April 29, 2024
Dear UPJ Community,
Announcing the Appointment of Chris Stumpf as Vice President of Finance & Administration (Interim)
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Chris Stumpf as the Vice President for Finance and Administration (Interim). For nearly three decades, Mr. Stumpf has served Pitt-Johnstown in various administrative roles, displaying characteristic excellence and steadiness in various roles with increasing responsibilities and impressive leadership accomplishments.
Currently serving as the Vice President for Student Affairs since 2018, Chris Stumpf is already a very experienced hand regarding his new role - having once successfully served as UPJ’s Associate Vice President for Finance & Administration & Chief Business Officer over a decade ago. In that capacity, he was a senior member of my leadership team responsible for budget planning, development, and implementation of personnel and operating budgets for both the E&G (Education and General) operations and the Auxiliary Enterprises budgets. In that capacity, he supervised and oversaw multiple campus departments, including Human Resources, Business Office, Admissions and Financial Aid, Purchasing, Conference Services, PPAC, Bookstore/Convenience Store, Mailroom, and Print Shop. He demonstrated significant leadership acumen when he helped transform Conference Services and the PPAC, enabling our Campus to gain substantial auxiliary revenue to advance Campus priorities. Most notably, the PPAC became much more financially sustainable thanks to his leadership acumen.
Subsequently, following a campus reorganization, Chris Stumpf stepped up to serve as Campus Registrar during a time of significant institutional change. In that role, he helped plan, execute, and monitor several major and complex institutional transformations, including the change from a general BA Business degree to several distinct degrees in Business in a new Business & Enterprise Division and the change from Engineering Technology to Engineering, in the new Division of Engineering and Computer Science.
Mr. Stumpf transitioned into his current role as Vice President of Student Affairs in 2018. In that capacity, he has been responsible for providing leadership for thirteen departments and over fifty full-time staff members in the Student Affairs division. Some highlights of his tenure in this role include increasing student engagement opportunities for our students in the areas of leadership development, fraternity/sorority life, eSports and club sports, and academic-based student organizations. In addition, Mr. Stumpf provides active and enthusiastic oversight of our 15 NCAA Division II athletic teams that compete in the PSAC.
In addition to his leadership of Student Affairs, Mr. Stumpf served as a Co-Chair of our most strategic planning process that resulted in the development of our Next Level Plan: 2023-2030. His leadership role in developing the foundational Goal I (The Success of Our People – and its resultant emphasis on student engagement and retention, faculty success, and staff support) required extensive discussions with multiple campus constituencies, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the Board of Advisors.
Since then, Mr. Stumpf has worked hard to implement key initiatives, including ensuring that Student Affairs is more aligned with Academic Affairs student retention and success goals, particularly regarding outside-of-the-classroom student learning as well as career, professional, and personal development. Likewise, he has played a lead role with our great Health & Counseling and Wellness team to advance the key strategic plan goal of prioritizing “general student well-being and health … [especially] and expanded focus on support for mental health.
Among his many accomplishments, Chris Stumpf’s leadership in helping the Campus respond to the great disruption caused by the pandemic was nothing short of exemplary. With his characteristic steadiness, Mr. Stumpf worked very effectively with all campus constituencies to ensure a safe environment for learning. He also played a very significant role in the University’s system-wide COVID response team (the CMRO), which developed, implemented, and monitored Pitt’s response to the pandemic. His diligence on these issues earned him significant plaudits from the COVID response team, including from numerous Pitt leaders. On a related note, he serves on the system-wide University of Pittsburgh Operations Council and the University’s Campus Climate Assessment Team.
Following his graduation from UPJ with a BS in biology from Pitt-Johnstown and a subsequent MA in Higher Education from IUP, Mr. Stumpf began his career at Pitt-Johnstown in 1996 as Assistant Director of Conference Services and became Director of Conference Services in 2001. Sometime around 2007, I was introduced to Chris Stumpf by the then Vice President for Finance & Administration, Mr. Jeff Lavine, who described him as extraordinarily talented. That may have been an understatement. Since then, I have been profoundly grateful, proud, and honored to serve alongside Chris Stumpf.
Please join me in congratulating our colleague, Chris Stumpf, whose impressively broad and unique UPJ leadership, service, and contributions make him an immensely valuable member of our UPJ community.
Jem Spectar, PhD, JD, MBA, MA, MAP
President