Gallagher’s last day is expected to be July 16. She was hired in April as Pitt’s 19th chancellor after a nationwide search. Gallagher is preparing to pass the baton to Joan Gabel, president of the University of Minnesota system and its Twin Cities campus. higher education, which other countries are spending billions to emulate, Gallagher said, “We’ve kind of lost our mojo, right? We’ve kind of started to question what we’re doing.” “Since World War II, we have enjoyed a nonpolitical, bipartisan, strong consensus that our universities play an incredibly important role, both individually by giving the students who go there a pathway to more opportunity and a better life, but also collectively that the engine of knowledge that these universities have created fuels our economy.”ĭespite the successes of U.S. “I think for me the most frustrating was the loss of confidence in the American system of higher education,” he said. Gallagher expressed frustration with what he said may be his biggest unresolved challenge - a problem not of Pitt’s making, but one his and other universities have failed to solve. “Pitt has really focused on being a university of impact and taking (on) its responsibilities as kind of an anchor for the region … whether that means reaching out and partnering with our neighborhoods or partnering with the local schools.” “I feel great about the university’s momentum and position,” said Gallagher, 60. It also completed a Life Sciences Building at Pitt-Greensburg and an engineering and information technologies hall at Pitt-Bradford. Meanwhile, on the construction front, Pitt has expanded the medical school’s Scaife Hall and is planning to build a $255 million recreation center and spend another $240 million on the Victory Heights athletic center project on its Oakland campus. Pitt now generates more than $1 billion in sponsored research annually - a record - and its $5.5 billion endowment is the nation’s 26th largest, according to the latest NACUBO-TIAA Study of College and University Endowments. In an interview with the Tribune-Review, Gallagher said enrollment - at least, on the main campus in Oakland - is rising even as Pitt becomes more selective, with record-high applicant numbers and an average incoming student grade-point average exceeding 4.1.īranch campuses at Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown and Titusville, though, saw average enrollment losses of 29% on Gallagher’s watch, part of a wider trend affecting regional public campuses. Now, with Gallagher’s tenure in its final days, Gallagher and others point to classroom, research and financial numbers suggesting that Pitt has largely weathered the storm. Then the covid-19 pandemic hit, shutting down campuses for months. When Patrick Gallagher became chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh in 2014, higher education institutions already were staring down falling enrollments and growing questions about the worth of a college degree.
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