Pitt chancellor: State funding still uncertain
State funding for the University of Pittsburgh is “still without a certain outcome,” top university officials said Friday.
“This has been a very intense and busy season, with a major effort to build support for our annual state appropriation request. We have now entered, so to speak, crunch time,” Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said at Friday’s board of trustees meeting, the first held in person since February 2020.
“They’re under very active legislative consideration, these bills, beforethe house and senate right now.”
After passing the state Senate earlier this week on a bipartisan basis,state house Republicans may have the votes this year to pull the university’s roughly $150 million in state funding, which provides discounted tuition for Pennsylvania students.
Conservative members have attacked Pitt’s fetal tissue research for years, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, and passed an outside audit last year.
Disapproval grew this year after former Chancellor Mark Nordenberg chaired the state’s redistricting panel, with a more competitive map eroding an advantage once held by Republicans.
Mr. Gallagher said, “We expect and hope the next week to be a productive time” in Harrisburg, with a looming end-of-month budget deadline fast approaching. He said approving the university’s own budget could be held up by the state funding uncertainty.
“While I do not know the final outcome of those deliberations, what I do know is that our community made its case. And I believe they made it extraordinarily well,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s a lawmaker in Harrisburg — frankly, I don’t think there’s a resident in the commonwealth — that can claim they did not hear about the vital role that state funding plays in supporting Pennsylvania students and their parents,” he added.
Amid the tumult, the university also marked a milestone on Friday when its board voted unanimously to confirm Douglas Browning as its next chair.
He is a 1972 political science graduate and principal with the independent consulting company DM Browning & Associates LLC.
Mr. Browning said that he was initially surprised when approached about leading the board but was excited to take the job and
“continue to make sure this institution provides kids with outstanding educational opportunities.”
He added that it is a privilege to be Pitt’s first Black board chair and wants to ensure that the university continues to have leaders who come from a variety of backgrounds.
“When you look across our institution as a whole, diversity is clearly one of those values that we’ve accepted, adopted and embraced,” Mr. Browning said. “So I’m glad to be [chair], but I’m hoping I’m not going to be the last one.”
As chair, Mr. Browning will anchor what he described Friday as a robust, national search process for Pitt’s next and 19th chancellor. Mr. Gallagher announced this spring that he plans to step down from his position next summer, after leading the university for the past nine years.
Mr. Browning said he will work to assemble a search committee by September and contract with a national search firm. Next will be identifying key attributes sought in the next chancellor, which he said would “take some time” and argued that “a shortcut at this critical stage could lower our chances of success.”
He said despite the challenges facing Pitt, including its state funding being in play, the university’s “brand” is intact and strong.
“The Pitt brand is really a good brand. I mean, this is a stellar research university,” he said. “The brand itself is going to attract the candidates. The obstacles associated with managing the brand are not going to scare people away.”
The goal is to be ready to “move quickly” this fall, Mr. Browning said, with the full board reviewing a “draft profile” at its next meeting later this year in September.
“This is aggressive, but it gives us the best chance to enter the market at the right time,” he said, “with the right committee and with the right search firm and the right process in place that will benefit from a robust engagement within the university’s many stakeholders.”