Pitt trustees approve ambitious strategic plan
University of Pittsburgh trustees gave their stamp of approvalto a university-wide strategic plan that will aim to grow undergraduate enrollmentat the Oakland campus, lower student debt and reduce administrative costs, among other lofty goals.
Trustees unanimously approved the Plan for Pitt 2028 during Thursday’s board meeting after a presentation by Chancellor Joan Gabel.
Ms. Gabel joined the strategic planning process when she arrived at Pitt nearly a year ago.
After months of planning, the university will now launch its strategic plan with dozens of initiatives. Those initiatives fall under one of five categories: cultivating student success; propelling scholarship, creativity and innovation; being welcoming and engaged; promoting accountability and trust; and “it’s possible at Pitt.”
“There are some very unique and excellent assets at this university: Where we are, who we are and what we have the possibility of achieving,” Ms. Gabel told the board. “We need to be courageous about taking chances and naming them and acknowledging them, and then measuring whether they worked — holding ourselves accountable for taking the shots, but also recognizing that if we don’t take the shots that they won’t ever happen.”
During a February board meeting, Ms. Gabel said she ultimately hopes the plan will burnish Pitt’s reputation on the national stage.
In addition to big goals in enrollment, affordability and cost reduction, the university would also like to promote the free exchange of ideas on campus, expand research initiatives, serve as a national leader in life sciences, improve graduation rates and improve retention, among other objectives.
While some goals are flashier than others, Ms. Gabel said after the board meeting that each goal in the plan is equally important as the next.
“The pillars of the strategic plan are intersectional,” she said. “Some of them are a lot more administrative and may not get your heart pumping as much as the others, but they’re all equally important. If they are successful across the board, then all of the boats are going to rise.”
Members of the Pitt communitycan learn more about theuniversity’s intended outcomes and key initiatives at chancellor.pitt.edu. That website features a detailed progresscard where the community can track Pitt’s headway on its goals and learn more about how the universityplans to achieve different objectives.
“A progress card like this is a shift for us as an institution in the management and administration of the institution,” Ms. Gabel said during her presentation to the board. “It allows us to coalesce what we heard over the course of the transition in leadership [and] over the listening that we’ve done in the last year.”
In addition to approving the strategic plan, trustees also unanimously greenlit the election of Joseph J. McCarthy as provost and senior vice chancellor, and Phil Bakken as vice chancellor and secretary to the board of trustees.
Mr. McCarthy, who has worked at Pitt for more than 25 years, currently is interim provost. Mr. Bakken currently serves as chief of staff to the president at the University of Nebraska.