Karen Patricia "Pat" Pitney (néeSpurgin; born August 10, 1965) is an American university administrator, former Alaska state government official, and Olympic gold medalist. She is the president of the University of Alaska system.
Early life and education
Born in Billings, Montana, Pitney competed and won a gold medal in the 1984 Summer Olympics.[1][2] She became the first Olympic Champion in Air Rifle for Women, at the time being an 18-year-old student at Murray State University, Kentucky. The Pat Spurgin Rifle Range at Murray State University is named after her.[3] She earned a degree in engineering physics from Murray State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.[4]
Pitney volunteered as an assistant coach for the Alaska Nanooks rifle team at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for almost two decades.[8] The team won nine NCAA Rifle Championships during that time.[9]
In December 2014, newly elected Alaska GovernorBill Walker appointed Pitney as director of the Office of Management and Budget[11] During the 2014-2018 Walker administration, Pitney focused on managing the impact of collapsing oil prices on the Alaska state budget.[12][13][14][15][16][17] Pitney then became director of the state of Alaska's Legislative Finance Division in January 2020.[18]
University of Alaska president
Pitney became interim president of the University of Alaska system on August 1, 2020. She succeeded acting President Michelle Rizk, who had stepped in after the resignation of President Jim Johnsen on June 22.[4] Pitney's term was originally set to expire when a permanent university president was recruited.[19] However, on January 31, 2022, the chair of the University of Alaska Board of Regents, Sherri Buretta, proposed that the pending recruitment be cancelled and that Pitney be appointed as permanent president, effective immediately.[20] Although faculty, student and staff governance groups all protested their exclusion from the decision-making process,[21] the Board of Regents unanimously accepted the proposal on February 25; Buretta noted that Pitney was the first woman to hold the University of Alaska presidency as a permanent position.[22]
Pitney inherited an ongoing downsizing of the university system in response to a three-year program of scheduled reductions in financial support from the state of Alaska. Her presidency began at the start of the second year of the reductions. To compensate for reduced funding from the state, Pitney has pursued private philanthropists,[23][24] external grants for research programs, and completion of the University of Alaska's federal land grant endowment.[25] Pitney reported in early 2023 that in the previous year the University of Alaska system had "reached the highest level ever of externally funded research".[26] The completion of the land grant had passed a milestone in December 2022 with the passage of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, which directed the Bureau of Land Management to begin the process of transferring 360,000 acres of federal land to the university.[27]
The Pitney administration's academic focus has been on programs which directly benefit the Alaska economy, such as alternative energy, marine farming, health care education, heavy oil recovery, mining of critical minerals, and development of drone aircraft applications.[28] In the face of budget cuts, Pitney has also pushed forward the Alaska Native Success Initiative, which increases the involvement of Alaskan native students and faculty in University academics.[28][24]
The first year of Pitney's presidency was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down most on-campus activities in the spring of 2020 in favor of remote instruction. Her administration gradually reopened those on-campus activities, with all in-person classes resuming in the fall of 2021.[29][24]
^"Pat Spurgin". databaseOlympics.com. databaseSports.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Brooks, James (30 December 2022). "University of Alaska will gain land under new federal budget law". Alaska Beacon. States Newsroom. Retrieved 31 December 2022. Under the terms of the legislation, the Bureau of Land Management must create a program within four years to transfer 360,000 acres of federal land selected by the state of Alaska and the University of Alaska.
