By SUSAN JONES
University leadership’s third online town hall since late April came with a reassurance from Chancellor Joan Gabel that there would be more.
“We're glad to do this as the administrative team, and we are guided by your curiosity,” Gabel said at the Aug. 13 event. “It'd be nice for things to be calm and quiet and predictable and for there to be no need for questions, but in real life we live in an environment of change. And so of course, if we think this is productive — and I certainly do — I'm very glad to try to find a way for us to pass along information in this cohesive way, and also to be completely open to the follow up questions.”
Here are some highlights from the town hall:
Enrollment: Both Gabel, Provost Joe McCarthy, and Dwayne Pinkney, executive senior vice chancellor for administration and finance and chief financial officer, highlighted the incoming first-year class, which is predicted to be the largest ever for Pitt. Pitt Arrival was prepared for 5,600 first-year students to move into residence halls this week, which is approximately 1,000 more than last year. The actual number won’t be known until the end of September.
“I know for some of you, that creates some anxiety in terms of workload,” Gabel said. “I want you to know that we've been working on that too, to meet (staff and faculty) needs so that we can meet (student) needs.”
McCarthy said his office took a “deep dive on the efficiency, the utilization of our classroom infrastructure,” and shared that information with the registrar's office and with all the deans.”
He also said they’ve been working very quickly, given the new hiring processes, to address hiring requests for both faculty and staff, “so that we are prepared to support this larger population. To that end, I do want to share with the group, we're going to be welcoming 300 new faculty members in the coming days across all of Pitts campuses.”
Because of the large number of incoming students, Pitt was forced to lease space at the Hampton Inn on Hamlet Street and two apartment buildings, for a total of 400 beds. In addition, Pitt added nearly 300 beds by converting some doubles to triples as well as triples to quads in Pitt-owned facilities, and using the recently reopened and renovated Franklin Apartments on Atwood Street.
Pinkney said the University is “exploring actively a number of alternatives that include new residence halls, but also other avenues to better use existing facilities and to partner with others to provide housing as we move forward with the goal of achieving an increase in 2,000 undergraduate students by 2028.”
He said that the solution is not just building new residence hall, although that’s an option. “We'll have to use existing spaces more efficiently, but we'll have to also partner with developers in the region, in the area in Oakland, who are providing housing. New housing units are coming online over the next couple of years, we'll need to structure arrangements and partnerships to make sure that we're providing space and beds for (Pitt students).”
Pitt finances: Pinkney noted that the Board of Trustees passed the University budget in July “in anticipation that we would receive the (state) appropriation at least equal to what we what we had last year.” The board did this “to provide certainty to students and families regarding tuition rates for the upcoming academic year.”
As of now, the state has not passed the 2025-26 budget or the funding for Pitt and the other state-related universities. “We remain hopeful that we will continue our nearly 60 year partnership with the state,” he said.
But even if those funds come through, there is still a need for fiscal caution, Pinkney said. The $3.2 billion Pitt budget for 2025-26 includes reductions for responsibility centers, with that money reallocated “to address the higher priorities consistent with the strategic plan and the mission of the institution.”
Responding to a follow-up question from the University Times, a Pitt spokesman said, “Each member of the Executive Budget Committee – this includes units that report to the offices of the Chancellor, Provost, Health Sciences and Finance and Operations – is being asked to examine its costs, reallocating budget dollars to ensure Pitt’s strategic goals are being met. Reallocations will need to be made at varying levels across units.”
Pinkney stressed at the town hall that each responsibility center can decide how it will meet their specific reduction goals. No specifics were given on how much those cuts would be.
Office of Institutional Engagement and Wellbeing: With the dissolution of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in July came the new Office of Institutional Engagement and Wellbeing. Clyde Pickett, the vice chancellor leading that office, said many people have expressed concern “that the work that you are doing has somehow been forgotten, or that it will be forgotten, or that vital campus services will go away. I want to assure you that that is not the case, so we will continue to prioritize that.”
He said the new office will “continue to center the work around integrity, success for all, how we prioritize fairness, to think about including everyone, and how access to education is and remains an imperative. … We are committed to being a University where all community members can succeed, where they can thrive, where they're welcome and where everyone has a chance to pursue excellence.”
Disability Resources and Services and sexual violence prevention education continue to be priorities in the new office, Pickett said. He highlighted the upcoming annual Campus Sexual Assault Awareness Month in September. Activities begin Sept. 5 with a resources fair on the William Pitt Union Plaza. Find details here.
Pickett said the work around civil rights — Title IX and Title VI — also is housed under Pitt Wellbeing. “I want to continue to emphasize that the University has zero tolerance for bias, harassment, discrimination and retaliation, and that includes incidents where someone could be targeted for their race or their color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, gender, or because they have a disability, or even because they're a veteran or a parent. We take those things very, very seriously.”
He encouraged anyone who witnesses bias to report it to Pitt Concern Connection.
As for the Institutional Engagement part of the office’s title, Pickett said they are continuing to work on how to “build successful strategies to look at community involvement and deepening connection within the campus.”
Research funding: Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research, said they continue to work with researchers whose grants have been terminated — 85 awards totaling $25 million.
“We've been directing faculty to our huge database of research funding opportunities, which is called Pivot,” he said. “Pivot tracks not just federal funding sources, but state funding sources, local funding sources, corporate funding sources, philanthropic funding sources. We have resources to help people dive into this data and look for alternatives.”
Pitt Research is also looking at how to take some of the research development training that they offer to smaller cohorts, like the annual Big Proposal Boot Camp class, and make it more available on a larger scale.
Rutenbar said he, Provost Joe McCarthy and Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for health sciences, are also “looking at a temporary funding program for researchers with terminated awards, and we hope to be in touch with relevant faculty as the details of that one get converged.” No other details were provided.
Read more about research funding in this related story.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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