By SHANNON O. WELLS
In previewing the last Pitt commencement he will attend as the Pitt’s chancellor, Patrick Gallagher highlighted a good problem for the event to have: Too many people want to go.
“The good news is it's going to be a great event, and we're excited about it,” he said during his announcements at the April 20 Senate Council meeting. “Demand is extraordinarily high, and our commencement speaker Katie Nesbitt is a Pitt alumna and a trailblazer with I think a great story to tell. Not only a Pitt chemist, but somebody who's racked up a lot of firsts, including being the first American woman to referee the World Cup, and so I'm sure it's gonna be exciting.
“The bad news is the same as the good news: that demand has become so extraordinary for commencement that we are at actual risk of outstripping the capacity of the Petersen Events Center,” Gallagher added. “Which is actually amazing to me, because when I first got here, we actually closed the seats behind the stage and we combined undergraduate and graduate commencement in one event, and it still wasn't full.”
The extra demand since the COVID pandemic eased up led to instituting a ticketing system, “to be fair to all the families,” Gallagher said. “The capacity works out to about four guests per student, (so) the ticketing system just makes sure that's fairly administered.”
There is a Facebook page, Pitt Commencement Ticket Swap, that has been set up for those who are not going to use all of their tickets to make them available for others who have larger groups.
Acknowledging the “kind-of a last-minute technical change,” he said the administration is doing what it can to communicate the new system, with information available at commencement.pitt.edu. “But it is important, obviously, that we don't exceed the capacity.”
“We're also setting up overflow sites and improving the quality of experience of both overflow sites just to make sure that anyone who is traveling and is here to help celebrate a graduate has a good experience and a place to do so.”
Academic accomplishments
In academic awards, Gallagher recognized Grace Fleury, a Pitt junior studying synthetic organic chemistry, who was named to a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. “This is the most prestigious scholarship aimed at STEM students,” he said, noting Fleury is one of 413 winners out of 5,000 applicants. “So, congratulations to her.”
The University had six graduate students earn National Science Foundation research fellowships, which include a $37,000 stipend for three years, plus a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance, two from the Swanson School of Engineering and four from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, Gallagher noted.
Also, a third-year statistics major from the Dietrich School has been named a Newman Civic Fellow. The Campus Compact member institutions program is for students “committed to creating positive change through community. “That's a terrific recognition for Yunge Xiao, who's vice president of impact assessment at the Pitt Pantry, for the work she's doing.”
Gallagher congratulated Adam Lowenstein, professor of English and film and media studies, who specializes in the horror genre, for being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and Salah Al-Zaiti, vice chair of research at the School of Nursing, who received the Fulbright Program Scholar Award to conduct research in Jordan.
Senate president's report
In her report, Senate Council President Robin Kear said she was pleased to see the faculty union had released a checklist of bargaining articles, “not the full text but it is more information than was there before, of articles and dates and posts by the union administration,” she said. The Senate officers and union officials plan to meet again to continue open communications.
Kear gave an “enormous thank you” to Senate committees, “and especially to all of the chairs and the co-chairs for their important work this academic year. These committees are of vital importance to the functioning of shared governance,” she said. “We have our staff, students, administrators and faculty (on the) 15 committees and our ad hoc one.
“I know that these are uncertain times for some of these committees, and thank you to them, especially for their grace and willingness to move through uncertain waters. Thank you all for your service and dedication to shared governance.”
Some of the committees have been heavily impacted by the union negotiations and have had very few meetings this semester, particularly Faculty Affairs and Budget Policies. In addition, Kear said that the Dependent Care Ad Hoc committee formed almost two years ago by the Senate “is kind of in stasis to ongoing contract negotiations.”
Kear said the Senate Plenary on April 4, on the topic of artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, “exceeded my expectations.” A recording of the “Unsettled: Frames for Examining Generative Artificial Intelligence” forum is on the Faculty Senate website.
On Senate elections, Kear noted that while elections for officers and Faculty Assembly members ended on April 20, the election for Senate committees runs April 27 to May 9. “So please take a moment to vote if you receive those.”
Policies approved
In other action, Senate Council passed two policies that Faculty Assembly approved at its April 13 meeting.
Travel Cash Advances Policy: A change in the proposed University Travel Cash Advances policy, whose main focus is how to handle cash advances for work-related trips to areas where a credit card or OneCard can’t be used, was passed. The policy stipulates that, per IRS rules, if there is any unused cash not detailed in an expense report, that money must be paid back to the University within 120 days, or it will be considered income and must be reported on your W-2. Instead of getting cash advances directly deposited into your bank account from the University, now you can get money using your OneCard at an ATM. But the advance must be approved in advance and reconciled when you return.
Network Policy: Senate Council also approved a change to the University Network policy the Senate Computing and Information Technology Committee OK’d at its March 28 meeting. The policy change, under the heading of “Infrastructure Devices and Network Cabling,” says “Pitt IT will consider, in consultation with departments and users, special network configurations to support research or unique needs including networks not connected to PittNet or the internet provided that they do not pose information security risks to the University or negatively impact other PittNet users.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.