Pitt chancellor visits Johnstown campus, meets with students, faculty, local leaders

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel visited the university’s Johnstown campus Tuesday for the first time since she stepped into the role about a year and a half ago.

The 19th chancellor in Pitt’s 237-year history, Gabel oversees more than 34,000 students and 16,000 faculty and staff members across five campuses.

Gabel spent the morning talking with students and meeting with faculty of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Pitt-Johnstown President Jem Spectar accompanied her. He laughed when he said he had to pull her away from conversations with students to keep on schedule.

“She was just immersed,” he said. “Seeing her with the students, how she connected with them, how she is interested in what they are going to do with their lives, where they are going, that’s really what great leadership is about. First and foremost, it is about the students.”

Spectar was a member of the search committee that recommended the hiring of Gabel. Pitt’s trustees unanimously elected her April 3, 2023, and she officially stepped into the role July 17 of that year.

Gabel said she visited the Johnstown campus to see firsthand what she has heard Spectar talk about.

“My familiarity of the campus and his advocacy for the campus is from the earliest days (of her hiring process), but nothing substitutes for being here,” she said. “I’m delighted to see everything in person.

“This campus is swinging around on a hundred-year anniversary, and Jem Spectar is only the fifth president, and so that alone signals a kind of legacy that is very rare and has a result that is hard to quantify, but you see it indicated in the consistency in the look and feel of the campus, and in the relationships the president has with the faculty and the community.”

After a tour of the campus, Spectar and the Pitt-Johnstown advisory board brought a group of more than 20 Johnstown leaders together for a lunch with Gabel at the campus’ Living Learning Center, followed by a reception at Spectar’s home.

The luncheon was attended by Johnstown government, education and nonprofit representatives including Greater Johnstown School District Superintendent Amy Arcurio, former state Sen. John Wozniak, Vision Together 2025 President and CEO Rob Forcey, Cambria County Commissioner Thomas Chernisky, Johnstown Mayor Frank Janakovic and 1889 Foundation President Susan Mann.

Tom Kurtz, a 1977 Pitt-Johnstown alumnus who is president and CEO of Chan Soon-Shiong Medical Center at Windber and Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine at Windber, is the president of the Pitt-Johnstown advisory board.

“Having the chancellor here today is a good chance for us to show off the campus,” he said. “People talk about the natural beauty and the buildings, but the faculty and staff are what make this place special.”

Gabel would agree.

“There is high-touch leadership here,” she said.

She said the Pitt-Johnstown campus is a classic example of the university’s mission to serve western Pennsylvania.

“There are faculty here who are now working with their former students — you don’t see that anymore,” she said. “That kind of integration is the way in which a community is a partner to the institution and the institution is a partner to the community.”

Gabel previously was the president of the University of Minnesota System and Twin Cities campus.

Spectar said he and the Pitt-Johnstown advisory board have been impressed by Gabel’s commitment to the success of Pitt’s regional campuses.

“She’s met many students and faculty, and we have all been impressed by her strong commitment to the success of the regional campuses, to Pitt’s role in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in particular her strong focus on student success,” he said. “If there is one big thing in the plan for Pitt that she gets us to think about, really, it’s making sure every student goes on to success and a life of impact for the benefit of the commonwealth.”

As part of the search committee that recommended Gabel, Spectar said, he was glad to have played a “tiny part in making sure that we attract such an extraordinary leader for these times.”

During Gabel’s tenure so far, Pitt has achieved record new student applications, graduation rates, post-graduation placement and research expenditures, according to the university’s website. Gabel also led the creation of the university’s first metrics-driven strategic plan, the Plan for Pitt 2028.

To ensure a Pitt education remains accessible and affordable, she launched the innovative Pitt Finish Line Grant to provide just-in-time financial support for students nearing graduation.

“The mission of higher education is under a lot of pressure right now, and Pitt and all of the campuses are not immune from that,” she said, indicating declining state funding and enrollment.

“Our goal as all of the leadership of the university is to ensure that our students’ educational experience is top-notch, that every student who comes here, that every investment made by our communities and the commonwealth in us is choice. We want all that investment of time and resources to yield for the students as they go about their lives and the state as it makes the difficult choices it has to make.”