SGB holds chancellor search town hall to gather student input on process

President Danielle Floyd opened Student Government Board’s weekly meeting by thanking the audience for choosing to contribute to the chancellor search process.

“This is probably the most important thing that we get to do as a University in terms of picking the next chancellor,” Floyd said. 

SGB held a chancellor search town hall during its weekly meeting in Nordy’s Place Tuesday night to allow students to answer questions and share thoughts related to the process. Floyd, Kenyon Bonner, the vice provost for Student Affairs, and Varbi Mridha, vice president for finance of the Graduate and Professional Student Government, moderated the town hall. All are members of the chancellor search committee that contributes to the search for the new chancellor. 

Chancellor Patrick Gallagher announced in April that he will step down from the position in summer 2023. He plans on remaining at the University as a full-time faculty member in the department of physics and astronomy.

The chancellor search process is divided into three phases — “listening and learning” sessions designed to include community input into the process, the recruitment period and the evaluation period. 

“The input from these sessions goes into a position specification, which is a long formatted description of our needs and aspirations,” Floyd said. “This document helps our search firm find candidates who have experience in specific topics that will be prioritized for Pitt in the coming years.”

A student started the session by suggesting that the new chancellor should become an active member of the University community. 

“I think there’s some really awesome student organizations on campus and some student leaders that are doing some amazing work here,” she said. “I would hope that the next chancellor actually talked to them on a basis and is proactive about reaching out to these student organizations that are being active members of the community.”

Isabel Lam, a board member and vice president for operations, wanted to see a more “personal connection” between the new chancellor and student body.

“I would say dedication to the student body [is important,]” Lam said. “A chancellor that generally supports us, supports us at events, goes to sporting events, interacts with the student body on a constant basis. That would be amazing to see, because then you form a more personal connection.”

Derek Dressler, a board member and vice president of governance, said the new chancellor should try to expand Pitt’s reach beyond the region.

“February 23, 1954, Salk created the polio vaccine, and that was a world renowned thing,” Dressler said. “But what people don’t realize is that it emanated from a great University with more researchers and more scholars than Jonas Salk … we should be reaching and focusing on raising awareness of the achievements of this University beyond the region.”

Dominic Victoria, SGB’s chief of staff, would like to see a chancellor that prioritizes not only the Pitt community, but the local community.

“Experience working in communities, and I think in particular in urban environments, would be really great,” Victoria said. “I think a lot of these issues go into that, whether it be housing, sustainability, working in a community which obviously isn’t isolated. I’d like to see some experience working in an urban environment … that’s kind of a perspective that I think is very unique, but often goes unnoticed in candidates.”

Another student also wanted to see a community-minded chancellor, particularly one familiar with issues specific to Pittsburgh.

“Something that I as a Pittsburgher have noticed about the University is that not a lot of care is given to our communities, and I really struggle with the fact that my City’s been swallowed up by UPMC and Pitt in areas,” the student said. “So someone who understands the City and understands where us as citizens of the city are coming from when we complain about these things, and know how to deal with the local politics, because Pittsburgh is special.”

Floyd ended the meeting by inviting students to continue sharing their input on the process. Students can contribute feedback virtually on the chancellor search website. 

Allocations

Club cheer requested $1,165 for the purchase of five new cheer uniforms. The board approved the request in full.

Chem-E-Cube, an engineering club that aims to compete in the national Chem-E-Cube competition, requested $4,635.62 for travel expenses for the competition. The board approved the request in full.

The board also proposed two bills, BD-2022-1 Amendments to Vice President for Governance Role and bill JB-2022-4 Amendment to Attendance Performance and Nomenclature. The board will post the bills on its website for public comment prior to a board vote at next week’s meeting.