Please welcome President of Carnegie Mellon University, Farnam Jahanian.
Good morning and welcome to Carnegie Mellon University. It is wonderful to see so many members of our Pittsburgh community here today, and so many joining via live stream as we mark the beginning of a transformational new chapter for CMU.
While there are too many people to acknowledge this morning, there are several leaders in the audience who deserve special recognition. First, I'm delighted to welcome state, federal, and local government officials from across Pennsylvania, valued partners in advancing our mission and impact. In particular, I would like to welcome my friends, the Honorable Josh Shapiro, 48th Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Mayor Corey O'Connor. Thank you for being here.
Governor, Mr. Mayor, each of you is a passionate champion of CMU, of Pittsburgh, and Pennsylvania. Thank you again for being here and joining us. Senator McCormick, another dear friend, is unable to join us this morning due to a vote on the Senate floor, but he has prepared special video remarks that you will hear later in the program.
And we look forward to welcoming County Executive Sara Innamorato at our community celebration later this morning. I also wish to recognize Provost Jim Garrett, our academic and administrative leaders, and the faculty, staff, students, and alumni whose hard work and excellence brought us to this moment. Thank you.
Of course, nothing transformational is possible without the support and unwavering commitment of our incredible Board of Trustees. I wish to acknowledge and thank our Board Chair, David Coulter, and all of our trustees for their stewardship and counsel throughout this journey.
At the heart of today's celebration is the extraordinary generosity and vision of Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel. Ken is here with several of his colleagues and friends, including Case Carter, Julia Quinn, and Alex Slusky. Ken, we are so thrilled to have you and your team back at Carnegie Mellon. But before I go any further, please join me in thanking Ken for his commitment, for his belief, and his vision for Carnegie Mellon.
You will get to hear from Ken a little bit later in the program when we have our fireside chat. When Ken and I began talking about Carnegie Mellon's future, our conversations quickly became about something much larger: what this university could do for our nation and for future generations. We realized that we share a conviction that research universities have a vital role to play in shaping what comes next, and that CMU has the talent, ideas, and the competitive advantage to lead this era.
As we talked, Ken challenged CMU to think even bigger about what we can accomplish together. And Ken, we accepted that challenge. It is with deep respect and immense gratitude that we announce Ken Griffin's $3 billion commitment to Carnegie Mellon University, the largest philanthropic commitment by any individual in the history of higher ed.
Ken's investment will strengthen Carnegie Mellon's leadership here in Pittsburgh and enable us to take a bold step forward with the creation of Carnegie Mellon University Miami.
For more than 125 years, CMU has met moments of profound change by doing what we do best: bringing extraordinary people together, crossing disciplinary boundaries, and taking on problems that others might consider impossible. Andrew Carnegie founded this institution at the dawn of a new industrial age because he understood the transformative power of education.
Today we find ourselves at another extraordinary inflection point shaped by advances in AI, scientific discovery, and emerging technologies. These shifts are transforming nearly every sector of our economy, reshaping industries and institutions, changing how nations compete, innovate, and prosper. And once again, Carnegie Mellon has an opportunity to lead.
Thanks to Ken's historic investment, CMU will accelerate our momentum at a scale we've never imagined. $1 billion will go directly to strengthen CMU in Pittsburgh, supporting our university's highest priorities and our world-leading School of Computer Science, which will be named the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.
And of course, there is even more to celebrate. Building from our position of strength here in Pittsburgh, an additional $2 billion will enable us to create CMU Miami. Located on more than 35 acres in the heart of Miami, this new campus will serve more than 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students when it reaches full scale in 2041.
This is an extraordinary opportunity to build on the very qualities that have long distinguished Carnegie Mellon: excellence, creativity, agility, interdisciplinary problem solving, and relentless focus on impact, to create a new model for higher education that meets the urgency of this moment.
Before I wrap up, I want to once again recognize and thank our Board of Trustees, who have been incredible partners in envisioning this future for CMU. Would all of my trustees who are here today please stand to be recognized.
Thank you. Your support, passion, and commitment continue to propel CMU forward. Thank you for all that you do. Finally, I'm grateful to our broader university community. Carnegie Mellon's future is bright because of you. To our faculty, staff, students, and passionate Tartan alumni, thank you for making today possible.
Ken, your investment gives this university and this nation an extraordinary opportunity to show what can happen when talented people are given the means to pursue consequential ideas and ambitions. You've created the conditions for discovery and impact on a scale that is rare in higher education, and I cannot imagine a more committed or more visionary partner. Thank you again for this truly transformational investment. Thank you.
Please welcome Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
Well, thank you, everybody. This is an unbelievably exciting day here at Carnegie Mellon University. I want to begin by saying a special thank you to my friend Farnam Jahanian. He is not just an extraordinary president; he is an extraordinary leader in this country, and I'm thankful to you every day for what you do. Thank you, Mr. President.
And of course, I want to say a very special thank you and a welcome to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to Ken Griffin. Not just for your extraordinary generosity, but for your vision to help this renowned university become a world leader, not just in the education of our students, but in solving the most pressing challenges of our time in this country. Your unprecedented generosity, I think, speaks volumes not just of your love for Pittsburgh, your love for Pennsylvania, but your love for the United States and your belief in the American entrepreneurial spirit. And Ken, we thank you for that.
This ambitious next step in Carnegie Mellon University's future is going to cement CMU's status as a top research university, not just in this country but in the world. CMU has a long and storied history of embracing the latest innovations and turning those big ideas into practical solutions for real people. I'm reminded of the work that's gone on here on CMU's campus quite literally every day, because there are photos displayed outside my office at the governor's residence that show how this campus became the center of military innovation that helped America defeat fascism abroad in both World War I and World War II.
This is a legacy that continues on this campus today. CMU alums are responsible for some of the most important innovations in recent history, from the CAPTCHAs that protect us online from fraud and cybercrime, to the Kevlar fibers that have saved the lives of countless law enforcement heroes and service members who serve our communities, protect our freedoms here at home and abroad, to the JavaScript code that today serves as the building blocks for millions of websites and apps that we use, to the world's first robotics institute, the first drama school, as the president pointed out, and the nation's first computer science college. This is a university of firsts.
And Ken, when you were rattling those stats off in your CNBC interview, the gentleman here in the third row, he was flexing while you were talking. There is pride amongst the student body. You were flexing, right? Yeah. Yeah. You are possible. I saw you do it. See, I was watching.
CMU's been on the cutting edge of developing new disciplines to study, to prepare our students to think critically, which is important in higher education today, to think creatively, and to focus on how to make an impact on the world. My administration is proud to partner with CMU on cutting-edge innovations in manufacturing and computer science. And we've worked closely with the experts at the Block Center for Technology and Society to help Pennsylvania develop the framework for safe, responsible, and ethical use of generative AI.
With today's historic announcement, CMU will now build on that incredible legacy of innovation and leadership that has the ability in this new chapter to reshape our commonwealth, our country, and our world. Thanks to Ken's extraordinary generosity, CMU will be able to strengthen and expand its impact right here in Pittsburgh and grow the School of Computer Science, now renamed the Griffin School of Computer Science.
At the same time, I know we're going to bring that innovative and gritty Yinzers spirit right here in Pittsburgh all the way to Miami, to this brand-new, beautiful campus where CMU is going to develop a brand-new approach to developing student curriculum. And by the way, I think they're going to need a hell of a Steelers bar in Wynwood to be able to deal with the onset of Yinzers down there.
The university in Miami is going to be truly revolutionary. Instead of organizing their classes around traditional academic majors, students are actually going to be forced to focus on how to solve the pressing problems of today. And as I referenced a moment ago, we need a lot more of that attitude in higher education. Students will bring the spirit of industriousness and innovation that was born right here in Western Pennsylvania to their studies in Florida, where they will look to improve human health and protect biological discovery.
CMU students are going to think and write about national security and our strategic capabilities, something we must expand here in the United States of America to deal with global threats. They'll invent new technologies around energy, ensure our communities are resilient in the face of a changing climate, and prepare our nation for a future of advanced manufacturing. They will make a difference in our world. These CMU graduates here in Pittsburgh and Miami will. And we need their voices. We need their big brains now more than ever.
CMU is already a leader in our Commonwealth, but this investment will enable them to grow their impact, educating more future leaders, developing more groundbreaking technologies, and solving more problems here in Pittsburgh, in Miami, and places in between. As the governor of this great Commonwealth, I'm excited about the impact this university will have on the future of our Commonwealth.
CMU's focus on the practical application of what was taught here in these halls goes back 125 years to their founding as a technical school right here in Pittsburgh. And it has been forged here in Pittsburgh in the years since, in the fiery furnaces full of molten-hot steel that would be used to build the Empire State Building and protect our freedoms overseas, in the labs that tested and developed new materials to help us save lives on Earth and venture beyond our atmosphere and into the stars, and in the classrooms and the screens where you're inventing new technologies and thinking about how we can use them for the betterment of our communities, for the betterment of our farmlands, as this young man is doing, and so many things in between.
Innovation is ingrained in CMU's DNA, and it all starts in the same place, right here in the city of Pittsburgh, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We are now proud that that legacy of innovation will extend to Miami as well. And we can't thank you enough for believing in this mission of CMU, for putting your extraordinary generosity behind it, and for ensuring the safety and well-being of the next generation of Americans. And it all starts here at CMU. Ken, thank you for your generosity. Farnam, thank you for your leadership. And to the CMU community, this is a great day. God bless you all.
And now a video from Senator Dave McCormick.
Congratulations to Carnegie Mellon University on this incredible expansion and this remarkable vision. This is already one of the finest research institutions in the world, best-in-class in robotics and artificial intelligence, engineering, business, and so much more. It has educated generations of students and been an engine of innovation and growth in Pittsburgh and beyond. And now, thanks to the university's leadership and to the incredible generosity of Ken Griffin, Carnegie Mellon University will be redefining higher education yet again. To the city of Miami, congratulations on this remarkable new opportunity. And to Pittsburgh, I am so proud that the university is redoubling its commitment here in our great city with a billion-dollar gift. In this moment of remarkable change, the future is bright for Carnegie Mellon, the Steel City, and the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Please welcome Mayor Corey O'Connor.
I said to the governor, I got the short end of the stick. $3 billion, the governor's speech, and now me. So, but it is a great honor to be here today. This is a historic day for the city of Pittsburgh. It's a historic day for the students. And as I was talking to some of them over here, President Farnam, I didn't know that the real reason you want to go to Miami is they said you love the nightclubs down there. So, but this is such a special day for all of us.
And Ken Griffin, for your vision of what the future's going to be, the future was built in Pittsburgh. It is going to be built in Pittsburgh. We built this country with our steel mills. Now, we are building the future with robotics, with technology, with the students that sit behind me. That is why this is such a huge win for the momentum of our city, our commonwealth, and the country, because CMU is not just going to tell their story, which is amazing. They're going to tell the Pittsburgh story on a national and worldwide scale.
And that is something that we in Pittsburgh are going to continue to build off of. The money that's going to be spent here on the computer science department is huge because we're attracting more and more talent to Pittsburgh. The connection that now we have in Miami is going to get us to talk to businesses and companies and locate them in Pittsburgh. This is such a historic day. There's only so many ways we can say thank you. But on behalf of the residents of Pittsburgh, on behalf of the future generations of Pittsburghers, thank you so much for your commitment to CMU. President Farnam, for your commitment to the future of this city is undeniably incredible. So on behalf of all of us, thank you very much for being here. Thank you to the students. Thank you to CMU. And we look forward to what this is going to bring to all of us in the city of Pittsburgh. Thank you.
Bye, honey. Bye, Mom. They build robots there.
Over 125 years ago, Andrew Carnegie imagined something radical: a university where people who worked hard could learn, create, and build a better future. That idea became Carnegie Mellon University, where rigorous work, creativity, and collaboration turn ideas into discoveries that impact the world.
Today, that legacy takes another extraordinary step forward. For Ken Griffin, advancing education has long meant investing in human potential. Now, Ken is making a historic $3 billion commitment to Carnegie Mellon, the largest single gift in the history of higher education. $1 billion to bring more resources, more talent, more capabilities to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, and $2 billion to create Carnegie Mellon University Miami.
A new center for research, creativity, and intellectual life in the heart of Miami in Wynwood, bringing together exceptional students, scholars, and researchers from around the world. Where real-world labs push discovery with urgency, empowering students under the same roof to hit the ground running, transforming ideas into impact. Because inside these halls, the boundaries of what humanity can achieve will continue to be redefined as we create, discover, and build.
What comes next?
Please welcome Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship and Associate Vice President Meredith Greely.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for being here and going with the flow. We didn't know we'd be on national television this morning. That was exciting. You guys, that was cool, huh? Your mom, your parents are going to be so proud. Even better, your friends are going to be jealous. Yeah, you can dine out on this for weeks, I think.
So, I'm going to ask just while we get set up, we have incredible student leaders behind us. And I would love if we could have our student leaders who lead in a variety of forms across campus, whether it's student government, leading a club, steering a buggy, building a booth, building a company, if you could stand up and make some noise.
All right, thank you to our extraordinary student leaders who are with us. And we are here, of course, to celebrate another extraordinary leader. And you know now, of course, that Carnegie Mellon was the joint vision of an entrepreneur, Andrew Carnegie, and an entrepreneur investor, Andrew Mellon. And so I think it's fitting that our conversation on stage today will be with three founders.
One of those founders created an internet security company. Another one of those founders created one of the most successful investment firms in history, and the other founder went all in on a different type of liquid asset, which will not be in the cups on the stage.
It is my distinct pleasure now to introduce Ken Griffin. Ken has decades of philanthropic involvement which has expanded access to education for millions of Americans. He's a visionary entrepreneur who works on really tough problems, and that is exactly what makes him really perfect for Carnegie Mellon. He embodies the spirit of innovation of CMU.
And of course, today, you may have heard, Ken is making the largest individual gift in American higher ed in our history, and he's doing it here in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon.
I'm also very pleased to invite back to the stage, President Jahanian. Under his leadership, CMU continues to do what we've always done best, which is make big, bold bets way ahead of when it seems evident to do so. So, thank you both for joining me back on the stage. Let's clap them up.
All right, gentlemen. CNBC was your warm-up. New sheriff in town. Okay. So, Ken, if you don't mind, we'll start with you. You covered a little bit of this in your interview earlier, but we want to give you the opportunity to expand in any way if you'd like. You're, of course, making this incredible gift. What is it about higher ed that inspires you in this generosity? Why is it so important to you?
So, first, it's such a pleasure to be here in Pittsburgh today, and I must say that today has been made possible because of an incredible commitment of time by the Board of Trustees, by President Jahanian and your team. And I'd also like to recognize Alex Slusky, who worked on my team, Andre Dua, who's here from McKinsey, who put an enormous amount of effort into this, Case Carter from my team. This has been a huge team effort to make today happen. And what is today? Today is, I think, an incredibly important day for the United States.
We have lost sight of the narrative of just how damn important higher education is to our country. After World War II, millions of Americans went to America's universities and learned the skills and the knowledge that they needed to create the greatest economy and the greatest nation in the world, bar none. And higher education is the key that unlocks that narrative. My gift to Carnegie Mellon is predicated on the belief that we must continue to elevate our institutions of excellence.
And Carnegie Mellon goes far beyond the call of excellence. It leads the nation in computer science, in AI, cybersecurity, world-renowned in robotics, and as you touched on earlier, first drama school in America. 69 Tony Award winners. Is that right?
67, dozens and dozens of Emmys and Oscars, and then a fine arts department renowned. Andy Warhol would have had his 100th anniversary or birthday this year, one of the greatest artists in the history of mankind. So Carnegie Mellon has touched this country in many profound ways.
But it touches me because of its commitment to excellence and my belief that in supporting the commitment that you make here each and every day to excellence, that you can be a shining light across our nation to hundreds of other colleges and universities about what we must once again focus on: academic rigor, teaching people how to be critical thinkers, teaching people how to be great debaters of ideas and perspectives, and most importantly, teaching people to take on the big problems and opportunities that face our society with urgency and haste. That is the thesis behind the single largest investment that I have made in my lifetime.
Amazing. We're very appreciative of that. I want to ask Farnam to pick up on a note you laid down there. You mentioned that America has in some ways lost the thread on the value of higher ed. And Farnam, I know you have talked about how there's immense headwinds that face higher ed now. There's skepticism, there's, of course, AI. Many leaders, I think, would hunker down and circle the wagons in this time of uncertainty. Can you talk about why this is the right time to take a big, bold bet?
Absolutely. There's no question that higher ed in this country is facing some significant headwinds. The erosion of trust in higher ed is not just over the past few years. The decline has happened over a decade or two. Changes in technologies are not only transforming our economy, transforming industries, is causing some level of anxiety for families about the jobs, about the future. These are real issues that we're facing. But the truth is, Carnegie Mellon, the way we think about things is we like hard problems. We like making big bets, as I mentioned a little while ago. So that's part of our DNA.
We don't hunker down. We meet the challenge and we come up with new ways of essentially transforming and transitioning the institution. We've already touched on some of these things. I mean, I talked about how CMU was founded, but think about it. Long before we were talking about robotics, Carnegie Mellon started the first robotics institute in the world at a university over 50 years ago. Long before computer science, machine learning, computational biology were things that we take for granted, for example, CMU was building departments, doing research in those areas, and in fact moving not only the economy of Pittsburgh forward but having a disproportionate influence on the nation itself.
So this has always been part of who CMU is. We meet the urgency of the moment, and this is one of those consequential moments in the history of higher ed, and candidly for society, and certainly for our nation.
Okay. So that's the why. Can we talk about the where? You built your life and your company in Chicago for several decades,
and made an incredible impact on that city. You're now in Miami. Can you talk about how you hope that CMU might grow with Miami?
So first of all, let me first say where is far less important than who. Where is far less important than who. With the right people, you can make anything happen wherever you want to, but you need the right people. And one of the things that was lost in the earlier question was about leaders hunkering down. Leaders don't hunker down. Leaders take you where you need to go, even if you don't yet know that's where you need to go. And I would say that I give great credit to the leadership of CMU for continually taking CMU in directions that people have yet to appreciate. For example, the first course in computer science ever taught in America was taught here at CMU.
I think the instructor is actually in the room, Dean Marshall Bell, Dean of the Griffin School of Computer Science.
Thank you so much, sir. And so the first question wasn't where, it was who, and the answer to who was CMU. Now, CMU has played an instrumental role in the renaissance, the reindustrialization of Pittsburgh. Many of America's greatest cities have gone through an enormous amount of economic change over the last 50 years. Cities anchored by great universities have successfully made it through this moment in time. And Carnegie Mellon University is making that happen here in Pittsburgh.
Now, the people of Pittsburgh, strong-willed, determined, independent, pride in who they are. And I saw that in Chicago, another city that's gone through great change over the last century. That mirrors the ethos of Miami. And in Miami, you have people who gave up, in many cases, everything to come to America. The Cuban population, for example. You know, one of my friends' mothers never saw her parents again when she left Cuba as a teenager.
So these are people who are willing to give up everything to live and experience the American dream. And Carnegie Mellon will make that dream happen for the people of Miami just as it does for the people of Pittsburgh. So we've got the who and the where. And for me, Miami will be where I will spend the rest of my life. And I'd like to believe that with the resources that I've been fortunate enough to accumulate in my lifetime, that I can make a difference in the city that I call home, in some sense reflecting a great legacy in America where those who have had the resources, like Andrew Carnegie, like Mellon, leave behind a commitment to their fellow person and to future generations to continue to keep the American dream alive.
I love the analogy of, you know, Pittsburgh and Miami both having this up-by-your-bootstraps entrepreneurial spirit and grit,
commitment to families, commitment to communities,
and a passion to make their mark on this world with their lives.
I think there's other similarities too between Pittsburgh and Miami. I think there's a great arts culture. Both cities have an amazing arts culture. We both have burgeoning startup economies and ecosystems and incredible weather.
But Farnum, there are important—
You have winter, we have summer.
So they're complementary. Of course, perfectly. Okay. But there are differences to the cities, right? And Farnum, everyone wants to know how CMU Miami will be different than the Carnegie Mellon we know here in Pittsburgh. How do you imagine these two campuses will strengthen each other? And what excites you most about this opportunity to really purpose-build a new campus?
I want to say one more thing about Miami before I get to your question. You know, as I've gotten to know Miami, very similar to Pittsburgh, Miami values hard work and it celebrates success. So, we can't underestimate the cultural similarities between the two cities and the fact that Miami was also built by immigrants, that's true to their DNA. In some ways, it so much resonates with the core values of Carnegie Mellon as a university when it comes to hard work, determination, and excellence and commitment to the future.
Now, back to your question, what excites me about this, how different this is going to be. Listen, when we thought about this, how do we envision a campus, we were not thinking about the way others have thought about branch campuses. We went into it and saying this is not going to be a hub-and-spoke model. We just take a couple of strong departments and go to another city and replicate it. I have a great Tepper School of Business here. I have a great School of Computer Science, Engineering College, Humanities, Social Science, the Policy School, our magnificent College of Fine Arts that Ken talked about. They're doing great and we have more students applying to CMU every year than we can possibly admit.
So the idea was, can we think about the future of higher ed, where we need to go as a nation? And that brought us to a point where we said, let's not organize Miami around colleges and departments. Let's not organize it around majors. Let's organize it around societal challenge areas, as Ken likes to call them, opportunities. Areas that are really more challenges that are really important, problems that are important to society, to communities, to our nation. As you know, for example, human health, resiliency of climate, energy, national security, cybersecurity, manufacturing. These are things that really matter to the future of the country and future of communities. So, let's organize it around that.
The faculty members will come from different disciplines. They'll come from my computer science school. They will come from my engineering college, policy from the business school. They'll come together to solve important problems that will have economic impact. It will have implications for communities. It will have implications for well-being and health of communities. So, let's tackle it that way. That's a fundamentally different framing of what a university is going to be. And we will do that, but we'll do it by deeply integrating the two campuses together.
So, we're not going to build walls. We're not going to build silos. And those of you who have been part of the CMU community know this, that CMU is really good at cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary explorations both in education as well as research. So, this comes natural to us. Here's a blank slate to experiment, envision it, and hopefully that will become a model for the rest of the world to follow.
So Ken, I think you share a similar vision here. I've heard you speak about this flywheel that you imagine between Pittsburgh and Miami, Carnegie Mellon. Can you describe how you see it? Is it similar to how Farnum is describing it? What would you add?
You know, I'm listening to the answer that he's giving and I'm thinking about the fact that the two campuses together and this moment in time will so elevate Carnegie Mellon's hard-earned reputation. This school has quietly, quietly excelled at the forefront of so many of the most important changes both in higher education and in society, but too quietly.
