Faculty Assembly addresses Plan for Pitt, health care and AI in monthly meeting

Faculty Assembly President Robin Kear opened Wednesday’s Faculty Assembly meeting by introducing Chancellor Joan Gabel, who announced the start of the next phase of Plan for Pitt. 

The Faculty Assembly meeting took place on Wednesday afternoon in Posvar Hall and over Zoom. Topics discussed included Plan for Pitt, student health insurance and AI implementation on campus.

The Plan for Pitt identifies areas in which the University can improve and creates an institutional strategy, Gabel said.

“It’s time to do the next phase of Plan for Pitt that was already in the works,” Gabel said. “But because of timing, it will also reflect the lens of a change in leadership, and I’m really excited about that. I think it’s a great opportunity for the entire institution, but also [a] really important moment around shared governance where there’s a lot of consultation around how we would take things into the next chapter.”

Gabel said the second phase of the Plan for Pitt includes assessing measures and outcomes of the first phase. She said the plan focuses on increasing student success, creativity, scholarship and innovation.

“When we talk about student success, I mean, there are some very standard measures of how we would assess whether our students are successful,” Gabel said. “Are they advancing from first year to second year? Are they graduating? Are they well? Are they able to have access to what they need in order to have the kinds of academic, personal and professional experiences to set them up for a life well lived?”

Kear shared that the graduate student health network is proceeding with shared governance on the short-term student health insurance task force, and student representatives are the driving force of the initiative.

“This task force is discussing the needs of students benchmarking with peer institutions, providing recommendations to the university and ultimately receiving approval by the state of Pennsylvania because their approval by the state is a requirement for student health insurance,” Kear said.

Nancy Glynn, associate professor and director of Pitt’s master’s degree programs in epidemiology, said the scope of problems concerning student health insurance is getting larger for students. She said students are having to pay co-pays, and they’re witnessing the gap in costs between what is and isn’t covered by insurance.

“Some of my other students have said that the cost for counseling visits and mental health visits have gone up like 400% from five bucks to like 20 bucks or 25 bucks,” Glynn said. “So, I think

the students are getting more distressed as they’re using the services right in the first month of the term.”

Glynn questioned whether students are actively aware of the Student Emergency Fund, which helps students who are facing financial hardships cover funds. Glynn’s daughter is one of many people impacted by mounting co-pays.

“My daughter happens to be one of them who is a Type 1 diabetic,” Glynn said. “Just one of her insulin supplies went from a $60 co-pay to a $105 co-pay for three months. That’s only one of five meds.”

Although students receive information about their student health insurance plans, many are not aware of the details. Bridget Keown, a teaching assistant professor in the gender, sexuality and women’s studies program, said Pitt should find new ways of informing students about resources available to them.

“I don’t see the harm in finding new ways to make sure that people know about [the Student Emergency Fund],” Keown said. “Because especially if you’re talking about issues that could compromise people’s emotional health or put them in distress or stuff like that, they are not necessarily thinking productively about where an email is.”

The Assembly also addressed the growing prominence of artificial intelligence on campus. Kear said it’s important to discuss AI implementation because several conversations are occurring related to its impact on research agendas and individual learning.

“There’s deep individual learning going on,” Kear said. “There are class discussions, there are guidelines on our syllabi now, there are department-level discussions, and of course there’s the formal ad hoc committee from the provost and research office.”

Kear emphasized the importance of choosing AI vendors with privacy and ethical boundaries as the University uses the technology more. Members of the Senate Council were involved in the discussion as informal and formal mechanisms of AI are taking shape around campus.

“There are so many unknowns and yet, there are so many ways for us to influence the development of AI implementation here at Pitt,” Kear said. “A quick issue that I see forming is around the procurement of AI software. It’s how to purchase, integrate and use AI, whether generative or not, responsibly and ethically in our everyday operations.”