By SUSAN JONES
With Pitt’s chancellor and provost both leaving this summer, it might seem like the University is in turmoil, but Joe McCarthy, who will take over as interim provost after Ann Cudd leaves at the end of June, isn’t worried.
“What I’ve seen in my 25 years at Pitt is that Pitt is remarkably resilient,” he said in an interview this week. “We’ve had an awful lot of change in 25 years, and it’s never been jarring, at least from my perspective. We’ve had a very smooth change, whenever we’ve had leadership change. … I’ve referred to Pitt as a little engine that could when we talk amongst ourselves about how resilient Pitt is, so I’m not worried about the institution.”
With just a week since Chancellor Patrick Gallagher announced the interim provost, McCarthy doesn’t have his goals for the job all lined up yet. Right now, he’s getting guidance from Gallagher, but he’s also spoken to Chancellor-elect Joan Gabel, who starts at Pitt in mid-July.
Gallagher said in his May 18 announcement about McCarthy’s new role that, “I have consulted extensively with the chancellor-elect throughout this process, and my decision today has her full support.”
McCarthy said the marching orders he’s set for himself include maintaining the momentum that Pitt has, making the provost and chancellor transitions go smoothly and laying a foundation for Gabel to start her tenure. “I get the impression that she’s quite a mover,” he said. “So I don’t anticipate having a whole lot of down time as interim.”
There are two things Gallagher told McCarthy he should do between now and July 1, when he officially becomes interim provost. “One is to learn as much as I can about the union negotiation process so that we can be as efficient as possible in that transition from Ann and Pat’s leadership to me and Joan, and the second is to continue to work to build relationships with members of the Board of Trustees.”
He already has worked with the Trustees’ Academic Affairs and Library committees for six years and the Athletics and Recreation committee for three years.
McCarthy’s background
McCarthy has been at Pitt since 1998 as a professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. He’s been vice provost of undergraduate studies since 2017.
He also served as interim dean of the David C. Frederick Honors College in early 2021 and led the University’s decennial evaluation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, between 2020 and 2022. Both roles, he said, are assets as he takes over the provost’s office.
The Middle States self-study put him in a position to do “an incredibly deep dive across the entire University,” he said. “But also, maybe more importantly, I got to engage with stakeholders on all campuses in all schools. So I feel like I have a really good foundational knowledge of where we are and where the community wants us to go.”
His time in the Honors College coincided with the new budget model, which will go live for 2023-24, first being created. Provost Cudd and Hari Sastry, Pitt’s chief financial officer, co-chaired the committee that created the model. McCarthy has since looked at how the responsibility-center model will impact undergraduate studies.
“There’s a lot left for all of us to learn and for us to sort of make tweaks as we go, to make sure that it’s serving the aims that it was intended to serve,” McCarthy said about the budget model. “I feel like there’s going to be more that I need to learn, but I’m probably as up to speed as anybody else.”
McCarthy said his six years in the provost’s office under two different leaders “is another really valuable thing for me to lean on as we make the transition.”
He said he also has a really good working rapport with shared governance, including the University Senate and the Council of Deans.
Senate President Robin Kear said after the announcement that, "The Senate officers and I are very pleased with Chancellor Gallagher’s decision to appoint Joe McCarthy as our interim provost. Joe has extensive experience in the provost’s office, especially with undergraduates, and has worked with the Senate on various issues. We worked successfully with Joe during the Middle States reaccreditation, and he is a current liaison to the Senate Educational Policies Committee. I look forward to working with Joe in this new role."
As a Pitt faculty member, McCarthy has earned a number of accolades, including the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, James Pommersheim Award for Excellence in Teaching in Chemical Engineering, and the Carnegie Science Award for Higher Education. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in the same subject from Northwestern.
He also has chaired several dean search committees, including the recent search for the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences dean that ended with the appointment of Adam Leibovich.
Upcoming search
Cudd announced in March that she was departing at the end of June to become president of Portland State University in Oregon.
A national search will take place once Gabel arrives. The provost search process is under the control of the chancellor’s office, but the provost must be separately elected by the Board of Trustees as an officer of the University.
McCarthy said because he is an interim, he will not be an officer of the University and won’t need to be approved by the Trustees.
He is not sure yet whether he’ll throw his hat in the ring for the permanent provost position. He said if he wasn’t going to be interim provost and it was a traditional year-long open search for a new provost “then I would be very intrigued.” But now he’ll wait and see how he and Gabel work together and how their priorities align. “If all of that lines up, and I think it’d be beneficial to Pitt for me to apply, then I’ll consider it.”
According to the University Guidelines for Search Committees for Senior Academic Administrators, the selection of search committee members should include consultation with the executive committee of the University Senate and the constituencies to be served by a new administrator.
A search committee for provost can be 15 people — or more, if necessary — the guidelines say. The elected faculty members of the search committee will include:
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Two from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
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Two from the professional schools of the provost’s area
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One from the regional campuses
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One from the Health Sciences area
At least one representative from the two tenured professorial ranks — professor and associate professor — must be included on the committee, and at least 50 percent of the committee must be faculty from the provost’s area.
The committee also will include one staff member appointed by Staff Council; one graduate student; one Arts and Sciences undergraduate student and one College of General Studies undergraduate student from the Oakland campus. Additional members of the search committee may be appointed by the chancellor to ensure diversity and equitable participation by affected areas.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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