Provost Joseph McCarthy opened Wednesday’s faculty assembly meeting by discussing Pitt’s hiring freeze, which began on March 10. Senior administration imposed the freeze in response to “fiscal uncertainty” from “expected” cuts in federal NIH funding.
“In times of challenge, it’s important for us to lean into our mission. The action taken on Monday is related to our mission of becoming an employer of choice,” McCarthy said. “It’s really critical that we focus on the members of Pitt’s community who are already members of Pitt’s community.”
According to the administration’s statement on Monday, the hiring freeze is expected to last through the end of the current fiscal year and may extend into the next fiscal year. Pitt’s last hiring freeze was in April 2020, following the start of the pandemic, and lasted approximately one year.
“The University didn’t make this decision lightly. Even though it may sound very reasonable, it’s still a challenging thing to do on many levels,” McCarthy said. “I imagine this will be the start of a conversation, not the end of one.”
University Senate’s immediate past-President Chris Bonneau voiced concern that the hiring freeze could worsen staffing issues in “already struggling” departments, especially in the language department, and suggested making exceptions for certain ones.
“We’re in the process of trying to staff courses for next year, and having a freeze could have a significant impact on our ability to offer many language courses,” Bonneau said.
McCarthy said there will be exceptions, but the process is still being developed and will not be complete “for some time.”
“There’s never going to be a good time to institute a hiring freeze, so I’ll invoke an interim exceptions process for the short term that will evolve over time,” McCarthy said. “I will want input from faculty with respect to what kind of considerations need to go into forming a long-term exceptions process.”
Dwayne Pinkney, chief financial officer and executive senior vice chancellor for administration and finance, stated that the hiring freeze aligns with Pitt’s five-year plan by “prioritizing the university community and refining internal spending processes” before bringing on new employees.
“We did not arrive to this decision casually, and we’re certainly not pleased or happy to be here,” Pinkney said. “We’re focused on making sure the actions we make moving forward will focus on the primary mission of our institution.”
Bonneau questioned the timing of the hiring freeze and asked Pinkney what “recent developments” led to the discussion about high spending.
“From my understanding, this seems to be a very recent development,” Bonneau said. “All of a sudden, we’re really strapped, when I don’t think we’ve been in that position for the past few years.”
Pinkney stated that while NIH funding cuts played a large role in the hiring freeze, inflation and rising costs also contributed to the decision.
“If you don’t work in university finance, it may seem like this has come on really quickly. We’ve been aware for many years that costs have been going up,” Pinkney explained. “There are many factors that have been in play, so I believe we would have been having this conversation soon even without [NIH] cuts.”
Pitt’s funding from the state legislature has remained at $151.5 million per year since 2019, despite requests to increase the amount in 2023 and 2024. Pinkney added that tuition increases over the past five years have been equal to or below the inflation rate.
“Our revenues have been mostly flat, but our costs are going up very fast. We have to make sure we mitigate those cost increases,” Pinkney said. “[Increasing tuition] is not the first place we want to go. We understand the pressure that would place on students and families.”
Melanie Scott, director of graduate education for surgery research, expressed her concern about the administration’s lack of communication about their financial state.
“This seems to come out of the blue. I realize some things have catalyzed this, but it seems like the communication has been pretty poor,” Scott said. “We’re going along thinking we’re doing great, then all of a sudden we need to make all these changes.”
Pinkney said communication has become a top priority for the finance and operations office.
“[McCarthy] and I being here today speaks to our intent to do more about internal communication,” Pinkney said. “We’re focused on doing the right things, but we’ve neglected to have this conversation. Moving forward, we’ll be very clear.”