University of Pittsburgh
IN-2: Anchor Institution Network

As one of southwestern Pennsylvania’s major employers, landowners, place-makers, and partners, the University of Pittsburgh is an anchor to the economic and social progress of the region. Pitt’s Anchor Initiatives are a community-centered, place-based suite of strategies developed to leverage Pitt’s role as an anchor institution, which acts as a key convener for investment, ideas, and impacts that are vital to the health and success of our region and the areas of greatest need.

The University’s Anchor Initiatives amplify Pitt’s regional impact in the areas of buying, building and hiring locally; community engagement and partnerships; placemaking and real estate development; and life sciences innovation.

By filling more of our business needs right here in our local communities, Pitt is ensuring that as we grow, we create opportunity—not just in these communities, but with them. Pitt is developing lasting change that supports our neighbors, our communities, and our university for generations.
>>> Pitt Anchor Initiatives webpage - https://www.community.pitt.edu/anchor-initiatives

The University of Pittsburgh is a member of the Coalition or Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) -- and an active participant in the CUMU Workforce Development Huddle. Via this CUMU Huddle, Pitt and other CUMU members are examining their role as job creators to fill their own vacancies and needs, but also to support regional and industry demands. Pitt and other huddle members are addressing pressing human capital demands, leading workforce development recovery in justice-oriented ways, and employing innovative local hiring strategies—all while grappling with the “Great Resignation” in their communities and on their campuses.

At the 2023 CUMU conference, Pitt staff presented a pre-conference workshop on “Advancing Institutional Infrastructure for World-Class Engagement: The Pitt Model".

Workshop Description
Since 2015, the University of Pittsburgh has rapidly advanced architecture to support community engagement. Tied to its identity as a regional anchor and engaged institution, Pitt has assembled a set of platforms that encompass hyperlocal place-based engagement centers, a cross-institutional anchor initiative, connected community affairs and community engagement functions, and strong campus-wide partnerships that provide core training and orientation opportunities for faculty, staff, and students. In doing so, it has achieved rapid institutionalization for community engagement as well as received national recognition for its work, and has dramatically shifted its relationships and impact in its surrounding communities.

The Pittsburgh model acknowledges that institutions of higher education are typically loosely coupled organizations and orients the infrastructural support to prioritize strongly held values and principles while facilitating coordinated autonomy of engagement design and conditions across the institution’s many engaged units and initiatives.

Information provided by Shatara Murphy, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Anchor Initiatives in the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs - December 2023

1) Pitt Anchor Initiatives webpage - https://www.community.pitt.edu/anchor-initiatives
2) CUMU Workforce Development Huddle - https://www.cumuonline.org/cumu-programming/cumu-huddles/
3) 2023 CUMU Pre-Conference Workshop, Advancing Institutional Infrastructure for World-Class Engagement: The Pitt Model - https://web.cvent.com/event/fd24f8c4-e0c3-49db-954f-8290ad692e90/websitePage:94d0dac8-b491-4578-98b9-a51c76614653