In 1900, Andrew Carnegie learned that the Pittsburgh board of education was developing modest plans for a technical school. He took the opportunity to put forward an idea that he had nurtured for many years—that he “might be the fortunate giver of a Technical Institute to our city fashioned upon the best models.” The City welcomed the idea and provided a site: Carnegie initially gave $2 million for buildings and equipment for the Carnegie Technical Schools, which he put under the stewardship of the trustees of the Carnegie Institute.

Through the trustees, Carnegie sought the advice of a committee of educators on how the Schools should function. Influenced by the writings of his grandfather Morrison, Carnegie was deeply convinced of the importance of “the education of the hand”—the development of skills and innovations applied to meet real-world needs—as a means for young men and women to better themselves and their communities. At first, he rejected the committee’s recommendation for a university-level institute of technology similar to those already established in California and Massachusetts. A second committee recommended in 1902 that the Schools provide technical training at the secondary education level in the crafts and scientific vocations. Carnegie endorsed this plan, and the Carnegie Technical Schools’ first classes began in October 1905. The new institution received an additional $1.34 million for buildings and other purposes from Carnegie and $4 million in endowment.

In 1912, Carnegie recognized the need to reorganize the Schools into a more varied institution of higher education, one that could maintain his vision of advancing knowledge with a problem-solving approach to learning and research. The new Carnegie Institute of Technology offered baccalaureate degrees in various fields of engineering and applied arts, including architecture. The first was awarded in 1919. The school also included the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College for the education of women, especially in home economics, and College of Fine Arts.

In 1917, the College of Fine Arts became the first in the United States to award a degree in drama. Since that time, drama graduates have made innumerable contributions to the stage, television, and film. The College today has five schools: art, architecture, design, drama and music.

“Carnegie Tech” was among the first institutes of technology to integrate the humanities and social sciences with the technical subjects required of engineers. The “Carnegie Plan,” developed by president Robert E. Doherty in 1937, built upon those ideas further, and this approach was widely adopted by other leading engineering institutions throughout the country.

After World War II, members of the Mellon family began making substantial gifts to develop new educational directions at Carnegie Tech. In 1949, William Larimer Mellon gave $5 million to found the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now the David A. Tepper School of Business). In 1966, Richard King Mellon, a longtime trustee of the Institute, and his wife, Constance, provided initial funding for the department of computer science, now the School of Computer Science; in 1968, they gave funds to establish the School of Urban and Public Affairs (now the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management). In 1967, Paul Mellon helped to arrange a merger between the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Mellon Institute, a scientific research center founded by Paul’s father, Andrew W. Mellon. The new entity was named Carnegie Mellon University. Andrew Carnegie’s daughter, Margaret Carnegie Miller, graciously approved of the new name, noting that her father would have been delighted to be joined with the Mellon family in furthering the school’s progress.

The Mellon Institute building housed the Mellon College of Science; at that same time a new college of humanities and social sciences was established. The Margaret Morrison Carnegie College’s last graduating class was in 1973, when all classes at the university became co-educational.

The University is currently governed by a 100-member board of trustees; and its president is Jared L. Cohon. There are approximately 10,000 students, representing every state and more than 90 countries, and 650 faculty members. Fourteen past or present faculty members are Nobel laureates. The university’s endowment at the end of June 2006 was approximately $950 million.

Under Dr. Cohon’s leadership, the university has transformed undergraduate education by engaging students in original research and project classes. Cohon has also led the university to grow beyond Pittsburgh: it has a West Coast campus in Mountain View California for information technology and business graduate and executive programs. In 2004, it began offering undergraduate degrees in business and computer science in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar (with support from the Qatar Foundation). Master’s degree programs in information technology and in policy are offered in Greece, Japan, and Australia, and there are strong research and educational partnerships in Taiwan, Portugal and Singapore.

The university continues to build upon Andrew Carnegie’s founding vision in many diverse ways, yet Carnegie’s belief in hands-on learning and relevant problem solving is still reflected in the character and culture of Carnegie Mellon. The university is renowned for the unusual degree of faculty and student collaboration across disciplines, for its commitment to learning by making things, for its blend of the arts and technology, and for its quantitative and analytical approach to technical and management problems. Changes will continue, as the university responds to a changing world: as Carnegie noted in his founding letter, “no school can be a creation but an evolution.”

Over the years, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has made grants totaling almost $32 million to the institution. In 2005, the Carnegie Corporation awarded President Cohon one of its inaugural Academic Leadership Awards, in recognition of the university’s innovations in undergraduate education and its accomplishments in research.