Chancellor, top Pitt leaders pledge portion of earnings to university

In a move that could set a standard across colleges facing financial shortfalls in the coronavirus crisis, University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and eight Pitt senior vice chancellors have pledged a portion of their salaries to the university.

Their pledges — Gallagher promised to commit 20% of his salary for 2020-21, while his senior vice chancellors each pledged 10% — will add about $500,000 to Pitt coffers. Gallagher this year earns about $670,000 in base salary. His pledge alone comes out to about $133,000.

The executives designated their pledges to support students and the university community.

“I am honored to join my senior leadership team in giving back to the University of Pittsburgh and our students,” Gallagher said, announcing the pledges. “In the face of this unprecedented crisis, we continue to respond in true Panther form: as a community.”

Eva Tansky Blum, chair of Pitt’s Board of Trustees, said the move reflects a genuine commitment to Pitt.

“The University Trustees applaud the remarkable way the Chancellor, his executive team, faculty and administration have responded to the pandemic,” she said. “The fact that the Chancellor and the Senior Vice Chancellors have chosen to donate a portion of their salary to the University is a powerful demonstration of their leadership and devotion to Pitt, and to our students.”

Pitt was forced to shutter its campuses and move to online instruction last month, as coronavirus fears spread, triggering stay-at-home advisories and new guidelines for social distancing.

Gallagher said Pitt incurred $30 million to $40 million in costs as it moved to mothball dorms, shutter classrooms and switch to online instruction.

This month, he broached the possibility that Pitt, the region’s largest university and one of Pittsburgh’s biggest employers, might not be able to open for business as usual this fall. In a speech to the university community, he said Pitt officials are planning for a variety of scenarios including the possibility of a hybrid semester consisting of a combination of cycling between smaller, limited classes on campus and online instruction as the virus waxes and wanes.

Gallagher, a 57-year-old Pitt-educated physicist, was acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce and director of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology when Pitt’s board of trustees tapped him to become the university’s 18th chancellor in 2014.