A Message
from the Dean

Our community has a special superpower — the power to transform lives. Faculty, staff, and alumni all possess it.

One of the most striking ways in which these superpowers are revealed is in the personal stories that alumni and donors share.

It might be a particularly inspiring instructor whose course sparked a new passion and changed their career choice, or a brief conversation during office hours with a professor that gave them the confidence to stick with a subject that was challenging them.

At least as often, it’s a staff member that they recall as pivotal — an admissions officer who took a chance on them, an undergraduate advisor who pulled them aside and set them on a new path, a program director who helped find additional scholarship dollars when a student’s family faced financial hardship, or a development officer who picked up the phone and found them an opportunity to interview for an internship.

Alumni contribute to these transformative moments as well. A scholarship changes a student’s calculus about whether college is even possible. That student graduates, takes a job they couldn’t have imagined before coming to Pitt Business, and years later returns to mentor a first-generation student of their own. For another student, a conversation with an alumnus at a networking event becomes the catalyst that redirects an entire career trajectory.

This is the theme of this year’s magazine: moments that transform and transformation that compounds. A gift, a piece of advice, a classroom breakthrough, or a chance encounter is never really singular — it crosses paths with countless others, building into a current strong enough to carry our students forward, and touching people the giver will never meet.

You will read about several of these transformative currents in the pages ahead: alumni whose support opened doors for students who have gone on to shape industries; staff and faculty whose quiet interventions redirected a career; students whose Pitt Business experience became the pivot point for opportunities that once seemed out of reach. Individually, each story is modest. Together, they are the entire engine of what we do.

That compounding effect doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen in isolation. It requires faculty and staff willing to go beyond what any job description requires, students willing to take the harder, more experiential path, and alumni and partners willing to invest in a student they may never meet — trusting that the effect of their gift will outlast the moment they gave it.

Business education, done right, changes lives — and at scale, changes communities and even nations. Every gift of time, talent, 

or treasure has a meaningful impact and helps us prepare the professionals business needs today and the leaders the world will need tomorrow. I invite and encourage you to renew your commitment to the School and the impact it had on you, and consider how your next gift of time, talent, or treasure might ripple forward. Thank you for everything you have already set in motion.