By SUSAN JONES
After five years, Provost Ann Cudd will leave Pitt at the end of June and then have a month to move across the country to her new job as president of Portland State University in Oregon.
Right now, she’s “learning about that university while still making sure this university’s running along,” and helping to prepare for the transition when Joe McCarthy, currently vice provost for undergraduate studies, takes over as interim provost.
Cudd said she was pleased that Chancellor Patrick Gallagher chose McCarthy as the interim. “He’s so familiar with everything,” she said. “We are such a collaborative team in the Office of the Provost that he’s very familiar with what everybody does.”
Prior to McCarthy being named to the job, he contributed to an internal document that gives an overview of every functional area in the provost’s office. “He said, ‘My goodness, it turned out to be a long document,’ ” Cudd said. “Yes, there’s a lot that goes on here.”
Cudd sat down with the University Times last week to talk about her time at Pitt. (Answers have been edited for length and clarity.)
University Times: What do you think has been the biggest change at Pitt during your five years as provost?
Cudd: The biggest change that I’ve been a part of, really, has to be the change in the financial aid structure with Pitt Success.
But we’ve been through a pandemic that has created a different way of working — more flexible work hours, more hybrid meetings, things like that. We’ve changed our learning management system, which is, I think, a wonderful, great change. And then there have been a number of leadership changes in the schools and the campuses.
UTimes: What do you think is your biggest accomplishment during your time here?
Cudd: Doing the Pitt Success has been a big accomplishment — the Provost Academy was part of that as well — and what that’s meant is more doors of opportunity for low-income students, and it’s meant more diversity in our student body. It’s meant better retention rates and graduation rates, and it’s lowered student debt. Those are all the kinds of things that I really think are so important for higher education to address. I prioritized that at the top of my list, and I think we’ve really accomplished a lot in that way. And what we’ve also proven, I think, through that is that there is such a thing as inclusive excellence and that has been our aim. I know there were people concerned that focusing on unmet financial need for scholarships means that you’re backing off of excellence? And that’s absolutely not the case. In fact, you’re building a larger pool of potential contributors to your community by opening up the possibility for a larger group of people to be able to afford a great Pitt education.
The other thing that I didn’t mention that I think also is a very important complement to that is the faculty hiring initiatives — the Latinx and the Race and Social Determinants of Equity, Health and Well-being cluster hires.
UTimes: What do you think the biggest challenge is for the next provost?
Cudd: I think there are some of the same challenges that have become even more intense in some ways. Recruiting students is always a competitive environment. We’ve been doing great in terms of applications and enrollment — high quality students from all walks of life. But maintaining that is always difficult. And there’s a national trend right now of lower-income students not going to college. That hasn’t affected the Pittsburgh campus, but that has definitely affected the regional campuses. I think the strategy for the regional campuses going forward is going to be tricky. That is really huge. Those are really important anchor institutions in their communities.
UTimes: Why do you think Pitt has not been hit by the the application and enrollment problems that so many other schools are facing?
Cudd: It seems like higher education is kind of bifurcated now, with the flagships and the top research universities and the elites on one side, and regional public universities, community colleges kind of on the other side. There’s a pretty sharp divide. I think students are really clear about the ROI (return on investment) for (the top universities).
And somehow the demographic of students that would be normally appealed to by the regional public universities and the community colleges are less certainly of the ROI for a number of reasons. One, if you’re lower income, it’s a lot riskier to take that bet, because if you take out a big loan and don’t graduate, you’re probably worse off than if you hadn’t gone to college at all. It’s still a big payoff, if you do graduate.
This group — the flagships and research universities and elites — has much higher graduation rates. So if you can get in there, and if you can pay for it somehow, then you’re probably going to do really well. We’re in that group, we’re very solidly in that group. Pitt is thriving, there’s no question on the Pittsburgh campus.
I’d say the regionals fall in this other group. They offer also great personalized education, small campuses. But they do have lower retention and graduation rates and more low-income students who are more vulnerable to dropping out.
UTimes: Does Portland State have regionals?
Cudd: It is regional. It is an urban-serving university but it is really more in that category. The demographic of students is more than 50 percent (around 62 percent) Pell-eligible students. And 80 percent are in-state. Whereas Oregon’s other two big universities — Oregon and Oregon State — they’re more than 50 percent out-of-state students and probably 15 percent Pell eligible.
UTimes: You went to school here in the 1980s (Cudd received masters in economics and philosophy and a Ph.D. in philosophy at Pitt).What has surprised you the most about Pitt since your return here?
Cudd: I was very focused on just two departments when I was here. And so one thing that I’ve learned about is the breadth of opportunities that that we offer and the breadth of excellence across so many different schools. I probably didn’t ever give a thought to physical therapy, because I never got injured in grad school. But it’s number one in the country.
I think Katz during that time didn’t have an undergraduate program, so that changed a lot. Now, we have a very large population of students in the business school, it’s really thriving in terms of applications.
But it looks a lot same. I think maybe the Syria Mosque was removed. But a lot of the character is the same. The Schenley Plaza replaced an ugly parking lot, and I’ve always appreciated that. It’s a beautiful space.
UTimes: During your time as provost, is there anything that sticks out as something you didn’t realize was going to be part of the job?
Cudd: I think I was pretty familiar with what the job was going to be, given how I came up through both the dean line and the vice provost line. But of course, the provost job is different everywhere.
I think the things that I’ve been introduced to are crisis management, what it’s like to be on the senior leadership team when your university is facing a major crisis. Of course, the pandemic taught us that, and unfortunately, Tree of Life also taught us about that, and even some of these protests that have gotten a little bit out of hand taught us about that.
The importance of having a coordinated communications plan, I think is the thing I’ve really learned a lot, from Louise (Sciannameo, associate provost for strategic communications) and from the central communications team as well. And how challenging it is in a big organization like this, to ensure that internal communications go well. That it’s not just a game of telephone, and that’s harder than it looks. I guess. The game of telephone is harder than it looks. That’s actually a really good lesson. I’m going to take that to Portland State. The possibility of misinformation or just messages getting skewed is so easy. I guess that’s one of the things that I’ve learned and how to try to counteract that. The importance of staying on message just so that it’s clear to people what it is we’re trying to do.
UTimes: With all the leadership turnover here, do you think that’s a problem for Pitt or is it just a natural progression?
Cudd: I think it’s a natural progression. The chancellor’s been here nine years; I’ve been here five years. I think that’s pretty natural. I think the community is dealing with it pretty well. And it feels like we’re in good hands. And we’re not running out the door. The chancellor gave us a lot of notice, a lot of preparation was done. It gave the new chancellor a chance to wind things up where she is and also to start making a transition in an orderly way. And I feel like that’s been true for the provost transition as well.
UTimes: Have you had any dealings with the incoming chancellor? Do you think she’s the right person for the job?
Cudd: Absolutely. I’m really excited for the community. I think it’s great we’re going to have our first woman chancellor. I’m glad we’re not on the list (in a recent article) talking about how many more women chancellors and presidents have been hired this year, and yet still, there’s like 25 percent that have never had a woman in their whole history. So I think that’s a great feature of the new chancellor. And I think she has great experience, top level. She really checks all the boxes in terms of dean, provost, president and now chancellor. I’m excited, and she’s the mother of a student here. That’s pretty cool.
She’s approaching things in a very deliberate way. I’ve been very impressed by her thoughtfulness about thinking through transition issues. And she’s also helped me, because I’m also making a transition to the presidency. She’s given me some advice. We’ve had some nice discussions, even making some connections to people for me that that will be helpful.
UTimes: The other big issue we’ve been dealing with is the faculty union. Any predictions on how much longer it’s going to be until they get a contract?
Cudd: No, but we’re making steady progress, checking off these tentative agreements. So I’m feeling good that we’re making steady progress. It’s probably not as fast as anybody would like, but It’s a huge, complicated union. There such a heterogeneity of jobs, so that makes it much more complicated.
(Lu-In Wang, vice provost for faculty affairs, is representing the provost’s office at the bargaining talks and and will continue.) She’s doing a great job, and we already started bringing Joe (McCarthy) into a few of the discussions. Louise runs a weekly meet up — never more than half an hour — where we just share across key constituents, like communications, government relations, the bargaining team and me. Bringing Joe into that so that he can also hear that has been really helpful. We’re also meeting with him and the University bargaining committee, so he knows where we are in the process and what’s coming up next in terms of negotiations that he’ll have to start picking up in a month.
UTimes: Is there anything else you want to say about your time at Pitt?
Cudd: It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to serve. I’ve enjoyed my time here immensely. I’m so grateful for everything that Pitt has given me, and for the connections and the relationships I’ve built, both with chancellor, the senior leadership team — it’s an amazing, cohesive team. And likewise, even more so my team in the Office of the Provost. That’s going to be really hard to leave.
It’s really true that everything in my career I really owe to the education I received at Pitt, and now the experience that I’ve had working with these teams as a provost. I go out with great feelings, and of course, I’m a loyal lifelong alum, as is my husband, who has a Ph.D. from the economics department. He’s been a teaching professor here for the last five years and he’s really enjoyed that a lot. He developed a new course, sports economics, which has become incredibly popular and he’ll probably take that to Portland State as well.
We’ve just really enjoyed it and been able to live in the shadow of the Cathedral, literally. That’s been fun living in Oakland, which we never did as grad students. We lived in East Liberty and Friendship and then Squirrel Hill most of the time.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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