By SHANNON O. WELLS

For a seasoned, passionate political scientist like Senate Council President Kris Kanthak, leading a shared governance meeting the day after a game-changing mid-term general election was a scenario made to order. 

Kanthak started her report to Faculty Assembly at its Nov. 4 meeting in Posvar Hall with a review of the previous night’s returns. They reflected a “blue wave” of Democratic Party victories across the country, most notably signifying a transition in the control of both the U.S. House and Senate. 

“Last night was what we in political science call ‘a big deal,’” she said. “We're still working through what it means for us personally and as a community. I've asked Vice Chancellor for Government Relations and Advocacy David Brown to join us at our next meeting to help us make sense of what it means for the University's ongoing advocacy.”

In other Senate news, the Senate Executive Committee has heard from many faculty and staff regarding issues associated with the content and implementation of the new University-wide general education requirements. 

“We've heard quite a few issues related to specific wording of the requirements, as well as to the speed with which work needs to be completed to meet a fall (implementation) deadline for the incoming class of 2031,” she said, noting the Senate is the official shared governance body for Pitt policies and procedures, including those associated with creating undergraduate general education requirements. 

“Earlier this academic year, Faculty Assembly created two new Senate committees tasked with overseeing shared governance on these University-wide requirements,” she added. 

Elections in the spring semester will select faculty representatives for those committees, with shared governance, staff, students and postdocs also choosing theirs. Those bodies will convene early in the 2027-28 academic year.

“It is not possible for the University Senate to weigh in on (requirements) until those bodies exist,” Kanthak noted. “In other words, I view any set of University-wide general education requirements as a placeholder until the University Senate can appropriately weigh in.”

The content of the requirements remains the purview of those Senate committees, which will “have the power to recommend changes as they see fit. To be clear, the imprimatur of shared governance is a critical component of compliance for many accreditation bodies,” she said. 

Noting that “smart people in the administration” have worked hard on a framework for these requirements for several years while being “inclusive in their processes,” she thinks it’s “fair to say that any faculty member who wanted to weigh in has had ample opportunity to do so.”

Kanthak acknowledged while it’s “certainly reasonable” to assume approval of official Senate mechanisms would “be a fait accompli,” it’s also possible that the general education requirements could be deployed in anticipation of Senate's approval … “But this is also not the only possible outcome.”

While those types of concerns typically are routed through the correct Senate committee, those do not yet exist. 

Given the “very high stakes associated with deploying a new set of general education requirements” prior to official shared governance approval, “we owe the administration a heads up.”

She encouraged anyone with questions or concerns about the general education requirements framework to inform the Senate Executive Committee or those working on the framework in the provost’s office. The executive committee, Kanthak noted, is passing along all comments they receive. 

“It is my hope that the current framework … will be able to account for all of those concerns appropriately, and approval next fall is indeed a fait accompli,” she said. “But faculty should also be reminded that this is not our last opportunity to have a bite at the apple. Again, this is a framework that will require ongoing approval via shared governance to have legitimacy.”

Regarding the “short time frame” for implementing changes before class of 2031 arrives next fall, “this is a heavy lift for staff … In my view, nothing will be set in stone until it has achieved Senate approval.”

Given that, she said there’s no reason to delay getting these preliminary decisions to appropriate staff as quickly as possible, so “they can implement the framework as it stands. They may need to be changed when shared governance mechanisms of the Senate begin their consideration in the fall. 

“Since no final approval is possible until then, staff should be able to begin this very heavy lift as soon as possible.”

Early retirement program

In other Senate news, Kanthak, who moderated a Town Hall webinar on Oct. 21that included several administrators from Chancellor Joan Gabel’s team, thanked those who submitted questions. 

“We received a lot of information about the state of the University, both financial and otherwise,” she said. “The big headline for most folks was the Voluntary Early Retirement Program (VERP). I know members of our community, both those who will take advantage of it and those who will remain, are concerned about this development. 

“We will continue to keep an eye on it,” she added, noting that she and Senate Council Vice President John Stoner are in conversations with the shared governance leadership of Pitt’s regional campuses about the new general education requirements “and other issues of shared interest.”

“It has become clear to us that a closer relationship among the shared governance bodies would be helpful. We are continuing to work on that, and I am thankful to John for his tireless work in the role of good cop,” she said.

Faculty Assembly was asked to name a faculty representative to a soon-to-be created Voluntary Early Retirement Claims Review committee. “And we've done that.”

Kanthak responded to a question about concerns surrounding VERP, noting that they “fall into a couple of buckets” including how VERP may or may not affect people within the Pitt union bargaining units. 

“The unions and administration have been very clear that both sides want to have that happen. It just hasn't happened yet, so we'll continue to keep an eye on that,” she said. “The other is concerns from faculty and staff about what it will mean to lose some of these people who play vital roles in the University. 

“Is that going to mean more work for more people, staff who are currently overworked being even more overworked? Those are things we just don't know yet,” Kanthak noted. “Again, we'll continue to collect information on that. We see that as the purview of shared governance in this body.”

Senate Council Vice President John Stoner added that some conversations are “about the unpredictable nature of it, where there could be a unit where every admin person is eligible, which happened during COVID, where the history department lost all of its administrators within about a month of one another,” he said. “So, that burden also falls potentially really disproportionately.”

Committees 

In other topics, Kanthak said the Senate Executive Committee met with Staff Council leadership in late October to discuss a “wide range” of shared-interest issues. “They remain an important and fun partner in shared governance.” 

In University Senate committee news:  

• The Senate Library Committee is checking in with the three administratively separate Pitt libraries: the University Library System, and the Barco Law and Health Sciences libraries to get overviews of how each operate, she noted. 
• The Computing and Information Technology (IT) Committee is considering a series of security operating standards related to University Information Security Policy AO 48. They include the ‘Internet of Things’ device operating standard that establishes requirements for securely connecting, using, maintaining and retiring such devices on PittNet.
• The Senate Research Committee heard an update from Senior Vice Chancellor for Research Rob Rutenbar on how Pitt is responding to federal research landscape changes and information requests from the federal government, Kanthak noted. 

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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