www.cmu.edu/news: Carnegie Mellon University today announced a $2 billion comprehensive campaign —the largest in its history — that will accelerate the institution's leadership at the critical intersection of technology and humanity. Make Possible: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University will build resources to address society's greatest challenges and support educational initiatives across the institution.
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This is a really amazing project that I am very surprised already has this much traction. The thought of having raised already over $1 billion is incredible. A lot of the time with big fundraising campaigns such as this one, the motives and goals of using the funding are often skewed. There often is not a specific plan on how the money will be used and sometimes it is not used properly. I really appreciate how the Make Possible campaign has set up a website for the public explicitly defining their goals for the funding. There are several categories which will positively impact every student at CMU in every way, which is unusual. It would be interesting to see how this will directly impact me in my four years here. It seems as though they are focusing on creating new programs though, so it will be interesting to see how they allocate the money to existing programs at the university. Hopefully this means DPs won’t have to buy as many of their own art supplies!!!
So to preface this comment, my mom is a developmental fundraiser for a non-profit back in my home town. She has been raising money her entire career, mainly for the arts and for children's STEM education. I am very familiar with campaigns, however, I have never seen one this massive pulled off. The thought that CMU has alumni and donors who have enough money to donate $50 million dollars to endow dean chairs and scholarships for students is impressive. The fact that the university can announce a $2 billion campaign is absolutely amazing and exciting. I do appreciate the public website, like James, detailing what specifically the money will do for students across campus. Yet, at the same time, there seems to be key details conveniently missing, such as with these endowed scholarships. How do students get these? Which students will get them? How to people decide who gets them and how much are they? These key details would be nice to know, as a student who could use a break from the $75,000 tuition that CMU seems happy to collect. Also, when will the $2 billion dollars be implemented and funneled into the school? Next year? The next 20? How much is the university really going to use? Don't get me wrong, I think this announcement is huge for the university and very exciting. I just wish some details were more available.
This is incredible large scale fundraising is a serious challenge for a lot of organizations and CMU is taking on a huge challenge on in trying to raise all of this money. The investment goals may be clear in its monetary amount but for me honestly I don’t have a very clear view of what the actual goal and idea of what the money is for in this endeavor. I guess the idea of making it vague enough and open enough to something that touches all of the different departments and schools. I don’t think a program like this will necessary effect me while I’m at CMU and I don’t know if I will necessary see what it will affect in our community. The focus not necessarily being on improving but rather adding is a little different from most fundraising efforts it’s little more about creating and growing the programs at CMU.
CMU is raising money. That’s nice. Is it for more space in overcrowded academic buildings like Purnell? Probably, but maybe not. I feel like sometimes that if weren’t for our current Dean, that the School of Drama would be much lower on the list of priorities for CMU. The big focus on this campus seems to be robotics, computer science, business, and engineering. We have one of the best drama schools in the country and could do so much more with a bigger building, but so far I have not seen anything related to expanding our current building or construction for a whole new performing arts school. The university is building more housing and buildings to help with the business school and some other schools, but again, I don’t see the big push for making the drama school better. It feels like once again that the performing arts is taking a back seat to everything else CMU has to offer. Tuition keeps rising and the school is raising money for new academic buildings. Maybe the school should raise money to help lower tuition.
What an incredible fundraising effort this is; it is very inspiring to see Carnegie Mellon alumni donating so much to better our education. However, from when I first heard Farnam Jahanian announce it on Tartan Community Day to reading about it now, I am still unclear regarding the specific goals of this campaign. I have heard the words "endowed scholarships" and "faculty chairs" from Farnam, I have seen the words while reading the article and the campaign website, but it's quite vague, if I may say. Perhaps the specific projects intended for these campaign funds are still in development and the funds have not been subsidized, but I would love to see a more detailed breakdown for what the money will be used for. Like Bru, I would like to know when these funds and projects will be implemented. Could be now, could be later. Regardless, I am excited to see where Make Possible will take us.
I feel like Carnegie Mellon University is a school with such great resources and different programs on the campus. What I mean by this is that every single program in this university can hold it's ground separately and together. Now, hearing about the largest campaign Carnegie Mellon has ever had is very exciting as a CMU student. This 2 billion dollar campaign to "accelerate the institution's leadership at the critical intersection of technology and humanity" will have such a great effect for Carnegie Mellon. This article mentioned the different resources this campaign will help. From "accelerating technological advancements to benefit humanity; fueling artistic expression and creative inquiry to shape modern culture; achieving breakthroughs in discovery by transforming how scientific inquiry is pursued; and fostering a dynamic experience that enables CMU students to thrive throughout their lives" this program will be very beneficial. I am curious as a SoD student if I this money will ever go to me or my programs. I hope it will be beneficial to the whole school and I am sure it will be.
-Pablo Anton
It is incredible the scale of the funding that Carnegie Mellon is able to pull off annually. That funding deans chairs and student scholarships has already been able to raise half of the goal amount is amazing, too. I like that the Make Possible campaign has a website set up to see the goals and intents of the fundraising, but there are some things that are conveniently not mentioned. Yes, some of this funding goes towards students’ scholarships. How much? To which students? Current or future students? At what income levels? And where does the majority of the funding go - to the deans or the students? I definitely think that they could be clearer about departmental funding, too. Robotics (for example) is really cool, but so are the arts, you feel? Perhaps this campaign is still developing those answers, though, considering that we the student body just got an email alert only a week or so ago. TBD, I guess.
I can totally see why Carnegie Mellon is working toward this branch of academic progress. Not only it is the blank space that has been missing in our long history of the university, but also the increasing importance of focusing on methodology of learning and educating. Our age is so different from other stages of the human history, the speed of technology breakthroughs happening is what we have never seen before. Since the previous experience is no longer able to apply to the present, dedicating our resource to facilitate how learning is happening among the students is more urgent than ever before. Personally, I have to admit that I am terrified, terrified of how fast the facts we know can be correct. I felt much easier to face fear of left behind when I know about that our high office has noticed this matter, and hopefully we are doing this right.
This article is seriously insane. As we live in our little School of Drama bubble, sometimes I do forget the MASSIVE university that is behind us and the massive support that is behind that same university. I can barely fathom the idea of raising one billion dollars in a single year, but I suppose that is a measly sum compared to this two billion dollar goal that the love President Farnam Jahanian has proposed and is on his way to completing fully. I am in awe of the kind of system they must have in place in order to pull off this kind of massive undertaking. We are very lucky to go to a university that has this kind of financial support, my only hope is that this two billion dollars go towards improving our educational experiences and exposing us to technology and ideas that we could encounter in the future, instead of tearing up the CFA lawn and putting up a large tent for a single week, in order to tear it down and completely replace the grass on the lawn.
“This campaign will make significant initiatives possible in four key areas that will advance the university’s mission: accelerating technological advancements to benefit humanity, fueling artistic expression and creative inquiry to shape modern culture, achieving breakthroughs in discovery by transforming how scientific inquiry is pursued, and fostering a dynamic experience that enables CMU students to thrive.” These initiatives are highly focused on the student body which I think is a good step in the right direction and provides a lot of innovation for current and future students to be able to expand upon. There are so many different schools and colleges that are doing incredible and forward thinking things on this campus, and the fact that we have all this funding backing us opens a whole world of possibility. I hope to get a more extensive list of what initiatives beyond just the main four university-wide goals are, because it would be interesting to see how these funds are being used and diverted in a way that is beneficial to everyone on the campus.
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