Ken Gormley stepping down next year as Duquesne University president
Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, will be stepping down from his position next summer.
Gormley has been president of the university for nearly a decade and began his career at Duquesne in 1994.
After stepping down as president on July 1, 2026, Gormley plans to remain as chancellor of Duquesne.
"President Gormley has amassed a remarkable record of accomplishments during his decade as President and his 30 years at the University," said Diane Hupp, Chair of the Board and an alumna. "Ken's leadership and vision have allowed Duquesne's reputation as a national Catholic university to soar during his time in office," she said. "We're grateful that he has agreed to serve in the role of Chancellor after he steps down as president next year, allowing a seamless transition while utilizing his abundant talents to continue the positive momentum of the University."
In a release from the university, Gormley said he is a firm believer in "strategic, long-term planning."
"I feel it's important to create a smooth transition plan for new leadership to blossom and excel, if we're going to make sure the successes of the past decade continue," Gormley said. "It's not enough to look one year ahead at a time—I believe in creating 10- and 30-year plans. My wife, Laura, and I felt this was perfect timing to begin a thoughtful transition."
Among successes of Gormley's during his tenure as president at Duquesne include launching the university's College of Osteopathic Medicine, securing a $50 million gift commitment for the university, and helping oversee the renovation of the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse, among others.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Edinburgh University boss who 'didn't know his own salary' spent £47k on luxury travel
A uni boss who told MSPs he didn't know his own £421,667 salary spent £47,000 on luxury foreign junkets in just two years. University of Edinburgh vice-chancellor and principal Sir Peter Mathieson racked up £42,456 on business class flights to destinations including South Africa, South Korea, the US and Hong Kong between March 2022 and May last year. An investigation by the Sunday Mail uncovered £3059 spent on accommodation, and £1336 on transport in Milan, London, Texas, Brussels, Warsaw and Hong Kong from September 2023 to last July. READ MORE: Tragedy as West Lothian man dies in crash after air ambulance lands on busy road READ MORE: Plans for former Edinburgh Fountain Park club and lounge to become restaurant It comes as his lecturers are set to walk out in a dispute over a refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies as part of plans to save £140million. The principal, who took the role in 2018, appeared at a Holyrood committee last week and claimed he didn't know how much he earned. Scottish Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills Miles Briggs said: 'When Sir Peter plans to cut many hundreds, and possibly more than a thousand, jobs at the University of Edinburgh, people will be surprised that there is still the budget for trips of this sort. 'International travel to promote the university may be reasonable, but it's difficult to see why it should cost tens of thousands of pounds while swingeing cuts are being made elsewhere and so many jobs could be under threat.' Unison's lead for universities, John Mooney said: 'People are appalled by the behaviour of Scotland's university top brass. Especially when the sector is in serious debt and hard-working staff are losing their jobs. 'Chancellors and principals get paid eye-watering salaries well beyond anything their students and staff could dream of. 'I can assure you ordinary university staff don't have the luxury of not knowing what their salaries are.' Mathieson – who earned £421,667 last year according to the uni's latest accounts – has racked up thousands on business class travel. A total of £8458 was spent on return business flights from Heathrow to South Africa's OR Tambo airport to visit the University of the Wit-watersrand in recognition of the importance of 'partners from the global south being in attendance' at a COP27 summit in May 2022. Expenses also included return flights from Edinburgh to South Korea which cost £8818 in May 2024. That was for a symposium aimed at fostering UK-Korea partnerships. He also claimed £4127 for return business class flights from Edinburgh to Washington in March 2022 and New Jersey in November 2023. And £4946 was spent to fly to Hong Kong in April last year. Holyrood committee convener Douglas Ross told Mathieson his reported six-figure package was more than the combined wages of First Minister John Swinney and PM Keir Starmer. Mathieson said: 'The figure that is often quoted in the press is something around £400,000 a year but I don't scrutinise my slip so I don't know the exact figure. 'I don't think it's quite as high as that but I'm certainly very well paid. 'I'd need to get my P60 out to show it to you but I don't carry that figure around in my head but I'm very well paid.' . He also confirmed he was given a five per cent pay rise last year and a 2.5 per cent increase this January When Ross asked if, given the cuts, a reduction in his salary would be beneficial, Mathieson said: 'I've made the point in the discussions about senior team pay that you could pay the senior team of Edinburgh university nothing and it would make almost no difference to the size of the expenditure challenge we face.' The expense figures were obtained by the Sunday Mail under Freedom of Information laws. Prior to March 2022, the university's travel management partner was Key Travel and as a result, in the 2021/22 financial year, the university does not hold details on flight class or destination. From August 1 2021 to February 28. 2022, the university holds only the year of the transaction, cost, and travel type. Members of the University and College Union will strike on June 20, with a five-day walkout in September. Mooney said: 'It's highly paid bosses' incompetence that got us into this mess but it's lower paid staff who pay the cost with their jobs and low pay. Our education system is too important for Scotland's skills, jobs and economy, we need to hold these people accountable.' The University of Edinburgh said: 'Each of these visits represent milestones for important projects and partnerships, many being the culmination of years of work by academics and professional staff from across the university.' It said its global profile is something it is 'hugely proud of' and added: 'As the University's most senior leader, the principal's presence at such events is vital for building relationships, encouraging investment and underlining our ongoing commitment to work with partners in delivering positive change worldwide.' Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Can an American pope apply US-style fundraising and standards to fix troubled Vatican finances?
Leo already has one thing going for him: his American-ness. U.S. donors have long been the economic life support system of the Holy See, financing everything from papal charity projects abroad to restorations of St. Peter's Basilica at home. Leo's election as the first American pope has sent a jolt of excitement through U.S. Catholics, some of whom had soured on donating to the Vatican after years of unrelenting stories of mismanagement, corruption and scandal, according to interviews with top Catholic fundraisers, philanthropists and church management experts. Advertisement 'I think the election of an American is going to give greater confidence that any money given is going to be cared for by American principles, especially of stewardship and transparency,' said the Rev. Roger Landry, director of the Vatican's main missionary fundraising operation in the U.S., the Pontifical Mission Societies. Advertisement 'So there will be great hope that American generosity is first going to be appreciated and then secondly is going to be well handled,' he said. 'That hasn't always been the circumstance, especially lately.' Reforms and unfinished business Pope Francis was elected in 2013 on a mandate to reform the Vatican's opaque finances and made progress during his 12-year pontificate, mostly on the regulatory front. With help from the late Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis created an economy ministry and council made up of clergy and lay experts to supervise Vatican finances, and he wrestled the Italian-dominated bureaucracy into conforming to international accounting and budgetary standards. He authorized a landmark, if deeply problematic, corruption trial over a botched London property investment that convicted a once-powerful Italian cardinal. And he punished the Vatican's Secretariat of State that had allowed the London deal to go through by stripping it of its ability to manage its own assets. But Francis left unfinished business and his overall record, at least according to some in the donor community, is less than positive. Critics cite Pell's frustrated reform efforts and the firing of the Holy See's first-ever auditor general, who says he was ousted because he had uncovered too much financial wrongdoing. Despite imposing years of belt-tightening and hiring freezes, Francis left the Vatican in somewhat dire financial straits: The main stopgap bucket of money that funds budgetary shortfalls, known as the Peter's Pence, is nearly exhausted, officials say. The 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall that Pell warned about a decade ago remains unaddressed, though Francis had planned reforms. And the structural deficit continues, with the Holy See logging an 83.5 million euro ($95 million) deficit in 2023, according to its latest financial report. Advertisement As Francis' health worsened, there were signs that his efforts to reform the Vatican's medieval financial culture hadn't really stuck, either. The very same Secretariat of State that Francis had punished for losing tens of millions of euros in the scandalous London property deal somehow ended up heading up a new papal fundraising commission that was announced while Francis was in the hospital. According to its founding charter and statutes, the commission is led by the Secretariat of State's assessor, is composed entirely of Italian Vatican officials with no professional fundraising expertise and has no required external financial oversight. To some Vatican watchers, the commission smacks of the Italian-led Secretariat of State taking advantage of a sick pope to announce a new flow of unchecked donations into its coffers after its 600 million euro ($684 million) sovereign wealth fund was taken away and given to another office to manage as punishment for the London fiasco. 'There are no Americans on the commission. I think it would be good if there were representatives of Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States on the commission,' said Ward Fitzgerald, president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation. It is made up of wealthy American Catholics that since 1990 has provided over $250 million (219 million euros) in grants and scholarships to the pope's global charitable initiatives. Advertisement Fitzgerald, who spent his career in real estate private equity, said American donors — especially the younger generation — expect transparency and accountability from recipients of their money, and know they can find non-Vatican Catholic charities that meet those expectations. 'We would expect transparency before we would start to solve the problem,' he said. That said, Fitzgerald said he hadn't seen any significant let-up in donor willingness to fund the Papal Foundation's project-specific donations during the Francis pontificate. Indeed, U.S. donations to the Vatican overall have remained more or less consistent even as other countries' offerings declined, with U.S. bishops and individual Catholics contributing more than any other country in the two main channels to donate to papal causes. A head for numbers and background fundraising Francis moved Prevost to take over the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. Residents and fellow priests say he consistently rallied funds, food and other life-saving goods for the neediest — experience that suggests he knows well how to raise money when times are tight and how to spend wisely. He bolstered the local Caritas charity in Chiclayo, with parishes creating food banks that worked with local businesses to distribute donated food, said the Rev. Fidel Purisaca Vigil, a diocesan spokesperson. In 2019, Prevost inaugurated a shelter on the outskirts of Chiclayo, Villa San Vicente de Paul, to house desperate Venezuelan migrants who had fled their country's economic crisis. The migrants remember him still, not only for helping give them and their children shelter, but for bringing live chickens obtained from a donor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prevost launched a campaign to raise funds to build two oxygen plants to provide hard-hit residents with life-saving oxygen. In 2023, when massive rains flooded the region, he personally brought food to the flood-struck zone. Advertisement Within hours of his May 8 election, videos went viral on social media of Prevost, wearing rubber boots and standing in a flooded street, pitching a solidarity campaign, 'Peru Give a Hand,' to raise money for flood victims. The Rev. Jorge Millán, who lived with Prevost and eight other priests for nearly a decade in Chiclayo, said he had a 'mathematical' mentality and knew how to get the job done. Prevost would always be on the lookout for used cars to buy for use around the diocese, Millán said, noting that the bishop often had to drive long distances to reach all of his flock or get to Lima, the capital. Prevost liked to fix them up himself, and if he didn't know what to do, 'he'd look up solutions on YouTube and very often he'd find them,' Millán told The Associated Press. Before going to Peru, Prevost served two terms as prior general, or superior, of the global Augustinian order. While the order's local provinces are financially independent, Prevost was responsible for reviewing their balance sheets and oversaw the budgeting and investment strategy of the order's headquarters in Rome, said the Rev. Franz Klein, the order's Rome-based economist who worked with Prevost. The Augustinian campus sits on prime real estate just outside St. Peter's Square and supplements revenue by renting out its picturesque terrace to media organizations (including the AP) for major Vatican events, including the conclave that elected Leo pope. But even Prevost saw the need for better fundraising, especially to help out poorer provinces. Toward the end of his 12-year term and with his support, a committee proposed creation of a foundation, Augustinians in the World. At the end of 2023, it had 994,000 euros ($1.13 million) in assets and was helping fund self-sustaining projects across Africa, including a center to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Congo. Advertisement 'He has a very good interest and also a very good feeling for numbers,' Klein said. 'I have no worry about the finances of the Vatican in these years because he is very, very clever.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Judge: Most seminary sale money can't be used in settlement
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A federal judge ruled on Friday that a majority of the money from the sale of Christ the King Seminary cannot be used toward the $150 million settlement in the Buffalo Catholic Diocese. Christ the King Seminary, located in East Aurora, sold for more than $4 million in February. According to attorneys representing some of the victims, the ruling stops the diocese from using nearly 65% of that money to settle with sex abuse victims. The diocese said that the settlement — which was agreed upon in April — will be paid using 'available funds' from both the diocese and individual parishes, along with 'contributions from Catholic-affiliated entities.' 'Under New York law, a charitable corporation must honor a donor's direction and intention … in Saint Joseph's Hospital v. Bennett, 281 N.Y. 115 (1939), the New York Court of Appeals confirmed the controlling rule, that religious corporations may not divert donated funds from the stated purpose of a donor,' wrote Chief Bankruptcy Judge Carl L. Bucki for the Western District of New York. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
