May 1, 2020, with 10 years or more of continuous service as a full-time regular employee.
Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said in an interview with the University Times that the program “has met our expectations, in the sense that it will generate some opportunities, either to save, ... or to create some opportunities for staff who are here.”
“We didn't have a particular hard target,” Gallagher said. "As you know, it's a voluntary program, so where the vacancies happen isn't always where you need them to be. There's going to be some backfilling of positions that are essential, but that's just what happens in a volunteer program. But I've been overall pleased with the response of the faculty and staff sides of this program.”
Additional retirements from January to June
But before we figure out who is leaving Pitt now, let’s catch up on the people who retired from January to June.
German Barrionuevo (33 years, emeritus): Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry.
Salvatore Caito (23 years): Academic advisor in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences
Nicholas Cole (40 years, emeritus): Associate professor of English.
William Dunn (51 years): Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. His teaching and research interests include public policy analysis, philosophy and sociology of applied science, research design and methods, quantitative and qualitative (mixed) methods, and utilization of scientific and technical information by policymakers.
Maurine Greenwald (47 years, emeritus): Associate professor of History. Her teaching and research focus on modern American social history, U.S. working class history and U.S. women and gender.
Nancy Kasper (43 years): Department coordinator manager, part of staff support for the Social Sciences in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences.
Michael Kurpiewski (38 years): Research specialist II in the Department of Biological Sciences
Robert Noll (16 years): Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Psychology in the School of Medicine. His research has focused on psychosocial issues in pediatric oncology, notably documenting caregiver distress after children are initially diagnosed with cancer, and subsequently developing evidence-based interventions.
Deane Root (37 years, emeritus): Professor of Music. His field of study include American music, popular music, American musical theater and lexicography.
Michael Siegel (48 years, emeritus): Professor of Anthropology. He is a physical anthropologist interested in craniofacial biology, with a clinical specialty in cleft palate and other craniofacial anomalies.
Susan Williams (30+ years): Contracts and grants administrator in the School of Computing and Information.
— Susan Jones
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