By SUSAN JONES

There has been no shortage of praise for Marc Harding since he announced in February that he was stepping down as Pitt’s chief enrollment officer and will retire this summer after 14 years at the University.

“Marc Harding’s extraordinary leadership over the past decade has fundamentally transformed enrollment at the University of Pittsburgh,” Provost Joe McCarthy said. “His vision, unwavering commitment, and tireless dedication have elevated our ability to attract exceptionally talented and diverse students while strengthening the foundation of our enrollment enterprise.”

Former Provost Patty Beeson, who hired Harding in 2012, said, “It is hard to overstate how important Marc has been to Pitt’s success and to all those students who chose to attend Pitt because of Marc’s efforts. He will be missed. However, one measure of Marc’s success is the terrific team he built, so his impact on Pitt will continue for many years to come.”

Chancellor Joan Gabel also had kind words: “As we all know, his leadership of admissions and financial aid has been extraordinary, transformational, and also put us in a very good position for the future.”

At last week’s Board of Trustees meeting, Chair John Verbanac said Harding has “driven record growth in applications, strengthening financial operations and helping to recruit some of the most academically talented and diverse classes in the University’s history. We are deeply grateful for Marc’s leadership and lasting contributions to this University.”

Senate President Kris Kanthak said at the February Senate Council meeting that, “Marc has been a great friend to shared governance and to many of us here in the Senate, and we wish him the best in his new chapter.”

Where it started

The Massachusetts native got his bachelor’s degree at UMass Amherst as an interpersonal communication major and minor in psychology and Chinese.

“I was going to be a teacher. I was going to be a business person. I was going to do political communication,” Harding said. “I was trying to figure my world out, like a lot of students, with a true eclectic academic background, but all the things actually make sense. I get to use my interpersonal communication training and skills and passion every day.”

He has a love of foreign languages and has studied, at various times, Hebrew, Spanish, French and German, along with the minor in Chinese. He wishes every student took a language, but finds that most don’t these days.

“Most countries require a second language,” he said. “I do believe we’d be a much kinder, empathic people as a whole, if folks learned a second language.”

While at Amherst he worked in New Student Programs, including orientation and onboarding of students, and was a tour guide for three years.

“As a tour guide, what happens? You get pulled in. ‘Marc, can you meet with this? We have a meeting, could you fill in here?’ And then I loved meeting with students and families,” he said.

“I did all kinds of stuff as a student, and so I sort of fell into (a career in admissions),” he said. “Never knew that when I did that back in 1982-83 that that would be a career.”

Harding pointed out that several other people in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid — including the new interim vice provost for enrollment, Kellie Kane — were Pathfinders at Pitt when they were getting their degrees.

“When you’re a tour guide and you love the place you’re at, it’s just a gift every day to go out and talk about something you love,” Harding said.

Coming to Pitt

Harding came to Pitt in July 2012, after 29 years in college enrollment at University of Massachusetts Amherst, Virginia Tech, University of South Florida and Iowa State.

He was lured here by then-Provost Patty Beeson. Harding said some people were telling him to apply for the Pitt job, but he was pretty ensconced in Iowa, where he wife worked and they were raising two daughters, and “were part of the community.”

He said Beeson, who had heard about him from colleagues, was very persistent — calling him twice and convincing him to come to campus.

“Yes, Marc’s recruitment was an adventure, but definitely worth the effort! I first met Marc at a small conference where he was a featured speaker,” Beeson said. “I was so impressed that when we were looking to hire, I badgered him relentlessly until he finally agreed to a ‘stealth’ weekend visit to Pitt.”

Harding had only been in Pittsburgh once before for a conference, but had never been to Oakland.

“The short, short story from there is, I loved it,” Harding said.

“From the conference presentation, it was clear Marc is a skilled marketer — someone able to ‘sell’ Pitt. What became clear from our conversations is that not only is he a gifted speaker and recruiter, but he also has the technical skills and savvy to build an operation able to reach large numbers of potential students and help them see themselves at Pitt.”

Beeson said the large numbers she was thinking about were in the thousands of applications. “Marc might have been thinking tens of thousands. In either case, he exceeded both our expectations … by a lot!”

Chancellor Gabel said at the Board of Trustees meeting that undergraduate applications to the Pittsburgh campus for fall 2026 are at nearly 74,000, setting another Pitt record. “You may recall, when I arrived, our original goal was 60,000 applications, so we’ve done OK on that goal.”

What’s changed?

Harding said the stakes for students today are higher because of the increased costs, and the technology has changed dramatically.

“When I was in high school, you had guidance counselors, you had some books — the Peterson’s guide, big, huge, thick books — that was about it,” he said. “When the internet came along, students would bypass counselors and go directly to colleges. … And now no matter what subject you put on the table, people wonder if the information they’re being fed, how real it is. So engagement has never mattered more.”

Because of the overwhelming amount of information available to students who are applying to college, “the visit has never been more important,” he said. “Come see us, try us on, see if we’re the right place for you, before you go deeper in the process and make a commitment. So I think the stakes are higher because of cost, and the pressure is greater on parents and students.”

Harding said one of the biggest challenges ahead is: “Financially, it should be easier, and it is not. And in my opinion, it has never been more confusing than right now, and that’s awful for families. And it’s awful for our staff.”

A big part of admitted student days is setting up meetings between students, parents and Pitt staff to talk about financial aid. The changes from the tax-and-spending package (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) last year have caused much confusion. For instance, starting July 1, 2026, new federal Parent PLUS loans will be capped at $20,000 annually and $65,000 lifetime per student, replacing the current unlimited borrowing (up to cost of attendance).

The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid also handles processing of financial aid for graduate programs, except for the School of Medicine. The recent changes in what is considered “professional” for federal loan purposes has created other issues.

Another change on the horizon is the use of AI in admissions. Harding said Virginia Tech has been in the news lately because they’re using AI for their application and essay reviews. Pitt is not using AI to make any decision on undergraduate admissions.

“We’ve had conversation with Senior Vice Chancellor (Rob) Rutenbar to talk about, what could we do? These are challenging times financially for every university. Pitt is not immune to that,” Harding said. “I think efficiency and effectiveness are going to be something that we all need to take a look at in our organizations. I believe AI is a part of that, but we need to be very thoughtful about what that means in the process.”

The other challenge, Kane said, is one that sort of fell off people’s radars because so many other things came on the radar — the demographic decline. There are fewer high school graduating seniors, which Kane said means “there is a lot of conversation with smaller privates and regional publics about, are there enough graduating high school seniors for all of us to make our classes.”

How the magic happens

With the huge spike in applications to Pitt over the past few years, how does the admissions’ office handle them all?

“I would say it’s magic, and we really can’t say,” Harding said, before turning to his successor Kellie Kane, for a more serious answer.

She said they have automated a lot of things that they used to do manually, but that doesn’t mean they’re using AI to make decisions. “We’re automating a lot of the back-end processes so the staff can focus on the manual work of reviewing applications.”

And about three or four years ago, they started hiring temporary outside staff to help read applications. “They go through the same training our internal staff does, and our application reading training team reviews the decisions they’re making, and then every file that goes through the process gets a final review by me before being released,” Kane said.

Each of the 74,000+ applications for first-year admission in the fall gets a minimum of two reviews by a staff member, and a third, final review by Kane, “and that’s if the decision is made on the application in the first round.” They might request some mid-year grades and have to go through that process again. First-year spring applications and transfers for all three terms also go through the same review process.

Harding says he’s very proud of how the team handles this volume of applications, and there’s another piece of the process that’s increased dramatically — visits to campus.

When he first came here, there were between 20,000 to 30,000 students, along with their families, visiting campus each year, and now it’s about 80,000.

During an admitted students day in April, the office hosted around 2,000 students and their parents.

“We spend a day with them to try to help them figure out if we’re the best fit for them,” Harding said. “Because one of the things that’s really special about the work we do is we are setting the table for retention and graduation.”

He said they try to be as authentic as possible, so that students don’t come to Pitt expecting one thing and then end up with a bad experience and want to leave. Pitt’s first-year retention rate is around 92%.

What comes next?

For now, Harding is working as special assistant to the provost for enrollment strategy. In this role, he is advising Pitt EDGE in support of master’s and professional enrollment and continues to work closely with the regional campuses on enrollment strategies. He’s also still an active partner with leadership at the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid during the transition. 

Harding said Pitt “couldn’t have a better person in the successor seat” than Kane, who has spent her entire professional career, 27 years, in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid. “We just couldn’t be in better hands for someone in a position that requires continuity, stability, creativity, accountability and a lot of energy and smarts,” Harding said.

He won’t officially retire until July 17, which seems like a pretty random date, but there’s a reason. Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University will jointly host the annual meeting of the International Association of College Admission Counseling from July 14 to 16. The meeting has been in the works for a couple years and he wants to see it come to fruition. It will bring 1,500 to 2,000 high school and college counselors to the two campuses.

Harding already has plenty of ideas for his post-retirement life, but he’s still not sure how it’s all going to shake out.

Even though he’s worked at and left other universities, “I’ve never retired before. I don’t know how it’s supposed to go. I’m working on that.”

He’ll be spending time with his aging parents, and “with nieces and nephews that barely know their Uncle Marc.”

He’s thinking about starting a podcast that will be “a range of topics, from entertainment and politics, what’s going on the world, but also quirky things, like what’s with the whole DC and Marvel Universe issue? Why do people just can’t stand each other?”

He’ll also be working on a book, tentatively titled, “I’ll Admit …,” that will include stories he’s collected over four decades in admissions. “I think we’ll have a little fun, and hopefully folks can take some things away from this — parents, students, maybe people at universities, faculty, staff — nuggets that would help them understand what we do, maybe a little bit more. But certainly give them a smile or a laugh, and we all need more of that.”

He plans to stay in Pittsburgh, and “do something with children to give my time in the Pittsburgh community, there’s lots of need there.” He’s not sure what form that will take. He spent 15 years working with Special Olympics, and his wife, a children’s librarian who has three degrees from Pitt, might also have some ideas.

He said what he’ll miss most is the people he works with.

“In this seat I have the privilege of managing just the most amazing staff, that do superheroic things every single day,” he said. Out of the 80,000 visitors a year, they rarely have any complaints that go to the chancellor’s office. “What’s my point? This team knows how to take care of helping students and families all along the enrollment spectrum.”

And we’ll end with one more praise of Harding from Joe McCarthy:

“Thanks to Marc, we are not only meeting the needs of today but are exceptionally well positioned for the future. His impact on Pitt is both profound and enduring, and I am deeply appreciative of the legacy he leaves behind.”

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

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