CMU Receives $265 Million Donation
Plus Seton Hill students participate in 'Labor of Love' and Duquesne lauded for social mobility.
>>GO FIGURE
The staggering size of a gift given to Carnegie Mellon University by William S. Dietrich II, a CMU trustee and former steel executive. The gift is easily the largest in CMU’s history and, according to the university, ranks as the eighth-largest gift from an individual to a private university in U.S. history. The gift ($265 million) is equal to approximately one-fourth of CMU’s total endowment, so the scope and impact of this gift on the university can’t be estimated.
"Serving as a trustee of Carnegie Mellon convinced me that Carnegie Mellon is not only a great university, but that it is an important driver of the future success of this region and its citizens,” Dietrich said last Wednesday on a webcast announcing the gift. In appreciation, CMU will be renaming the College of Humanities the Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences in honor of Dietrich’s mother. The fund becomes operational on Dietrich’s passing, and insiders and friends suspect that the philanthropist will soon announce an additional donation to the University of Pittsburgh.
-Sean Collier, PM Associate Editor
>>EXTRA CREDIT
Seton Hill University Students Pledge Time in Annual Event
A Seton Hill University student and faculty member team up on some landscaping at Caritas Christi, the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. The pair was among the 120-plus volunteers who participated in Seton Hill’s “Labor of Love, Saturday of Service” event, an annual event early in each fall semester. Volunteers worked at nine sites around the Greensburg area, from the Seton Hill Campus itself to the Greensburg YMCA and beyond; this photo shows a portion of the Fatima Shrine at the Motherhouse, a home to retired nuns in the Sisters of Charity.
>>CAN’T MISS
Chatham Conference Hopes to Inspire
Pennsylvania has never elected a female governor, attorney general or U.S. senator. In fact, women only make up about 17 percent of the Keystone State’s General Assembly. Founded with hopes of hearing more heels clicking down the halls of Harrisburg, Chatham University’s Pennsylvania Center for Women in Politics (PCWP) aspires to change those statistics. The school is hosting the Western Pennsylvania Inaugural Conference on Friday, Sept. 23 from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Omni William Penn Hotel downtown with the goal of elevating women’s interests in politics and public policy to more than just the fashion sense of our nation’s First Lady. The conference will feature the 2011 Elsie Hillman Chair in Women and Politics, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, as keynote speaker. Aspiring glass-ceiling-shatterers can expect to be informed, empowered and, of course, well fed.
-Richelle Szypulski, PM Editorial Intern
>>PROPS
Duquesne Lauded for Social Mobility
Like many publications, Washington Monthly publishes an overall list of the nation’s top colleges and universities. It puts a unique twist on the rankings; however, they’re most interested in how schools contribute to the public good, citing research, social mobility and service as the three main qualifiers. And in this year’s rankings, Duquesne University ranked 11th nationwide in social mobility. That category investigates how many low-income students a university admits and graduates, and Washington Monthly finds Duquesne to be exemplary in that regard. Duquesne was also ranked 16th for community service participation, and the school ranked in the top 100 overall. Congrats are in order!
