The Tartan Online: Carnegie Mellon officially welcomed Subra Suresh as the university’s ninth president last Friday. Following a campus-wide celebration onThursday, Suresh’s investiture ceremony was hosted at Carnegie Music Hall.
The event took place on the day of the 113th anniversary of Andrew Carnegie’s proposal to create what would eventually become Carnegie Mellon University.
4 comments:
Although I share a tremendous amount of Tartan pride, I am a little cautious when it comes to all of the hoop-lah over the new president. He is doing a lot of the right things, with the listening tour and meeting his students and this school shows good key qualities of being an effective leader. However, whenever I hear about crossing boundaries, I hear a lot about the Computer Science and the Mechanical Enginnering department, and connections on the left-brain oriented departments of campus. I do not mean to sound like an immature child, but consider this. Fifteen years ago, the most prestigious department of the Carnegie Mellon Campus was the CFA and School of Drama. Computer Science was just in the beginnings, and our engineering department, while still impressive, was vastly overshadowed by a program who has consistently delivered notable alumni since its beginnings 100 years ago. There is a palpable divide between Drama, CFA, and the rest of campus. While Suresh’s failure to mention our department at all in his address may be written off as an oversight, I would venture to say that it is a pretty large oversight, and one that must be remedied quickly. There is a boundary between CFA and the rest of campus, and I feel like the opportunity for real innovation depends on this wall becoming a bridge, built upon a respect and understanding for the hearts and work of students on both sides of this wall. Right now, it is largely dependent on individual students to walk this bridge. Yet it does not have to be this way, and I challenge President Suresh to address this issue, especially as he has made “crossing boundaries” his platform. This challenge comes from a place that holds the tartan legacy in the highest regard.
The inauguration ceremony was a great boost of CMU-pride. It is always exciting to see the work of other students, and just how exciting to professionals in every field internationally. The entire ceremony was at the same time humbling and incredibly validating. It reinforced all of the things that make me proud to be a member of the CMU academic community.
This ceremony was incredibly interesting to watch. As a school I feel very little pride. We don't have a lot of things that unite the school as a whole and this makes our campus divided sometimes. It was interesting to watch Suresh inaugurated and to see the whole college come together for something so meaningful. I love what Suresh had to say about diversity and leadership, he is a very accomplished man and seems to have a heart of gold. I am excited that he will be leading the way for the school.
I find myself quite confused by Alex's response, and can only explain it by believing he wasn't actually at the ceremony. In his speech Suresh spent a considerable amount of time talking about the university's years of success, highlighting multiple times the School of Drama's 100th anniversary, as well as the School of Computer Science's 25th and even the School of Music's anniversary which happened last year. President Suresh centered his speech on the crossing of boundaries, he comes from an engineering background so of course engineering was brought up in his speech, but the school of drama was not only mentioned but highlighted in the speech and, with Patina Millers performance, in the event as well. The divide between the SoD and the rest of the university does exist to some degree, but it is not created by the university, rather it is created internally by the students of the school of drama who isolate themselves from the rest of campus for whatever reason. I agree that boundary crossing is extremely important, but we should not blame the administration, who has made it easier than in many institutions of higher education, but rather look at what we ourselves are doing to alienate ourselves.
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