For the first time since its founding in 1787, a woman will lead the University of Pittsburgh’s five campuses.
Joan T.A. Gabel, the current president and chief executive of the University of Minnesota, was appointed the 19th chancellor of the system in an unanimous vote with two abstentions Monday by the university’s Board of Trustees. She will lead the campuses and oversee 14,000 staff who educate 34,000 students.
Gabel’s predecessor Patrick Gallagher announced last spring that he planned to leave in summer 2023 after nine years at the helm. After a seven-month search, chair Doug Browning made the final recommendation to the trustees.
“She clearly reflects the vision, drive, experience and understanding of the issues and complexities of leading a major research university,” Browning said ahead of the vote.
Gabel has a stacked resume with decades of experience in university leadership. She said she is humbled to lead the system that has produced hundreds of thousands of scholars.
“Like the spirit of William Hunter Dammond, our first black graduate, and graduates like Tony Dorsett. Like Nobel Prize winners such as Wangari Maathai, discoverers like Jonas Salk and Peter Safer and our sisters, Maggie and Stella Stein, the first women admitted to Pitt, who graduated first in their class with identical GPAs. And countless other risk-takers, leaders and doers who define what it means to be a [Pitt] Panther,” she said Monday. “It's in that spirit that I recognize my incredible fortune to be joining you and to be joining such an amazing community, first as a mom and now as your chancellor-elect.”
Gabel confirmed she has a child attending the university but declined to say more to protect their privacy.
During a board compensation meeting Monday afternoon Gabel’s base salary of $950,000 was approved. Board chair Doug Browning said that the board conducted benchmarking surveys to determine the compensation package.
Departing Chancellor Gallagher’s base pay is nearly $700,000 but he is not the highest-paid person on campus; Anantha Shekhar, the dean of the university’s School of Medicine who also served as vice chair of the chancellor search committee, has a base salary of $1,042,500.
Gabel said she is excited to begin the university’s next chapter.
“To take leaps when needed, and incremental steps as necessary, to ensure that every step we take, however large or small, moves us forward,” she said in a release.
Gabel is expected to begin her tenure in July.
Gallagher said he expects to transition to Pitt faculty as a professor in the department of physics and astronomy.
A new chapter
From leading rebuilding efforts after the university’s campus was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1845 to making big decisions and quick adjustments during a global pandemic, the chancellor sets the tone for the five-campus university system.
Gallagher called Gabel the right leader to shape the university’s future.
“She has successfully led one of America’s top research universities and dedicated her career to supporting a university’s fundamental mission of creating and leveraging knowledge for society’s gain,” he said in a statement. “I am confident that, under her guidance, Pitt’s brightest days lie ahead.”
Gabel began her teaching career in 1996 at Georgia State University before joining Florida State University where she chaired the department of risk management/insurance, real estate and legal studies.
She went on to lead the College of Business at the University of Missouri for five years and then was the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of South Carolina from 2015 to 2019 before she landed in Minnesota.
Under her leadership, the University of Minnesota developed its first systemwide strategic plan and the completion of a 10-year, $4 billion capital campaign.
Search process
The more than seven-month quest to find a chancellor began as an open process in the fall with forums to gather student, staff and faculty input. Then it became a private search among the 26-member internal search committee of students, faculty and alumni.
Shekhar, dean of the university’s School of Medicine who served as vice chair of the search committee, said on Monday that candidates such as Gabel would not have participated in an open search process as she currently serves as president of a university. He said at least a half dozen applicants were sitting university presidents.
The committee recommended six semifinalists to the board, three of whom were brought to campus for interviews.
Shekhar said there were internal candidates in the beginning of the process but none in the top six.
When she steps into the new position, Gabel already has one big move to make: hire a provost. Provost Ann Cudd announced last month that she was leaving to become president of Portland State University in Oregon. Gallagher has said that the new chancellor would be in charge of making the new hire.
Gabel ended her remarks to the Board of Trustees on Monday by saying, “with gratitude, for the first time, Hail to Pitt.”
