The board of trustees at Oakland University unanimously approved a contract extension for Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz to continue serving as president of the school. The extension runs through June 30, 2031.
The board cited Pescovitz’s vision and work on building upward social mobility for students by creating an environment for their personal and professional development and providing great opportunities for economic prosperity for Michigan.
“Since arriving in 2017, President Pescovitz has led Oakland University through a rapidly evolving higher education landscape,” says Bobby Schostak, chair of OU’s Board of Trustees. “This contract extension not only reflects our confidence in her outstanding leadership the past six years, but also reaffirms our expectation that she is the right leader to guide OU through future challenges and opportunities.”
Under the contract extension, Pescovitz will participate in pay raises similar to Oakland University’s administrative professionals.
Among Oakland’s many accomplishments during Pescovitz’s tenure:
· Elevating the priority on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
· Being a guiding force in leading the university through the most difficult days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Navigating Oakland through the pandemic and earning national recognition for OU as a leading advocate for students’ health and safety.
· Creating programs that address student debt, increasing students’ success toward attaining degrees, obtaining internships and gaining productive career opportunities that benefit local workforce needs.
· Working to enhance the social mobility of individuals, especially for first-generation and underrepresented students, engaging in local communities, responding to the workforce needs of the region and focusing on the economic development of Southeast Michigan and beyond.
· Leading a statewide campaign to increase funding for higher education and to make that funding more equitable among the 15 Michigan public universities.
· Cultivating Oakland as a global campus and raising the priority for students and faculty to be engaged in their communities.
· Initiating “Reimagining OU,” an ongoing effort to translate input from faculty and staff into transforming Oakland into “the university of choice.”
· Overseeing the physical evolution of the campus, including new construction and significant improvements to classroom buildings and infrastructure.
· Playing a leadership role in the state and beyond by serving on various boards, including Priority Health, Citizen’s Research Council of Michigan, Michigan Association of State Universities (past chair), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Detroit Drives Degrees Leadership Council (co-chair), Detroit Economic Club (executive committee), NCAA’s Horizon League (chair), and MBX Biosciences.
Under Pescovitz’s leadership, Oakland has also made steady progress toward a $150 million capital campaign, the largest in school history. She leads by example, having committed more than $1.8 million in personal philanthropic support to Oakland University students and programs.
During her tenure, Pescovitz has made total cash gifts and payments of $957,000 (including $200,000 in 2023), has outstanding pledge commitments of $123,000 and an estate gift of $750,000.
She has regularly contributed to multiple areas throughout campus and annually supports the faculty and staff giving campaign. She has created and funded distinct endowments in honor of her mother (focus on biomedical ethics), her parents (focus on diverse faculty support), and her children (focus on student global engagement).
Pescovitz also created a $1 million endowment to provide scholarships to attract top undergraduate scholars to Oakland University who not only excel academically, but also have a history of altruistic service in their local communities.
Pescovitz is a pediatric endocrinologist who graduated from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where she earned distinguished alumna awards from both the medical school and Northwestern University. Her partner, Dr. Daniel Walsh, is a cardiologist at Corewell Health East. She is a mother to three children and has eight grandchildren.
