Homecoming Edition: Voutsinos: Balancing the budget, Mark Nordenberg style

When Chancellor Nordenberg took the reins here at the University of Pittsburgh in 1995, the University’s reputation was less than stellar. Riddled with internal strife at the time, “Hail to Pitt” certainly did not have as positive a connotation as it does today. 

That, however, is another story. The legacy of Mark Nordenberg involved a whole new tale, separate from all the woe of the early ’90s — one which saw the rebirth of Pitt. One where we became a top research school, dramatically climbed the rankings of the world’s best public universities and, most importantly, made alumni proud to be Panthers again. 

Unfortunately, as a sophomore, I’ve only had the pleasure of experiencing the tail end of the Nordenberg era. However, as most students my age know, the tail end involved some of the most dramatic years for public education in Pennsylvania’s history. With Gov. Tom Corbett cutting state funding for public education with a meat cleaver, Nordenberg’s last years here were no less interesting than his first. 

As state support was down to less than 10 percent of Pitt’s total budget — as compared to 30 percent in the mid-1970s — Nordenberg was again forced to work his magic for the University in a fiscal balancing act that would make the U.S. government green with envy. 

Obligated to cut costs in some way, the Chancellor got creative. Instead of simply raising tuition, cutting programs or firing staff, he balanced the budget in a fair and equal way, while preserving all of the resources that make us a world-class university. 

Nordenberg and his staff used the three weapons they had at their disposal to fight the lack of state funding: The great relationship Nordenberg built with the city of Pittsburgh over the years, an environmentally aware faculty and student body and a selfless executive board willing to make sacrifices for this University. 

First, there is the obvious: The city of Pittsburgh loves Nordenberg and, keeping in mind that the University is a huge part of the western-Pennsylvania economy — accredited to Nordenberg’s leadership, no doubt — it was not about to leave one of its greatest assets unsheltered in the storm. 

Thus, Pitt was able to strike a seemingly charitable deal with suppliers, negotiating for better prices and discounts on the various goods and services needed to run a fully functioning college campus. The cumulative savings over the years that resulted from these successfully haggled bargains — over $30 million.

The next initiative Nordenberg and the Executive Board took was one that required a lot of forward-thinking and reformist actions of both the faculty and student body. I am referring to Pitt’s pursuit of prime energy efficiency over the years. 

Undeniably, anyone who’s  lived in on-campus housing over the past four years can recall the posters of little fish in the bathrooms telling you to save some water for “the fishes” or the posters urging you to turn your lights off every once in a while and maybe recycle, too. 

No matter how little impact you thought these posters had on you, it has apparently been working, leading to a cumulative $10.1 million savings on utilities for Pitt. But an environmentally conscious student body was not the only factor that led to all these savings on energy usage. The board made it a point to physically make Pitt more energy efficient, as well. Ways in which they accomplished this include: LED lighting installations in place of most of the wasteful fluorescent lighting across campus, electronic bathroom fixtures being installed — which inevitably saved copious amounts of water — and the University making it a point to ensure that all standard carpet installations included a minimum of 25 percent recycled content. 

Although these initiatives led to a huge amount of savings, the state defunding of higher education eventually forced a faculty-wide pay freeze for the University in 2010. Yet, in classic Nordenberg-era fashion, the Executive Board voted to make sure their salaries would be the first to be frozen in 2009. 

Truly selfless actions such as these are among the reasons why Mark Nordenberg will go down as one of the legendary chancellors at the University of Pittsburgh. Every action Nordenberg pursued as chancellor was taken solely with the University’s well-being in mind. 

And personally, I think that Nordy’s efforts during the great defunding of Pennsylvania education can attest to his exceptional qualities as a person and as a chancellor. 

Write Nick at njv10@pitt.edu.