By SUSAN JONES
The University’s fourth town hall with senior leadership once again touched on a variety of issues, both old and new, that have raised concerns at Pitt and in higher education in general.
There was plenty of good news, but also several issues of concern.
HAVE A QUESTION?
Pre-submitted questions that were not answered during the town hall will get an emailed response, Chancellor Joan Gabel said. New questions can be sent via pi.tt/octobertownhall, and also will get individual responses.
Dwayne Pinkney, executive senior vice chancellor for administration and finance, said with the lack of a state budget, which is more than 100 days overdue, “our cash flow has taken an approximately $50 million hit to date.”
On the federal side, the University has received all its research reimbursements to date, but there are no guarantees that those will continue if the government shutdown drags on.
Pinckney said Pitt will “continue to manage on a short term basis through prudent fiscal management so that we can meet the needs of our students, faculty and staff.”
Chancellor Joan Gabel led off the discussion by summarizing the University’s annual report, which she had presented to the Board of Trustees in late September. She emphasized the ways in which all areas of the University are upholding the different pillars of the Plan for Pitt.
“This is a reflection of your work, and we want you to see what’s going on and know that there’s a lot to be proud of and appreciate how this good work happens amidst the most interesting of times, to say the least,” the chancellor said.
She thanked everyone who tuned in for taking time out of their day, before turning the forum back over to Senate President Kris Kanthak, who posed questions to several senior Pitt leaders.
Research update
Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for health sciences, and Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research, gave updates on where Pitt’s research enterprise stands.
Shekhar said that at this point, “we are doing very well in terms of research productivity and research success. … We are getting the grants that we are expecting, our NIH funding and other federal funding has actually been higher than last year as we close this current year, … and more importantly, we’ve seen a 10% growth in new grant submissions as well.”
There are concerns about the current budget shutdown and “the future directions that are expected for federal agencies. … While we’re celebrating our current success, we’re also preparing for potential downturn in both funding availability as well as potential funding success,” he said.
Rutenbar delved more deeply into issues with the government shutdown. “The good news is that the impacts are quite modest on the day-to-day operations of the research enterprise. So far, all the necessary government agency websites continue to work. We have continued to submit research proposals successfully.
“Our advice to everybody thinking about proposals remains the same. Please do not assume any deadlines have changed because of the shutdown. If your funding agency expects you to submit something by a particular deadline, like a progress report, just do it.”
On the flip side, reviews of any submitted proposals and invoice reimbursements have been paused during the shutdown. The Office of Sponsored Programs “is always ready to assist if you have any questions,” Rutenbar said. Pitt Research also has created a webpage about the shutdown and agency specific contingency plans.
Rutenbar also addressed the status of terminated awards and appeals. He said there haven’t been a large number of new award terminations since the last town hall in August.
To date, Pitt has had:
97 awards terminated, with about $30 million in unspent funding lost.
35 appeals filed, with 10 denied. Several appealed awards have been reactivated, but it’s unclear if that was due to the appeals.
212 requests for award modifications received. “Most of those requests just ask the awardee to assert that the grant is in compliance with new federal guidelines,” Rutenbar said.
The Office of Sponsored Programs has been working with researchers impacted by the cancelations. In addition, Rutenbar’s office, along with Shekhar and Provost Joe McCarthy, were able to allocate a small amount of temporary replacement funds for faculty whose research was critically affected by award terminations, and they’ve been able to assist those who need supplemental funding to gracefully wind down their projects.
Lastly, Rutenbar talked about the status of indirect costs funding for research.
This summer, the CFO’s office negotiated a renewal of Pitt’s 59% indirects rate for the next three years. This is a process that all research universities go through every three to four years.
“We hope that we get to do business as usual going forward. So yeah, this is actually good news for us,” he said. “But I want to caution that it does not prevent the government from making downward adjustments or changes to how indirect cost recovery works across the nation. The Office of Management and Budget can still change these rules, which are called the uniform guidance.”
Rutenbar said the Joint Associations Group (JAG) is continuing to advocate to Congress for the new financial model it developed for indirects — called FAIR for financial accountability in research.
“Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is reported to be including language in the upcoming appropriations bill to require OMB to use this FAIR model,” he said. “Our hope is that the leadership of the House Appropriations Committee will also adopt this language, and this could move forward into the fiscal year 2026 budget legislation.”
But in the meantime, OMB is considering making changes to the uniform guidance that would reduce the negotiated rates, but put more line items into the direct side of research budgets.
“The magnitude of any potential downward change is not something we can estimate at this time,” Rutenbar said. “We continue to monitor and advocate here very actively,”
In addition, Pitt and other plaintiffs won their suit challenging the Department of Defense’s plan to set an indirect costs cap at 15%.
“This prevents the Department of Defense from going forward with that and allows us to not have to deal with that right now,” said Geovette Washington, Pitt’s chief legal officer. The DOD has 60 days to appeal the decision.
The case also addressed whether federal district courts could oversee these type of challenges or if they had to go to the Court of Federal Claims, which would mean starting the process all over again. The judge ruled the case could stay in district court, which “boasts very well for higher education institutions in case additional challenges need to be filed to protect our interest,” Washington said.
Provost’s update
Provost McCarthy’s report focused on changes to tenure and promotion processes and successes in student programs.
After discussions in shared governance and a request for proposals, Pitt has partnered with Interfolio as a platform for both hiring and document management for tenure and promotion. It is in a pilot phase now in a couple schools, and is planned to roll out to all next year.
McCarthy said his office also is expanding the scope of PACTAP (Provost Advisory Committee on Tenure and Promotion), which was created in 2021 to “make the promotion and tenure process more transparent to the faculty and be helpful in calibrating standards within the schools and campuses.” Originally, it only focused on promotions from associate to full professor within the tenure stream. This year, it will expand to all tenured promotions.
He also gave a shoutout to Pitt EDGE, the new online, hybrid and continuing center. This semester, they’ve launched an RN to BSN program with Pitt–Bradford and a continuous glucose monitoring training program.
In fall 2026, Pitt EDGE plans to launch an MSN in nurse practitioner with the School of Nursing, as well as an masters in infant and early childhood mental health through the School of Education, and a masters in management through the School of Business. Just last week, Pitt announced a a fully online upper division bachelor of science in health informatics through the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
“So really exciting that a number of different schools are getting involved in EDGE and really leveraging that expertise that we have,” McCarthy said.
On the student front, McCarthy shared some statistics on graduation and placement rates that he said he was very proud of:
Graduation rate on all campuses: 71% graduate within four years; 81% within six years.
Graduation rate for student-athletes: 94% graduation success rate, which set a record.
Undergraduate placement rates in job, grad school or military: 96% for the Oakland campus; 93% across all campuses; and 100% this year for the Bradford and Johnstown campuses. The national benchmark is 85%.
“It’s really fantastic to see that every one of our campuses is performing well above that benchmark, and frankly, has been doing so for a while now,” McCarthy said. “I wanted to share those because I think that those successes reflect on the dedication of our faculty, our staff, and, of course, the hard work of our students.”
McCarthy ended by putting in a plug for the Office of the Provost’s podcast, “where I get to share great stories from all of you across all of our campuses.” He encouraged anyone with podcast ideas to reach out to the office.
Office of Wellbeing
Clyde Pickett addressed some of the questions surrounding the office he heads — the newly created Office of Institutional Engagement and Wellbeing, which replaced the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in July.
“Our office remains steadfast on the focus of our core values, such as accessibility, belonging, trust and the need to include, the need to see, the need to support and to acknowledge all,” he said.
The office has been reaching out this semester to different areas at Pitt to share information about their work, through a series of face to face meetings and listening sessions. In the spring, they plan to have a series of dialogue sessions, with details coming later this semester.
In a meeting last week, Pickett said student leaders said they wanted more attention on how the office engages with social media. Now you can find @PittWellbeing on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
They’ve also recently created a newsletter. You can join the mailing list by emailing wellbeing@pitt.edu.
He said part of wellbeing is “to make sure that we include bias prevention and harassment response as part of our efforts.” He encouraged everyone to continue to report incidents of bias, and the office will continue to respond in the an appropriate manner.
“The University is fully committed to complying with all federal laws and protecting the rights of our students, faculty and staff to the fullest level,” Pickett said. “We know that there is no room for bias, harassment or discrimination at the University of Pittsburgh, and we will continue to create an environment that addresses those things, the protections for race, color, sex, gender, religion, parental status, veteran status and disability and other protected class statuses by law remain in place, and so we will continue to do our due diligence to address them.”
Pickett also highlighted some successes:
For the second year in a row, Pitt has been named a leading disability employer by the National Organization on Disability, one of only two universities nationwide to achieve that distinction.
The office will cap off National Disability Employment Month with the second annual Access Awards, which recognize employees who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to creating an accessible and welcoming campus for individuals with disabilities. The ceremony will take place Oct. 29 at the Thornberg Room in the Hillman library.
The Pitt Prevention team also has created its own Instagram page, find details at wellbeing.pitt.edu/prevention-pitt. The team held events in September to mark Sexual Misconduct Prevention Education Awareness Month, and in October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Other tidbits from the town hall
The Research Matters campaign that Pitt launched this summer now has 2.2 million impressions through social media and other channels, Kevin Washo, senior vice chancellor for external relations, said. If you’re interested in leveraging “Research Matters” social media assets in your communications, join the Research Matters Program Resources Microsoft Teams channel.
One of Pitt’s research projects at the McGowan Institute was selected by the AAU to highlight through a 30-second ad through its channels.
Pickett said that the employee resource groups, once call Pitt communities or affinity groups, continue to meet, although they’re no longer listed on the office’s website. They are open to everyone.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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