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Editor’s note: The University Times is looking at what’s new at each of Pitt’s regional campuses. Look for an article on Dec. 5 about Johnstown. Find the Bradford update in the Nov. 7 edition.
By SHANNON O. WELLS
In what he described as one of the “smoothest, most productive” semesters he’s experienced in his higher education career, Pitt-Greensburg President Robert Gregerson called the regional campus receiving its first-ever TRIO Student Support Services program (SSS) grant as a particular highlight of fall 2025.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the SSS grant — one of eight federal TRIO programs — aims to provide higher education opportunities to historically underrepresented students through individualized support, mentoring, tutoring, and resources to help participants navigate college life and achieve their educational goals.
“It’s really important to us,” Gregerson said. “First of all, federal funding has gotten harder to come by and even maybe harder to keep when you have it, so getting a five-year federal grant is really something right now. We’ve applied previously, but this time we sort of broke through.”
Gregerson shared the news, along with other updates from the Greensburg campus about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, in a Nov. 19 conversation with the University Times.
Going forward, Pitt-Greensburg’s TRIO SSS grant will serve up to 140 students, empowering them to “persist, graduate and pursue meaningful opportunities beyond the classroom,” a Pitt-Greensburg spokesperson said.
The program’s total first-year cost is $384,350, including $272,364 (71%) financed with federal money, and $111,986 (29%) from non-governmental sources.
Gregerson noted that Pitt-Greensburg received a “perfect score” for the grant.
“They’re scored on a point system, and we got a score with no points deducted,” he said. “So we were pretty confident going into the selection process.”
In its student services focus, everything funded by the grant is directly applied to promoting student success, including success among some of the least-advantaged students.
“These are going to be Pell Grant recipients,” Gregerson said of the first-generation college students who sometimes struggle in the transition to college.
“The TRIO grant and knowing that we’ll have those dollars for at least five years to help fortify our student support on our campus is a really, really big deal for us.”
Cybersecurity recognition
In other positive developments, the Pitt-Greensburg campus received the National Security Agency (NSA) Program of Excellence designation for a Bachelor of Science degree offering in IT/cybersecurity.
With this, the campus — the ninth school in Western Pennsylvania to receive the distinction — joins an “elite group of national colleges and universities” recognized as National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Education (NCAE-C) by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security, a spokesperson said.
Valid through academic year 2030, the curriculum highlights Pitt-Greensburg’s Bachelor of Science in Information Technology program, with a focus on cybersecurity.
“That was two years in the making,” Gregerson noted. “It’s a long process of compiling information for the NSA program. … They come back with questions. They come back with comments. They might come back with suggestions. You take those and fold those into the program.”
The designation signifies that Pitt-Greensburg’s curriculum aligns with the national standards to prepare students for critical roles in the cybersecurity workforce, a sector projected to grow 35 percent by 2032, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
“It’s basically the gold standard of cybersecurity,” he said. “That means our curriculum, our faculty, are delivering a cybersecurity credential that will be incredibly marketable in corporations, higher ed institutions, nonprofits — anybody that interacts over the internet needs cybersecurity support, so that’s really important.”
Westmoreland Reads
On a more sociological note, Gregerson touted the Westmoreland Reads panel discussion on “The Anxious Generation” held Oct. 27 in the Ferguson Theater and online. Nearly 300 people attended the hybrid event.
The community was invited to join in the discussion — which included mental health, healthcare, and education professionals, along with two Gen Z students — based on “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by Jonathan Haidt.
The New York Times bestseller explores how the increased use of social media and digital screens is affecting young people’s mental health.
The Westmoreland Reads program is unique, I think, to us,” Gregerson said, explaining that a committee picks a book for the freshman class and community members to read. “This year, we had 17 community (partner organizations) read the book.
That might be a church, or YMCA, YWCA, and other organizations that read the book, and then we come together for a common presentation and discussion.
He called this year’s topic “really important,” dealing with the topic of smartphones and social media and their impact on development. “And it’s a scary book to read.”
“We finished up with a panel discussion — people from the community, people from our campus, counselors, students,” he said, noting the skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression in adolescents in the smartphone age.
“One of the key points of the book is that when young people’s brains are sort of in the process of maturing and wiring, all of a sudden they’re beset with massive amounts of information, and a lot of it negative.”
Next year’s Westmoreland Reads topic involves the practice of natural gas extraction known as fracking.
“That will be controversial and will represent all sides of the conversation,” he said, noting the topic likely will appeal to more of an “older audience. But we’ll see. I hope it generates some interesting conversations and people learn a little bit more about what that all means.”
Tragedy among triumphs
Regarding enrollment, Pitt-Greensburg has held steady for the past five years with around 1,320 students.
“We’re up seven students over last year,” said Gregerson, who has been Pitt-Greensburg president for six and a half years.
“Since 2021, we’ve had essentially the same enrollment, and in today’s environment, that’s a win to be stable. You always like the opportunity to grow. But right now, having level enrollment is really good for us.”
On a sad and somber note, Gregerson said the “big exception” to fall 2025 being a notably successful semester was the death of Pitt-Greensburg senior Alyssa Caldarelli and her boyfriend in a car crash in early October in the Washington, D.C., area.
“That’s a horrible tragedy to lose someone that young,” Gregerson said. “She was a senior and was coming back from a trip when she passed away due to the accident.
“If it hadn’t been for that, I would say this has been one of the smoothest, quietest, and most productive semesters that I’ve witnessed.”
Source link: Utimes.pitt.edu.
