By SUSAN JONES

Chancellor Joan Gabel led off a town hall webinar on April 30 by acknowledging the “intensity and pace” of what has been happening in higher education over the past three months — “less than a semester. It’s sort of hard to believe.”

There have been calls from some faculty and staff for more openness from Pitt’s administration about how the University is confronting the pressures on higher education from the federal government since the Trump administration took office in January.

The town hall was organized by the chancellor’s and provost’s offices, and Senate President Robin Kear acted as moderator. During the 75 minutes Zoom webinar, more than 1,600 people tuned in. There also are tentative plans to have another town hall this summer, but no date has been set.

The chancellor and several other senior leaders spoke during the town hall, which Gabel said was to “offer insight into how we’re responding to this moment, what’s happening as a result of this moment and what we’re actively doing.”

Key takeaways

• Dwayne Pinkney, executive senior vice chancellor for administration and finance, said his office is “exploring all viable alternatives to address and make sure that our operating expense and operating revenue are aligned,” but would not specify if the hiring freeze would continue past June 30 or if any early retirement packages are planned.

• Pitt has had 54 awards terminated out of an overall portfolio of roughly 6,000 active awards, said Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research. Modifications have been asked for on 59 other projects. Pitt is helping researchers work through appeals, when they are available.

• For Pitt Health Sciences, the grant terminations have amounted to about $30 million over the next three years, said Anantha Shekhar, senior vice chancellor for health sciences. And roughly $194 million is at risk over the next three years because the research possibly deals with topics not in line with Trump administration goals. The six schools of health sciences are looking at ways to reduce operating expenses by $120 million in the next two years, he said, including shrinking their space footprint.

• Chancellor Gabel said Pitt has been actively engaged with national organizations that are advocating for higher education, particularly the Association of American Universities, where she sits on the executive board. The AAU has created a campaign called “Break Throughs,” which highlights the scientific discoveries at America’s top research universities.

• Kevin Washo, senior vice chancellor for external relations, said Pitt leadership and others have been working hard to educate lawmakers about the importance of the research enterprise. Part of this is trying to identify allies in government, industry and organized labor.

• On civil rights and diversity programs, both Geovette Washington, chief legal officer, and Clyde Pickett, vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, were adamant that Pitt is following the laws and upholding its mission. “I want to be clear that we’ve always complied with existing civil rights law, and we’re going to make sure that we continue to do so going forward,” Washington said, noting that they are reviewing programs to make sure they are in compliance and “remain consistent with our mission.” Pickett emphasized that, “this is a fluid situation, so we shouldn’t make rush judgments in terms of what the impact will be, or for us to overextend quickly in terms of what our reactions will be.”

• Provost Joe McCarthy said the Office of International Services is constantly monitoring the status of international students, and he urged anyone with questions or concerns to reach out to OIS.

Pitt’s overall strategy

The first step Pitt’s administration took when the executive actions started in January was to track what was actually happening in Washington, D.C., Gabel said, “and what was rumored to be happening.”

“As soon as we really got some certainty around what was actually happening, we started advocating very actively, mostly face to face with elected officials, decision makers, the new agency heads, their advisors. … We’ve been very robustly telling the story about the value of what we do, all of the individual people who make up that aggregated impact, why our academic freedom and institutional autonomy is critical to our success” — often using examples provided by the Pitt community.

She said her strategy has been to lean into the national organizations that Pitt belongs to, “so that we are united and there are strengths in numbers.” Gabel is chair-elect of the Association of Public Land Grant Universities (APLU), a board member of the American Council on Education and on the executive board of the AAU.

The AAU has taken the lead on legal strategies, she said, with the help of other organizations, and Pitt has been a named declarant on some of that litigation. Gabel also signed a statement from the AAU board on “Meeting the Moment Facing America’s Research Universities.”

Gabel said there was an ad last week in Politico and the Wall Street Journal highlighting the AAU “Break Throughs” campaign. The national campaign also will have templates that each school can use locally.

There were a variety of other questions answered by Pitt’s senior leaders:

How does the university plan to publicly advocate for Pitt’s interests?

Washo said the advocacy has been in two different areas — the normal annual state budget process and uncertainty around the executive orders from the White House.

“There’s still a budget process that we have to be a part of,” he said. Pitt and other universities need to be prudent because of the “budget cuts and funding constraints that Congress is looking at.”

Trump’s federal budget plan released May 2 would end funding for TRIO, federal work study and other grant programs that support students on campus, as well as cut nearly $18 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $12 billion from the Education Department, and nearly $5 billion from the National Science Foundation. It also eliminates funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, AmeriCorps, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities. The plan would need approval from Congress to move forward.

Outside the budget process, Washo said Rob Rutenbar spent two weeks earlier this year trying to identify and talk to any potential legislative leader about why the research enterprises of Pitt and other universities are so vital and to explain the indirect costs process.

They’ve also tried to identify not only who are the key lawmakers, staff and decision makers in the administration, but also who have been friends in the past, in different organizations, industry and organized labor.

“What we’ve tried to do there is identify as diverse a group of stakeholders as humanly possible, to make sure that they can also help tell the impact of your stories,” Washo said. “Because in the end, it takes the University, of course, but also takes key partnerships to get anything done.”

In a meeting recently with department chairs in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, Washo said he was asked, “When push comes to shove, how aggressive will Pitt be?” He said that the battles over the state budget in the past several years are a good example.

During two particularly rough state budget cycles, he said, “We had the right team in place, we had our advocates, we had our allies, we had our message, and we waited for the right time to really unleash the power of Pitt and the people of Pitt. And we didn’t start off like that. We were very quiet in those campaigns, but we got to where we needed to go. … We’ve been battle tested in the past. I think Pitt has always shown when push came to shove, it’s the impacts and the stories that really matter.”

How is the University navigating the changes and directives from Washington from a legal standpoint?

Geovette Washington said her office has been closely involved in tracking the executive actions and other directives. She said of the 229 executive actions issued since Trump took office in January, 21 have had a direct implication for higher education.

Early on, this included eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, curtailing immigration and reducing funding for certain types of research. More recently, executive orders have included directing the secretary of education to deny, monitor, suspend or terminate accreditors of higher education institutions that required DEI efforts among their criteria, and another that asked the education secretary and the attorney general  to investigate if higher education institutions are complying with their obligations to report funding from foreign entities.

Washington said her office’s role is to “closely monitor these activities and to provide guidance on how to respond in a manner that allows the University to continue to fulfill its mission while also complying with applicable law.”

For instance, a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education in February put forth an interpretation of what nondiscrimination laws require. “It didn’t change the actual law, rather, told us what was going to be its priority going forward,” Washington said.

“We have been taking this opportunity to review our programs and initiatives to ensure that they are accurately reflecting our compliance, they remain consistent with our mission, and that our descriptions accurately reflect our practices.”

She said in order to make sure “we’re being consistent and that we are measured in our approach, we have undertaken a … review to assess the potential impacts of that guidance across our institution.”

They also have set up an email mailbox dclinquiry@pitt.edu where members of the Pitt community can raise questions regarding the impact of the Dear Colleague letter guidance. The chancellor also has established a small working group to review these items as they come in, and to make recommendations about whether or not a change is warranted and what that change could look like.

How is Pitt actively supporting our international scholars and students as many of the federal changes and directives have created an uncertain and stressful environment for them?

“First, I want to acknowledge how important our international community members are to the vibrancy of the University,” Provost McCarthy said. “And while, to be honest, it’s really hard for me to imagine the stress that they’re under, I sympathize, and we all want to do all that we can.”

He emphasized that the Office of Immigration Services, housed in the University Center for International Studies, is the best resources going forward for the impacted Pitt community members.

McCarthy said OIS has been closely monitoring all immigration related documents, and checking SEVIS records multiple times a day, even on weekends. “When OIS finds a record that’s been modified, they reach out immediately to set up a call. For enrolled students, they then notify the relevant academic department, and … they walk through the next steps, including recommending contact with an experienced immigration attorney.”

If you haven’t been contacted by OIS, then your SEVIS record is still active, he said. OIS also is proactively communicating with international students and scholars and has set up immigration lounges to share information. These will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays through July.

He said they’re also working on ideas for how to create individualized plans for students if they are forced to leave the University.

We have seen many federal changes and directives that affect the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and its work. How does Pitt plan to continue to uphold its commitments and values?

Clyde Pickett said they’re prioritizing conversations about how DEI is centered at Pitt and how to promote inclusive excellence. He said they’ve had outreach sessions to listen to the community’s concerns.

He stressed that “we were, we are, and we will remain compliant with all applicable laws. That includes the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the educational amendments of 1972, and we understand that those were emphasized and put in place for good reason. And we will continue to uphold them and do all we need to do.”

Many of these federal changes and directives are relevant to research. Can you please explain where things stand for the research enterprise and elaborate on the impact to the Pitt Health Sciences?

Rutenbar said that Pitt and other universities are impacted in two ways. First, the administration has identified topics that are now considered to be inconsistent with federal priorities and that they no longer want to invest research dollars in. Then there is a separate priority to dramatically reduce federal spending of all types, which includes research.

Although the terminated awards are less than 1% of Pitt’s research portfolio, Rutenbar said, “I recognize the impact is great for those faculty who have had their own awards terminated, this is roughly $27 million of future funding that is now not coming to Pitt.”

There also have been many leadership changes at federal agencies as well as dramatic staff cuts.

The Office of Research is doing several things to “help faculty in the face of all of these fast, moving and disorienting changes,” Rutenbar said. These include tracking changes on the Research website. They’re also posting guidance to help faculty work through any award terminations or requests for modifications, such as dealing with human subjects or community partners.

“We filed a bunch of appeals so far,” Rutenbar said. “Unfortunately, at this point, we don’t have any sense of their likelihood of success, and we don’t even have a sense of the time frame on which the sponsor might be making any appeals decisions.”

They also work “with researchers to connect them with school research leadership to determine if there are alternative sources of funding to continue that work at the school level.”

Rutenbar said he’s been in D.C. several times in the past three months as an advocate for Pitt and for the APLU, where he is chair-elect of the Council on Research.

Impact on Pitt health sciences

Shekhar said that while the grant terminations and potential loss of another $150 million in indirect costs are frightening, there’s no need for panic or draconian measures to cut costs.

“Our mission, which is really strong, is training the next generation of great scientists and healthcare providers and doing extraordinary biomedical research that provides next generation treatments and therapies and discoveries,” he said. “We’re completely committed to those missions, and that that is exactly what we will continue to support.”

To do that, “we’re approaching this as calm grownups,” he said, and looking at cost efficiencies, including reducing the space footprint and increasing the density of laboratories, finding alternative ways to support unfunded salaries of faculty, and also centralizing many activities. “We believe that with these activities across the health sciences, we will be able to reduce our operating expenses by $120 million in the next two years.”

They also are looking at increasing corporate- and philanthropy-supported research. In the last month, Pitt Health Sciences has announced new programs with Leidos on cancer research,  Vizzhy Inc. on an AI-driven health care platform, and Amazon Web Services on a data and AI tool.

“And most importantly, we want to support our people and make sure that we have a environment and an institution that welcomes all areas of research, supports all areas of research, and creates a path for both our faculty to fulfill their career goals, as well as training the next generations of doctors and dentists and pharmacists and nurses and biomedical researchers,” Shekhar said.

Many of the questions we were seeing in advance of today’s session focused on matters of finance and operations. Could you explain the potential financial impact of all of these executive orders on Pitt and what that would mean for employees and our financial outlook?

Pinkney said the planning for these challenges has been going on for months. Even without the pressure from the executive orders and federal funding cuts, Pitt and other higher education institutions have significant challenges regarding the impact of inflation on budgets.

“As we have already indicated, we will have to reduce our expenses,” Pinkney said. There have been some “good results” after his office sent out the directive on a hiring freeze and expense reductions across campus. “That work is intended to preserve some power for us to pivot and to also address new and emerging challenges.”

When asked how long might the hiring freeze will be, and what other tools might be in the tool kit to respond to potential financial isue, including potentially early retirement packages, Pinkney said they are “exploring all viable alternatives to address and make sure that our operating expense and operating revenue are aligned.”

“I am not, at this point in time, prepared to talk specifically about the mechanisms that we will use for the next fiscal year, but rest assured, everything’s on the table.”

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.

Follow the University Times on Twitter and Facebook.