18th Chancellor Patrick D. Gallagher of the University of Pittsburgh

2/12/2019

Chancellor Patrick D. Gallagher

c/o Office of the Chancellor

University of Pittsburgh

4200 5th Avenue

Pittsburgh, PA  15260

Dear Chancellor Gallagher,

My name is Matt Winick from Ann Arbor, Michigan with a strong interest in learning history, social justice, and diversity. In these subjects, I like to learn the need for Civil Rights to be stronger to reduce discrimination, protect the environment from pollution, have diversity to help accept people who are different or come from different background, have education reform to make learning a better tool, and many others.  Chancellor Gallagher, the main reason I’m writing you a letter is to explain how I find your work in the Obama administration as 14^th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and 18^th Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh to be very inspiring to me.

When you served in the Obama administration, I truly appreciated on how you were a strong supporter along with advocate of Civil Rights by advocating for people with disabilities’ rights and expressing the need to make Civil Rights stronger to reduce discrimination in order to help protect minorities including women from facing discrimination. When you served as 14^th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology from 2009-2014, I liked on how you worked on encouraging companies that deal with technology including industries to hire women, minorities, and people with disabilities to work for them, lobbying Congress to provide funds to help expand research to find ways on how technology can be useful for society, and teamed up with President Obama to work on improving laws to help protect consumers who use technology from fraud or malfunction of a technology.   Another thing that I liked about your role when you were Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is how you pushed for more educational programs to help teach students including people about science and technology, strongly advocated for the need for renewable energy resources to help reduce addiction to oil with gas, and many others.  In your current role as Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, I liked on how you supported hiring women, minorities, and people with disabilities to work for the University of Pittsburg and expanded on scholarship programs to help assist students get financial aid to attend college or help get the resources they need for their courses.  Providing accommodations to help students with disabilities get assistance on learning like extra time on exams including have educational software to help improve their comprehension, expanding on tutoring services to allow tutors to help students understand their assignments, and implementing more liberal arts classes (history, arts, humanities, diversity, and basic classes) to make education diverse to learn is common sense to improve education reform.  Another thing that I really like about your work as Chancellor of University of Pittsburg is how you are a strong advocate for immigration reform to help protect immigrants, dreamers, and refugees from being oppressed while they have an opportunity to get an education, working to expand more science along with technology  including research programs to help engage students to understand how to use science to help society, and working to educate students about the need to reduce bullying while emphasizing the need for diversity to help accept people who are different or come from a different background.

Chancellor Gallagher, I have autism with a learning disability. Having a disability is hard for me because I have trouble comprehending on learning different advance subjects, sometimes I struggle to communicate my thoughts, and get teased.   Your commitment to be a strong supporter of Civil Rights including people with disabilities’ rights really inspires me to work hard on my disability. Also your role as 14^th Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and as current Chancellor of University of Pittsburg gives me motivation to continue to learn history, social justice, and diversity. My future goal is to someday work in these areas to help emphasize the need to make Civil Rights stronger to reduce discrimination, protect the environment from pollution, and many others.

I strongly believe that you made a great difference when you served in public service. I’m very proud on how you worked hard to support Civil Rights, push to improve science with technology, and push for education reform.  You have inspired me to work hard on  my disability, learn more about your work, and be motivated to learn history, social justice, and diversity.  I was wondering if you could please share with me what it was like working in President Obama administration and some of your achievements at University of Pittsburg.  Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, working hard to make a great difference, and inspiring me.  I wish you the best to continue to make a great difference for society,

Sincerely,

Matt Winick