CMU gets $265 million gift from William S. Dietrich II
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Philanthropist and former steel executive William S. Dietrich II.
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A philanthropist and former steel executive is giving Carnegie Mellon University $265 million, its biggest gift ever and one of the 10 largest by an individual to private higher education in the United States, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has learned.
The gift, which has the potential of transforming the university, is from William S. Dietrich II, 73, a longtime member of Carnegie Mellon's board of trustees. It is to be announced today at a gathering honoring Mr. Dietrich, who was reared in Crafton and is former chairman of Dietrich Industries. His gift becomes effective upon his death.
Those who know Mr. Dietrich believe that a very sizable gift also will be given to the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Dietrich holds a Ph.D. from Pitt. He is on Pitt's board of trustees and served as its chairman from 2001 to 2003.
The CMU gift -- equal to about a fourth of the university's entire endowment -- is intended to be a catalyst for its global initiatives and for something long a source of CMU pride: What campus officials call the "fusion of left-brain and right-brain thinking" that includes linking arts and technology study.
The gift will be felt throughout the 111-year-old university at the undergraduate and graduate levels, in scholarship, artistic creation and in research, officials said. And it will support emphasis on interdisciplinary study and problem-solving at an institution Mr. Dietrich has called "a special place."
The gift surpasses what had been Carnegie Mellon's largest individual gift -- one for $55 million made in 2004 by Wall Street investor David A. Tepper and his wife, Marlene. It also easily eclipses other individual gifts to campuses in this region, including a $41.3 million donation to the University of Pittsburgh in 2007 from Ansys founder John Swanson.
In explaining his decision, Mr. Dietrich said he was moved by Carnegie Mellon's global approach and by the quality of its faculty and students.
First Published September 7, 2011 3:01 am
