university of pittsburgh Capital Campaign... · Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg Reports on the...

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg Reports on the Completion of the Capital Campaign

u n i v e r s i t y o f p i t t s b u r g h

On February 28, 1787, several months before our Constitution breathed life into a new nation, the Pennsylvania Legislature approved a charter for the frontier academy that would become the University of Pittsburgh.

That frontier school was, of course, modest by modern standards: housed in a log cabin; perched at the edge of the wilderness; and offering a course of study that included such subjects as mercantile arithmetic, navigation, surveying, and bookkeeping.

Although many held an unflattering view of the region, others saw a far brighter future for Pittsburgh. Among them was Hugh Henry Brackenridge, our founder, who led a wide range of civic efforts within the community and later served both in the Legislature and as a Justice of the state Supreme Court.

In all that he did, Mr. Brackenridge was driven by an extraordinary vision for this region. When he viewed the modest settlement that had become his home, he said, “This town must in future time be a place of great manufactory. Indeed the greatest on the continent, or perhaps in the world.” Remember that he was speaking in the 1780s, when America was a land of farmers, hunters, and trappers. But generations later, Pittsburgh did become a world center of manufacturing might.

Mr. Brackenridge was equally visionary when it came to education, and he was exceptionally clear about the high quality of education he envisioned, saying, “I should rejoice to see Pennsylvania at all times able to produce mathematicians, philosophers, poets, historians, and statesmen equal to any in the confederacy.” In the excellence of Pitt’s programs, we see the realization of that dimension of the Brackenridge dream.

He also saw the link between education and economic prosperity that would emerge far more clearly over time. “I do not know that the legislature could do a more acceptable service to the Commonwealth than by endowing a school at this place,” he said. “It will institute knowledge and ability … [and] we well know the strength of a state greatly consists in the superior mental powers of the inhabitants.”

The following is the printed version of the remarks delivered by Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg at the reception celebrating the fact that the University’s historic fundraising campaign had surpassed its $2 billion goal. The campaign closed on June 30, 2013, having raised more than $2.1 billion in support for the University of Pittsburgh.

u n i v e r s i t y o f p i t t s b u r g h | c a p i t a l c a m p a i g n r e p o r t

The first home of the University, founded in 1787 as the Pittsburgh Academy, was a log cabin on the American frontier.

Detail of the original charter of the University of Pittsburgh, February 28, 1787

An 1810 portrait of Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748–1816), founder of the University of Pittsburgh, painted by Gilbert Stuart, most famous for his paintings of George Washington and the succeeding five presidents of the United States 1

Mr. Brackenridge also understood that building and nurturing quality in education, like building and nurturing quality in anything else, is not a cost-free undertaking. Instead, it requires regular, and sometimes substantial, investments.

Consistent with that belief, in addition to a charter, Mr. Brackenridge sought permanent financial support for the Pittsburgh Academy. Specifically, he asked his legislative colleagues to create an endowment from the proceeds of the sale of 10,000 acres of public land. Perhaps as a precursor of things to come, the state reduced the land to be sold from 10,000 acres to 5,000 acres and, according to University historian Robert Alberts, sold the land “at so low a price that the money gave very little help.”

Even though that early state support never materialized, our predecessors kept building. They built as the Pittsburgh Academy became the Western University of Pennsylvania and, finally, the University of Pittsburgh. They kept building as our principal campus moved from Downtown to the North Side to Oakland. And they kept building as the University expanded to include important regional campuses in Johnstown, Bradford, Greensburg, and Titusville.

With the construction of the Cathedral of Learning, the University built up as well as out—tying its global identity to its academic skyscraper. The building of the Cathedral became something of an obsession for then Chancellor John Bowman. He described his feelings this way in a letter to the architect, Charles Klauder: “My life is tied up in the idea that the proposed structure will be the most beautiful and outstanding building ever erected.” And Klauder himself said, “No architect in all of history was ever before given such an opportunity. The use of mass and proportion is unlimited; ornamentation is scarcely needed at all; and the whole structure is unhampered by its surroundings.”

Those words describe the dreams of those two key men—the academic and the architect. However, to make their dream a reality, there were major hurdles to overcome. One was a less-than-enthusiastic Board of Trustees. Another was finding funding for such a major project, particularly with the onset of the Great Depression.


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(top) Study for the Commons Room (line drawing) and other illustrations (graphite) by Charles Klauder and Associates, ca. 1926

Chancellor John Bowman, photograph ca. 1928–29

Construction progresses at the Cathedral of Learning, April 12, 1929. Work began in 1926, and the Cathedral was dedicated in 1937.

Early study, Commons Room Sketch, Cathedral of Learning Height studies, Cathedral of Learning

Pittsburgh schoolchildren helped to fundraise for the Cathedral’s construction by donating dimes to the campaign.

The campaign that resulted, born of necessity and driven by these big dreams, has been called “a landmark in the field—a classic example of a very large campaign that used pioneering methods and had striking results.”

Trustees and brothers Andrew W. and Richard B. Mellon paid off the University’s existing debt and then donated Frick Acres, the land upon which the Cathedral would be built, even though they were not champions of the “tall building project.”

Judge Elbert Henry Gary, the CEO of United States Steel Corporation, committed $250,000 in steel rods, bars, girders, and beams. By the calculations of Mr. Alberts, “[T]his represented a gift of 7,142 tons of unfabricated steel. It also represented something more important than that. It was a pioneering event, a breakthrough in corporate philanthropy. Gifts from corporations to colleges and universities were virtually unknown.”

An organizational structure—complete with a separate chair and solicitation team—was created to take the campaign to 20 other communities.

And, as a distinctive piece of Pitt’s history, a broad-based community effort was launched, soliciting contributions from schoolchildren—who, for a 10-cent contribution, received a certificate admitting them into the “fellowship of the builders of the Cathedral of Learning.” Carlton Ketchum, a professional who helped shape the campaign, described this aspect of it in the following way:

You don’t put up much Cathedral with 97,000 dimes. It took a great deal of work, cost more than $9,700, and broke a basic rule of business, which is that you have wasteage and lower your standard of giving if you make a major effort to collect small amounts. But it did dramatize the project for people. And for years afterward I kept running into young people who chose Pitt as their college because they had once “bought a brick” to help build the Cathedral of Learning.

u n i v e r s i t y o f p i t t s b u r g h | c a p i t a l c a m p a i g n r e p o r t 5

(top) Frick Acres, the land donated by the Mellon family to be the site of the Cathedral of Learning, photographed in 1926

Workers setting stone at the top of the Cathedral, ca. 1928

And so the Cathedral became even more than a truly magnificent structure. It came to be viewed as a community treasure and as a symbol of the University that would grow in and around it. The Cathedral’s height makes a bold statement about the scale of our ambitions. Its mass reflects the power of higher education as a force for progress. It symbolizes, through its Nationality Rooms, the value of both diversity and unity. And it stands as a testament to all the good that can come when commitment and creativity combine with human generosity—whether from the very wealthy, like the Mellon brothers; or the very powerful, like Judge Gary; or those who lack either wealth or power, like the schoolchildren of Pittsburgh.

Our own efforts can be viewed as an extension of the work of those who came before us. Obviously, we have not faced quite the challenges that existed when Pittsburgh was a frontier outpost or when the world was contending with the Great Depression. But we have met daunting tests of our own.

When we launched this effort, the University was just beginning to emerge from a somewhat stagnant period. Our own fundraising consultant had publicly declared that Pitt was not positioned to raise any meaningful sums of money. The widely shared view was that we needed to make the institution more worthy of external support and that we needed to invest a period of years in planning for a campaign and building a 21st-century fundraising organization.

J.W. Connolly, our Board Chair at the time, championed the position that fundraising needed to be approached with a sense of urgency.

Once we got started, we reached our first goal of $500 million early. Rather than stopping, we doubled that goal to $1 billion and kept going. When we also got to $1 billion early, we doubled our goal again. And we concluded this momentous campaign well ahead of schedule and well above our goal, having raised more than eight times the $251 million that we raised in what had been our record-setting bicentennial campaign; more than four times our initial $500 million goal; and with a campaign total that is twice as large as the largest total ever raised for any purpose at any time in Western Pennsylvania.


(top) J.W. Connolly

Cathedral of Learning, photographed in 1940

The University of Pittsburgh campus, photographed in 1950

Nationality Rooms in watercolor by Andrey Avinoff, ca. 1938–41; from left: the Czechoslovak Room, the Polish Room, the Greek Room, and the Russian Classroom

Our very impressive and inspiring “bottom line” is this: Nearly 200,000 donors have contributed more than $2.1 billion to the University of Pittsburgh as a part of this campaign.

4 More than 140,000 donors have contributed as much as $1,000 to this campaign.

4 More than 21,000 donors have given between $1,000 and $10,000 to this campaign.

4 More than 5,100 donors have given between $10,000 and $100,000 to this campaign.

4 More than 1,300 donors have given between $100,000 and $1 million to this campaign.

4 238 donors have given between $1 million and $5 million to this campaign.

4 44 donors have given between $5 million and $25 million to this campaign.

4 And 11 donors have given more than $25 million to this campaign.

Of the 293 donors who have contributed more than $1 million to this campaign, 95 had never made a past gift of any size to the University. And nearly half of the total amount raised—$1.1 billion—came from donors outside Pennsylvania. This shows, as also is true of our research efforts, that in fundraising, too, Pitt is a powerful magnet for attracting funds into the Commonwealth and particularly into our home communities.

When we launched this campaign at Discovery Weekend in October of 2000, we knew that the dollar total raised was less important than the ways in which the funds were used. From that perspective, it is important to remember that the campaign attracted gifts of such historic size that they led to the naming of two key schools in honor of their benefactors: the Swanson School of Engineering and the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.


John A. Swanson (front center), U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald Holder (front left), and Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg (front right) celebrate with engineering students outside Benedum Hall in December 2007.

(top) The 18-foot ornamental iron gates in the Commons Room serve as a backdrop for the Cathedral of Learning Society’s donor induction ceremony.

N. John Cooper, the Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Dean of Arts and Sciences; William S. Dietrich II; and Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg in September 2011

The Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Memorial Chapel, photographed during Discovery Weekend in 2000

The campaign also attracted gifts that helped us to construct buildings that physically transformed our campuses. Some of the best-known new construction projects are here in Pittsburgh. Among them are the John M. and Gertrude E. Petersen Events Center, the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Baierl Student Recreation Center, the Duratz Athletic Complex, the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, and the Petersen Sports Complex.

We also cleaned the exterior of the Cathedral and renovated the interiors of other buildings—creating, among other important spaces, the Hearst Life Skills Resource Center, the McCarl Center for Nontraditional Student Success, the Charity Randall Theatre, the Frank Sarris Outpatient Clinic at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, the Charles M. Steiner Atrium in the Joseph M. Katz School of Business, and the Hilda M. Willis Center for Academic Support.

And we clearly are not done building, as is reflected in the new addition to our Graduate School of Public Health, which has been generously supported by Becky (GSPH ’81) and John Surma, and through ongoing work on the Salk Hall research tower addition and the new Pittsburgh campus residence hall.

Critical construction activity also has occurred on all four of our regional campuses. Some of these projects have been nothing short of transformational. They include the Broadhurst Science Center at Pitt–Titusville, Blaisdell Hall and the Harriett B. Wick Chapel at Pitt–Bradford, and the Campana Chapel and Lecture Hall at Pitt–Greensburg.

And, of course, the physical side of this campaign was not limited to Western Pennsylvania buildings. Instead, we also benefited from the extraordinarily generous gift of 6,000 acres of fossil-rich land in Wyoming, now named after its donor as the Allen L. Cook Spring Creek Preserve.


(top) Allen L. Cook Spring Creek Preservein Wyoming

Charity Randall Theatre

Broadhurst Science Center, Pitt–Titusville Harriett B. Wick Chapel, Pitt–Bradford Campana Chapel and Lecture Hall, Pitt–Greensburg

Petersen Sports Complex

Campaign gifts permitted us to launch and support initiatives that were as important and wide-ranging as the University’s Center for Energy, which has been generously supported by the Richard King Mellon Foundation; the Ford Institute for Human Security, supported by the Ford Motor Company; the Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration; the Hillman Fellows Program for Innovative Cancer Research; the LaVonne and Glen Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership; the Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research; three student-athlete life skills programs funded by John (A&S ’71, GSPIA ’79) and Kathleen Pelusi; the Gertrude E. and John M. Petersen Institute of NanoScience and Engineering; the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegen-erative Diseases, which was started with support from the DSF Charitable Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundation; the Dr. Richard E. and Dorothy L. Raizman Vaccine Research Discovery Laboratory; the Frieda G. and Saul S. Shapira BRCA-Associated Cancer Research Program; the Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease; the John A. Swanson Institute for Technical Excellence; the Dr. Gordon J. Vanscoy Pharmaceutical Endowment; and the Vascular Medicine Institute, which has been generously supported by the Institute for Transfusion Medicine and the Hemophilia Center of Western Pennsylvania.

Donors endowed three deanships—the U.S. Steel Dean in the Swanson School; the Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Dean in the Dietrich School; and the Bernice and Morton Lerner Chair, held by the Dean of the University Honors College—and also created an endowment to support the Hillman University Librarian.

New chairs and professorships created through 154 endowments permit us to recruit, retain, and support high-performing faculty members throughout the University.

Meeting one of our greatest needs and advancing one of our highest priorities, we created nearly 600 new endowed scholarships and fellowships. These will provide perpetual support to students enrolled in virtually every program on all five of our campuses. Also important is the fact that we dramatically increased the sums required to create such endowed accounts, meaning that the payouts from new scholarship and fellowship endowments will be higher than they were from endowed accounts created before the campaign.


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(top) Architectural detail from the University Honors College

Biomedical Science Tower 3

Pitt football great James Covert (A&S ’91, far left), president and CEO of the Institute for Transfusion Medicine, joins Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg (second from left) and others to celebrate the launch of the University’s Vascular Medicine Institute.

Sheldon Adler, MD, Chair in Nephrology Research

Advanced Imaging Chair

Auditory Development and Plasticity Chair

Auditory Physiology Chair

The Autism Research Endowed Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Henry T. Bahnson Professorship in Surgery

E. Leon Barnes Professorship for Anatomic Pathology

Bayer Chair in the Department of Chemistry

Bayer Professorship in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Donald R. Beall Chair in Strategic Management

Robert J. and Edith J. Berarducci Endowed Chair in Business

Jeffrey S. Blum School of Law Endowment

Doreen E. Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science

Herbert W. and Grace Boyer Chair in Molecular Biology

Chair for Brain Disorder Research

James J. and Noel W. Browne Chair(School of Social Work)

James Thomas and Jacquelyn Stone Cain Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Chair in Cerebrovascular Disease Research

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh- Dr. Joseph H. Marcy Endowed Chair in Pediatric Anesthesia

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh- Dr. Ross H. Musgrave Endowed Chair in Pediatric Plastic Surgery

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh- Peter and Ada Rossin Chair in Pediatric Cardiology

Jane and Carl Citron Chair in Colon Cancer

Connolly Family Chair in the Stroke Institute

Robert J. Corry Chair in Transplantation Surgery

Dr. Leo H. Criep Chair in Patient Care

The Charles Crow, PhD, Chair in the English Department

Richard L. Day Endowed Chair in Pediatrics

Nickolas A. DeCecco Professorship in the School of Engineering

Thomas P. Detre Chair of Geriatric Medicine

Diabetes and Metabolic Bone Disease Chair

Chair in Diabetes and Obesity Research

Dietrich Foundation Endowment Fund for the William S. Dietrich II Endowed Chair in Political Science

Endowed Distinguished Visiting Professorship (School of Medicine, Department of Surgery)

The Lawrence Ellis Chair in Hematology and Oncology

Emergency Medicine Chair

ERMI Chair in Healthcare Quality

Chair for Ethics in Critical Care Medicine

Endowed Chair for Experimental Pathology

Eye and Ear Foundation Chair in Otolaryngology

Helen S. Faison Chair in Urban Education

The William H. Ferguson Chair in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering

Dr. Mitchell P. Fink Chair in Critical Care Medicine

FISA/Paralyzed Veterans of America Chair of Rehabilitation Engineering

John J. Fung-Astellas Pharma US, Inc., Assistant Professorship in Transplant Surgery

Endowed Chair/Professorship in Geriatric Psychiatry

Giant Eagle Endowed Chair in Cancer Genetics

Anthony E. Gill Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Thomas J. Gill III Professorship of Clinical Pathology

Dr. Ake N. Grenvik Chair in Critical Care Medicine

Philip Hallen Chair in Community Health and Social Justice

Robert L. Hardesty Professorship(School of Medicine)

Head and Neck Surgical Research Chair in Otolaryngology

Donald Henderson Chair(Office of the Provost)

Henry B. Higman Chair in Neurology

The Hillman University Librarian Chair

The Monto and Carol Ho Chair in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in the Graduate School of Public Health

Marcus Allen Hogge Chair in Reproductive Genetics

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Genetics Research Chair

The Dr. Klaus W. Jonas Chair in German Studies

John A. and Ruth R. Jurenko Endowed Professorship in Computer Engineering

Andrew Jackson Kelly Jr. Professorship of Real Estate

Joseph Koslow Endowed Chair (School of Pharmacy)

Paul C. Lauterbur Chair in Imaging Research

Professorships in the School of Law

Dr. Frank L. and Daphna K. Lederman Endowed Fund for the John A. Swanson School of Engineering

Londino Endowed Chair in Pediatrics

Love Family Chair for the School of Medicine Department of Neurology

Chair in Lung Immunology

John and Lucine O’Brien Marous Chair in Catholicism and Christian Ethics

A. Julio Martinez Chair in Neuropathology

Master Clinician Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine

The Samuel A. McCullough Chair in Finance

Gerald E. McGinnis Chair in Bioengineering

Richard King Mellon Foundation Chair of Pediatric Research

Richard King Mellon Foundation Chair Professorship in Energy Research #1

Richard King Mellon Foundation Chair Professorship in Energy Research #2

Richard King Mellon Foundation Chair Professorship Startup #1

Richard King Mellon Foundation Chair Professorship Startup #2

Howard T. Mickle Chair (or Professorship) in Electrical Engineering

Ruth E. and Howard T. Mickle Chairs in Electrical Engineering

Ruth E. Mickle Chair in Electrical Engineering

Margaret Jane Miller Endowed Professorship for Arthritis Research in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology

Chair in Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery

Molecular Imaging Chair

Endowed Chair in Movement Disorders in Neurology

Chair of Neurological Surgery Endowment

Neurotrauma Chair in Neurosurgery

Dorothy Stewart Nicklas Chair(Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences)

John B. Nicklas Jr. Chair

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg University Chair

Joseph F. Novak, MD, Chair in Ophthalmology Research

The Thomas H. O’Brien Chair(Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business)

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Chair in Women’s Health

Tom W. Olofson Chair(Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business)

Endowed Chair in Orthopaedics

Endowed Chair in Orthopaedics-Spine Division

Otolaryngology Chair

Arnold Palmer Endowed Chair in Cancer Prevention

John and Gertrude Petersen Dean’s Chair in the School of Medicine

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Research Chair

The Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Innovative Cancer Research

Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Personalized Medicine

The Pittsburgh Foundation- Emmerling Chair in Psychotic Disorders

Pittsburgh Steelers Chair in Transplantation

M. Allen Pond Chair in Health Policy and Management

Dr. Harold W. and Ilse F. Posner Chair in Dental Medicine

The Dr. Harold W. and Ilse Posner Endowed Professorship in General Dentistry

Radiology PET Research Endowed Chair

Judge J. Quint Salmon and Anne Salmon Chair in Law

E. Ronald Salvitti MD Chair in Ophthalmology Research Current Use Fund

Sampson Family Endowed Chair in Thoracic Surgical Oncology

Frank and Athena Sarris Chair in Transplantation Biology

James A. Shaver Chair in Cardiovascular Education

Peter E. Sheptak Chair in Neurological Surgery

The Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Endowed Chair for Pulmonary Research

Richard L. Simmons Chair in Surgery

Roberta G. Simmons Assistant/Associate Professorship

Thomas E. Starzl Professorship of Transplant Pathology

Ronald D. Stewart Endowed Chair in Emergency Medicine Research

Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies, Department of Psychiatry

Richard L. Sweet MD Chair in Reproductive Infectious Diseases

Chair in Systems Neuroscience

The George H. Taber Chair in General Internal Medicine

Endowed Chair/Professorship in Translational Neuroscience

Twenty-Five Club Chair in Newborn Medicine

The UCIS Visiting Professorship in Contemporary International Issues

University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg-Finance Chair

UPMC Chair in Acute Lung Injury

UPMC Chair in Advanced Oncologic Head and Neck Surgery

UPMC Chair in Airway Biology

UPMC Chair in Cancer Prevention Research

UPMC Chair in Cancer Virology Research

UPMC Endowed Chair in Lung Cancer

UPMC Andrew W. Mathieson Chair for the Department of Family Medicine

UPMC Pellegrini Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery

UPMC Chair in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

UPMC Endowed Professorship in Sleep Medicine

UPMC Chair in Translational Medicine and Research

UPMC Chair in Translational Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

UPMC Chair in Urological Research

UPMC Chair in Vascular Surgery

UPMC-Rosalind Franklin Chair in Structural Biology

UPMC-Irwin Fridovich Chair in Pharmacology

UPMC-Niels Jerne Chair in Pediatrics

UPMC-Jonas Salk Chair in Global Health

UPMC Health System Chair in Nursing Science

U.S. Steel Dean’s Chair of Engineering

Sandra and Thomas Usher Endowed Chair in Melanoma

Gordon J. Vanscoy Endowed Chair(School of Pharmacy)

Robert v.d. Luft Professorship in Engineering

John K. Vries Chair in Computational Biology

Charles Gray Watson Professorship in Surgical Education

Wheeler Family Charitable Foundation Chair(School of Medicine)

Endowed Chair of Women’s Imaging

However measured, this is a milestone moment in the long and proud history of our University. It means that nearly 200,000 donors respect the quality and impact of the University of Pittsburgh enough to invest more than $2.1 billion of their own money to help to secure its future. That is an uplifting statement. It also is a statement that carries serious stewardship responsibilities.

Upon entering the Cathedral of Learning, one message that the magnificence of the building conveys is that the people who built it obviously thought that important work would be conducted here at Pitt and we had better not let them down. The same is true of these campaign contributions.

People have taken their money, which could have been put to many other good uses, and said, through their gifts, that their belief in Pitt has made this University a high priority.

In our stewardship role, then, it is important to note that reaching our $2 billion campaign goal was not Pitt’s only significant victory of the past year. We continued to climb ever higher within the ranks of the country’s finest research universities.

To highlight just three recent examples: • We claimed our fourth Rhodes Scholar since 2006, a record equaled by only one other public university, the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill. And through their receipt of many other national awards, our students continued to demonstrate that they can effectively compete against the very best students from the very best colleges and universities in the country.

• We were one of just 10 universities to have three or more faculty members elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Stanford led the way with six; the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University each claimed four; and the University of Pittsburgh; Columbia University; Johns Hopkins University; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of California, San Diego; and the University of Washington each had three.


(top) Cathedral of Learning, photographed in 2007

Cathedral detail

Cathedral of Learning main entrance

Cathedral of Learning Commons Room

• And the National Science Foundation ranked Pitt among the country’s top five universities in terms of total federal science and engineering research and development support won by the members of our faculty. That placed us just behind Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania and ahead of every other university in the country, including Stanford University; the University of California, San Diego; Columbia University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Wisconsin, the second five universities in that very distinguished top 10.

So even as we worked hard to achieve our campaign goal, we also were working to advance the overarching and never-ending goal set by our Trustees 12 years ago, in the same year that we publicly launched this campaign: “By aggressively supporting the advancement of Pitt’s academic mission, we will clearly and consistently demonstrate that this is one of the finest and most productive universities in the world.”

Getting to this point has taken a lot of hard work by a lot of people. Certainly that includes our two development Vice Chancellors, Clyde Jones and Al Novak, and all of the members of their teams. Important contributions also were made by virtually every member of our senior leadership team as well as by hundreds of volunteer leaders, including Suzanne W. Broadhurst and Cynthia L. Roth (NURS ’81), who were the moving forces behind the success of Discovery Weekend, as well as Thomas G. Bigley (BUS ’56) and Sam S. Zacharias (A&S ’64), who played special leadership roles throughout the long life of the campaign.

The success of this campaign also depended upon two stages of Trustee campaign committee leadership. Pitt Trustee Thomas J. Usher (ENGR ’64, ’66G, ’71G), the Chairman of Marathon Petroleum Corporation and retired Chair and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Steel, served as Chair of the campaign through its first $1 billion.

Pitt Board of Trustees Vice Chair Eva Tansky Blum (A&S ’70, LAW ’73), Executive Vice President and Director of Community Affairs for PNC Bank and Chair and President of The PNC Foundation, and her brother and fellow Pitt Trustee Burton M. Tansky (A&S ’61), retired President and Chief Executive Officer of The Neiman Marcus Group, served as Cochairs of the campaign through its final $1 billion.


(top) Detail of the Pitt Giving Web site, www.giveto.pitt.edu

2013 commencement exercises, Petersen Events Center

Autumn scenery frames the Cathedral of Learning, photographed in 2011.

Thomas J. Usher Burton M. Tansky and Eva Tansky Blum

On behalf of everyone who is a part of Pitt or who depends upon Pitt or who will depend upon Pitt in the years ahead, I extend a heartfelt and most sincere expression of thanks to the generous individuals and organizations that invested in Pitt. And on behalf of this community, I also pledge that we will keep working—as hard and effectively as we can—to show that we are deserving of your faith in us. It is wonderful to be in your company.

When you think about what we have accomplished together, it is not hard to imagine that our own successors might look at this period in the life of Pitt much as we have looked back on the days of Mr. Brackenridge and Chancellor Bowman. If they do, I hope they will say that we saw the right things, that we believed in the right things, and that we did the right things. Hopefully, they also will conclude that the chapter we now are writing in the long and proud history of Pitt is one of its finest periods. If they do, a large share of the credit will belong to you.

Thank you, and Hail to Pitt!

Much of the historical information in these remarks is taken from Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh, 1787–1987. This bicentennial history of the University of Pittsburgh was written by Robert C. Alberts and published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

For more details about the campaign, visit www.giveto.pitt.edu/campaign.


Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg in the German ClassroomWilliam Pitt Union and Pitt Panther statue

Graduates at commencement shorten the familiar refrain “Hail to Pitt!” with the mortarboard-friendly “H2P.”

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. Published in cooperation with the Department of Communications Services. DCS91789-1013Pitt students in front of the William Pitt Union

leaderin education

pioneerin research

partnerin regional development

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