As the University grapples with federal funding cuts and a constantly swelling student population, the process of drafting the 2026–2027 operating budget has been particularly contentious. In an effort to reduce unnecessary expenditures, the Board of Trustees has established a Department of Financial Responsibility to “ensure prudent allocation of University funds in these particularly difficult times,” according to a statement by William B. Bass, Acting Associate Vice Dean of the Department of Financial Responsibility’s Assistant Executive Committee.
Last Wednesday, while sorting through various funding requests, an unusual document was found requesting funds for a “University of Pittsburgh Department of History.” The document, whose origin was traced by Pitt Police to a printer in Hillman Library, raised alarm bells as soon as it was discovered. “I had never heard of this so-called department,” said Timothy Horton, a member of the 12-person Budget Synergy Council under the DFR, which was responsible for processing the budget requests. “But the money they were asking for was just outrageous. I mean, this was almost as much as I make in a month.”
Pitiful News’ investigative team was able to discover a claimed location for this “Department of History” — a small section of offices hidden in a back hallway of Posvar. The facility was clearly not in use, however, as it showed no signs of the renovations that every department has received in recent years. Unstable-looking bookshelves hanging haphazardly from the walls confirmed the suspicion that this section of the building was unusable by any self-respecting academic department.
This leaves the mystery of the “Pitt Department of History” open, for the time being. Chancellor Gabel, currently vacationing off the coast of Saint Thomas, was unavailable for comment. The Chancellor’s senior deputy secretariat committee co-chair, however, boasted in a statement that the Department of Financial Responsibility’s “prudent work” was already seeing results and was “well on the way to paying for the cost of its own establishment.”