Joan Gabel began her tenure as the University of Pittsburgh’s chancellor during what was arguably one of the most difficult years for higher education leaders across the country.
At least that’s how Ms. Gabel characterized it as she reflected on a tumultuous June protest outside of the Cathedral of Learning that bookended her first year on the job.
Dozens of Pitt students and community members had gathered to support Palestine and demand Pitt divest from any company or institution that does business with Israel. The demonstration, at times violent and disruptive, paralleled similar protests seen nationwide in the spring and summer months.
It elicited a forceful response from Ms. Gabel. Several weeks later, she told the Post-Gazette in an interview that protests like these are mirrors of even more “difficult times” in the world — and they pose unique challenges to university leaders.
“Many of us in this role would say this has been one of the most difficult seasons for us as individual leaders and for campus life,” Ms. Gabel said. “... I don’t want to appear to be complaining. I’m just acknowledging that we’re in a moment.”
That June protest was the most high-profile and explosive moment that Ms. Gabel managed during her first 12 months at the Oakland university. She arrived last July after serving as president of the University of Minnesota for four years.
But Ms. Gabel had plenty of other moments that kept her busy as she oversaw the five campuses, 34,000 students and 14,000 employees that make up the largest university in Western Pennsylvania.
The chancellor “dove headfirst” into her role, said Louis Cestello, a Pitt board member who served as board chair for a large portion of Ms. Gabel’s first year.
Over the past year, she began building relationships with lawmakers in Harrisburg who hold the keys to Pitt’s annual state funding. She helped iron out a strategic plan that aims to increase enrollment at the Oakland campus and bolster Pitt’s national reputation.
And during her leadership, Pitt’s faculty union ratified its first contract and university officials dealt with the disastrous launch of the revamped federal student aid application that will likely have lasting effects on higher education.
This fall, Pitt will operate with a $3.2 billion budget. Trustees signaled on Friday that Pitt’s financial situation is healthy. Base tuition is $20,550 for undergraduate students at the Oakland campus. She also went through her first full budget cycle with the state. The school will receive $151.5 million from the state, the same amount that it has received during six consecutive budget cycles.
All in all, it was a “very full year,” Ms. Gabel said from her office in the cathedral during a late June interview.
“There were some enormous challenges … but I’m just very grateful,” she said. “As much happened in this world, on this campus and everything in between, I felt very welcomed. I have a really great team here and amazing students.”
Free speech and fall semester safety
One of Ms. Gabel’s first moves as chancellor was to join the Campus Call for Free Expression: a national group of university leaders aiming to promote free expression on college campuses. At the time, Ms. Gabel, one of 13 founding members of the group, described the consortium’s efforts as “important work at such a pivotal time in American democracy."
It was significant for Ms. Gabel to “get out in front of” that issue early on in her tenure, said Paul Adams, a Pitt-Greensburg political science professor and president of that campus’s faculty senate.
“Civic education, civic mindedness and knowledge seem to be lacking in society as a whole,” Mr. Adams said. “It’s good to see us leading on those issues rather than following.”
Nearly a year after Ms. Gabel joined the group, her first big free speech hurdle came during two pro-Palestine protests. A weeklong April encampment remained mostly peaceful — though it did see two arrests — while a 30-hour June protest was a chaotic, occasionally violent scene that resulted in three arrests, defacement of the cathedral and clashes between police and protesters.
Ms. Gabel’s firm response to the June protest acknowledged both First Amendment protections and campus safety concerns.
It was a “key moment” for the chancellor, said State Rep. Rob Mercuri, R-Allegheny, who serves as the Republican subcommittee chair on higher education.
“It was really, really important that [Ms. Gabel] chose to take that decisive action,” Mr. Mercuri told the Post-Gazette. “She didn’t have to, and there are other instances at other universities, which we’ve seen, where there hasn’t been such leadership.”
Protesters had a different outlook on Ms. Gabel’s response, hurling criticisms at her after after the June demonstration. During a news conference, an anonymous protest leader lambasted Ms. Gabel for not “opening a line of communication” with protesters as they pressed for divestment.
Ms. Gabel told the Post-Gazette that Pitt officials offered to organize a meeting between protesters and the university’s chief investment officer, who is “most knowledgeable” about the school’s endowment and could speak to the feasibility of divestment.
Protesters declined a meeting, she said.
Ms. Gabel said incidents like the June tussle pose a big question for university leaders: “When we find ourselves in crisis, how do we support and keep safe our students who are expressing voice — or those who are affected when voice is expressed?”
Ms. Gabel said Pitt has “solid policy” on striking the balance between free expression and safety.
She also is confident that university police and leaders will be able to handle any protests during the fall semester.
“We want to make sure [free expression] happens in a way that’s safe … We work really closely with all of the stakeholders on campus to make sure that it happens safely. When it doesn’t, we move in to regulate it, and move it back to the type of activity that’s compliant with our policies,” Ms. Gabel said.
John Danvers, president of Pitt’s Graduate & Professional Student Government, anticipates that the Israel-Hamas War and upcoming presidential election will be “big issues” on campus this fall.
He feels safe expressing himself on Pitt’s campus, and is confident he will continue to feel that way in the fall.
“Both of those things are really going to be a sticking point when it comes to free speech on campus and how we share our ideas in a respectful manner,” said Mr. Danvers, a master’s student studying public and international affairs, and information sciences. “The chancellor has shown she has a good track record of handling that kind of stuff.”
Strategic plan and campus growth
Completing Pitt’s strategic plan was another big mark of Ms. Gabel’s first year.
It awarded the chancellor the opportunity to gauge a “three-dimensional” picture of Pitt’s population, posture and vision as she interacted with students, faculty, staff and administrators, she said.
Mr. Cestello, of the Pitt board, said a “great strategic plan” is key to managing an educational behemoth like Pitt.
“You have to have a direction and a North Star,” Mr. Cestello said. “Joan has laid a vision out that everybody has bought into. I do believe she is more than capable of getting us where we want to go.”
Ambitious goals in the strategic plan include increasing undergraduate enrollment at the Oakland campus, lowering student debt, reducing administrative costs and amping up research efforts.
The desire to grow Oakland follows an explosion in interest in that campus over the past few years.
Undergraduate growth would be gradual, Ms. Gabel said, accounting for infrastructure needs like housing, classroom space and program demand. Between 2025 and 2028, Pitt officials hope for an undergraduate uptick between 2.5% and 8.8% at Oakland.
Graduate student growth, meanwhile, would be more abrupt: Officials want this population to grow up to 15% by 2028. In fall 2023, Oakland enrolled 20,220 undergrads and 9,268 grad students.
Expansion isn’t isolated to student populations. Pitt recently acquired Oakland’s historic Pittsburgh Athletic Association clubhouse, which Ms. Gabel referred to as “beachfront property.” And last fall, city officials OKed Pitt’s plan to build a $250 million biomanufacturing facility, called Pitt Bioforge, at Hazelwood Green.
Robin Kear, a faculty librarian and president of the University Senate Council, said she believes Pitt is headed in a “good direction” under Ms. Gabel’s leadership.
“We’re building on the strengths that we have... here in Pittsburgh and making sure that the university is a good partner,” Ms. Kear said.
But while Oakland sees surging interest, the university’s other campuses in Greensburg, Johnstown, Bradford and Titusville face the enrollment challenges that are common among smaller, regional campuses. Between 2014 and 2023, Pitt-Greensburg saw a 16.3% drop in students — from 1,578 students to 1,321 — while Pitt-Johnstown’s student population fell 32.5%, from 2,869 students to 1,936.
With economic challenges in mind, Pitt froze regional campus tuition this year. The university has also pushed for growth and innovation at these campuses: For example, this fall, Pitt will expand its honors college to the Greensburg campus.
Mr. Adams, of Pitt-Greensburg, said Pitt administration has put a “positive emphasis” on the regional campuses. Having an administration that understands the regional campuses’ roles and positions is “absolutely critical.”
But Mr. Adams worries that, as Pitt expands Oakland enrollment, this could reduce the number of “option students” on the regional campuses: students who applied to Oakland, but were offered admission at one of the other campuses.
“Historically, [option students] made up a decent share of our students,” Mr. Adams said. “If Pitt begins admitting more of those students [to Oakland], potentially that has an impact on the regional campuses.”
‘FAFSA challenges were a gut punch’
Leading Pitt in 2024 meant overseeing the university as it coped with the disastrous launch of the revamped FAFSA form.
The updated form intended to assuage the FAFSA submission process for incoming and current college students. Instead, a delayed launch muddied by technology issues impacted thousands of students’ abilities to fill out the form and find out their financial aid packages in a timely manner.
Into July, FAFSA submission rates remained low compared to previous years.
Experts have signaled that the FAFSA issue could lead to fewer students receiving federal aid next year — or it could prompt fewer people to attend college at all. The debacle comes as more families question the worth of a college degree.
“FAFSA challenges were a gut punch,” the chancellor said. “I can’t think of a tougher time to have something like that go wrong — especially because we had no control over it.”
Like universities across the country, Pitt pushed back its freshman commitment deadline to give students and families more time to make enrollment decisions with full financial pictures in mind.
The Pitt admissions team also spent their Saturdays and Sundays calling students and families to “put faces to names,” walk through aid packages and “apologize for something they didn’t do,” Ms. Gabel said.
Because of these efforts, Ms. Gabel projects that Pitt will not see a drop in students who are eligible for need-based Pell grants, like some institutions anticipate.
“We're very optimistic that ours will be better than average relative to what we'll see nationally, but it's going to hurt nationally… and that’s very unfortunate,” Ms. Gabel said. “[We want] a big part of our growth [to] come from serving students with the highest financial need and making a real commitment to the social mobility of those students. We think that's core to our mission.
“This FAFSA challenge is a challenge for sure, but it won't pull us off of that mission.”
First Published: July 14, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: July 15, 2024, 10:01 a.m.
