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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.A celebration earlier this month marked the official opening of the David C. Frederick Honors College (FHC) at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, the first regional campus in the Pitt system to host the respected program.
“We are celebrating the creation of new opportunities for Pitt students to discover, to learn, to collaborate, and to find new possibilities in themselves,” said FHC Dean Nicola Foote in her spoken remarks during the event. “We are one of the oldest honors colleges in the nation and we were recently formally named as one of the best in the nation. Today we get to expand that powerful and innovative and transformative model of honors education to even more Pitt students. I truly can’t think of anything more exciting, more powerful.”
Almost two years in the making, the partnership among FHC, Pitt-Greensburg and University leadership was officially announced in May. Numerous offices and departments on both campuses were involved in development, key support was provided by the Office of the Provost, the Office of Admissions, the Office of Financial Aid, and the Office of Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement.
Pitt-Greensburg initiated an Honors Program in 2020, building on a foundation that started in 1999 with the establishment of the Academic Village. Frank Wilson, Pitt-Greensburg’s assistant dean of Academic Affairs and interim associate dean of the Frederick Honors College at Pitt-Greensburg, worked with fellow faculty members Sheila Confer, William Pamerleau and John Prellwitz to mirror — where possible — the fledgling Honors Program on the direction and requirements of the FHC.
Students accepted into the Pitt-Greensburg program now have access to the same support and opportunities as the FHC students at the University’s Pittsburgh campus, including help applying to important scholarships and fellowships like the Fulbright, Truman and Rhodes. Pitt-Greensburg students will also officially graduate from the Frederick Honors College if they complete the Honors joint-degree, Honors Distinction, or the prestigious Bachelor of Philosophy degree.
In the two-year period leading up to this partnership, Pitt-Greensburg students Kaylee Huber and Ethan Crosby became the first regional campus students to receive Brackenridge Fellowships to conduct summer research. Olivia Petry and Madison Vogel were the recipients of study abroad travel funds.
“I have had so many opportunities,” Petry, now a senior at Pitt-Greensburg, said at the event. “I’ve been fortunate enough to take advantage of them and make them mine … I’m grateful to have chosen a campus that believes in us just so fiercely that they wanted this to happen — and not only wanted it to happen but created the ability for it to happen.”
David C. Frederick, whose transformative gift to Pitt’s Honors College resulted in it being named after him, was the celebration’s keynote speaker.
“To me what an honors education is about is inculcating thoughtful, inclusive leadership. That thoughtfulness comes often from independent study, but it also comes from a thinking heart,” he said. “By inclusiveness, I think about creating opportunities for people who may not have thought when they initially came upon a situation what the possibilities were, and so to me the notion that ‘it’s possible at Pitt’ is perfectly in line with how you have all approached your education and instruction here.”
Pitt-Greensburg President Robert Gregerson noted, “With Mr. Frederick’s support, along with encouragement from Provost Joe McCarthy, and more hard work from our faculty and from the staff of the FHC we got this initiative across the finish line. And so, we find ourselves here today celebrating that achievement, but also anticipating all the great accomplishments that are yet to come as faculty and students engage in the process of deep learning that a great honors college makes possible.”
Photography by Aimee Obidzinski