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Introduction
Abbreviations
Capitalization
Dates, Numbers, Places
Plurals & Possessives
Punctuation Primer
Sensitivities
Titles
Tech Talk
Using Tricky Words
Pet Peeves
Carnegie Mellon Terminology
Carnegie Mellon Facts
Proofreaders' Marks
Identity Style Guide
Web Style Guide
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General Description
Carnegie Mellon has emerged as one of the nation's top
private research universities. The university's interdisciplinary approach provides graduates with professional and technical skills and a strong science and liberal arts
background.
Carnegie Mellon's internationally recognized programs
encompass the areas of engineering, technology, science, liberal arts, fine arts, and public and private management. The university includes four undergraduate colleges and three graduate schools: the Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering), the College of Fine Arts, the College of
Humanities and Social Sciences, the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, the Mellon
College of Science, the Graduate School of Industrial
Administration and the School of Computer Science.
Carnegie Mellon's many research centers—exploring fields such as robotics, software engineering, biology, computer science, magnetics technology, computer-aided design,
economic development, international management, computer—aided manufacturing and document design-receive funding from industry, foundations and government.
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History
On November 15, 1900, Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Technical Schools with the pledge, "My heart
is in the work." In 1912, these schools became a degree-granting college, Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1967, Carnegie Tech merged with the Mellon Institute of Research to form Carnegie Mellon University.
Over the course of its first century, Carnegie Mellon has transformed itself from a technical school designed to serve the needs of Pittsburgh's industrial workers, to a leading regional institute with nationally renowned programs, to its position today as one of the world's leading private research universities.
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Pittsburgh
Consistently ranked one of "America's most livable" cities, Pittsburgh has quickly developed a growing technology economy.
With 200 museums, galleries, theaters and performance groups, Pittsburgh rivals Boston, Chicago, San Diego and other cultural centers. There are more than 200 colleges
and universities in western Pennsylvania, making higher education a powerful force in the region.
Centrally located on major air and highway routes,
Pittsburgh is only an hour's flight from New York and Washington, D.C., and is just five hours from the West Coast. Pittsburgh's international airport has direct
flights to Europe and the Pacific.
For more information on Pittsburgh, contact Greater Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau at 412-281-7711,
www.pittsburgh-cvb.org
or visit other Pittsburgh Web sites:
www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/
www.realpittsburgh.com
www.pittsburghlive.com
www.pittsburgh.net
greaterpittsburgh.com
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Interesting Highlights
- One of the most computer-intensive universities in the world, Carnegie Mellon worked with IBM in the 1980s to develop Andrew—a pioneering computer network that links the entire campus through thousands of personal computers and work stations. In 2000, Andrew again
led the field by going wireless, earning the university
the title of "Most Wired Campus" by Yahoo! Internet
Life magazine.
- Alumnus Edgar D. Mitchell (1952), the sixth astronaut to walk on the moon, carried a replica of the Carnegie Mellon flag with him during his lunar visit in 1971. The late Judith A. Resnik (1970) was one of the original group of six women astronauts selected by NASA. She flew on the maiden voyage of the space shuttle Discovery in August 1984 and died aboard the Challenger spaceship in January 1986.
- "Buggy" began in 1920 as the Sweepstakes Race
and highlights Spring Carnival each year. The student-designed vehicles hold drivers who steer as they're pushed over a mile-long course by competing teams from fraternities, sororities and other student organizations.
- Andrew Carnegie, who founded Carnegie Technical
Schools in 1900, only attended four years of school in his lifetime. His idea of education stressed the technical, not the classical, the practical, not liberal arts. He was never greatly interested in Ivy League schools but wanted instead to help institutions that served the children of the middle and lower classes.
- The first computer on the Carnegie Mellon campus was housed in the basement of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration in 1956. In the 1960s the machine aided professors Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell in their discovery that symbols could be substituted for numbers in computations, opening up the field of artificial intelligence.
- The Cut was originally a great gulch through the campus. The ravine, deeper than the tennis courts area, was filled
in over the years. In the earliest earth-moving efforts, the school cut down a 43-foot hill for the College of Fine Arts building and a 56-foot hill to provide access to Forbes
Avenue at Morewood. The dirt was dumped into the ravine. The name "the Cut" has survived despite the disappearance of the gulch.
- Drama majors, or "dramats," sign their names on the walls of the "green room" behind the main stage of Carnegie Mellon's Kresge Theatre. These young hopefuls, including the likes of Ted Danson, Blair Underwood, Laura San Giacomo, Judith Light and Steven Bochco, followed show biz tradition and waited until they were seniors to write their autographs. But Holly Hunter broke that rule when she dared to sign her name as a freshman.
- The Carnegie Tech football squad played in the 1939 Sugar Bowl, losing to Texas Christian University, 15-7.
- The original campus of Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, is said to have been
designed as a ship by original campus architect Henry Hornbostel. A real ship's prow taken from the historic cruiser, the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, rests on the top of
Roberts Hall, overlooking Panther Hollow and The Carnegie museum complex.
- Carnegie Mellon's "Management Game," an exercise in teamwork and group dynamics, was modeled after Procter & Gamble and the soap industry. Created in the 1950s, it was the first simulation program of its kind offered at a business school. Today, it is widely copied by other top business schools.
- In the early 1980s researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Field Robotics Center created robotic machines that cleaned up nuclear waste at Three Mile Island. Years later, other
prototypes were used in the Chernobyl accident clean-up
in Ukraine.
- The Senior Fence on the Cut was erected in 1923
so seniors could sit and watch the world go by. Three
administrations were unable to remove it. It continues to
be a jealously guarded billboard for campus activities and "unsanctioned announcements and editorial comments on campus life." The Fence receives more coats of paint each year than any building or canvas on campus. Students camp out at the Fence during the night to "stake their claim." Tradition dictates they do their painting only at night. Daybreak reveals new messages, from happy
birthday greetings to an ad for the next big party.
- In the early 1940s the silicone rubber in Silly Putty
was discovered by a Dow Corning employee working on
a research fellowship at Mellon Institute, now called Carnegie Mellon Research Institute. Earl Warrick was working with silicone compounds and came up with
the strange, pliable material that stretches, bounces
and absorbs printed impressions.
- In 1978 Herbert A. Simon, whose work challenged
the economic theory of corporate decision-making and emphasized the psychological and practical limitations
of managers, won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
The Nobel Prize Committee said, "Modern business
economics and administrative research are largely
based on Simon's ideas."
- In the early 1990s, stonecarvers set up shop in front
of the College of Fine Arts building and completed the building's niches, designed to represent five styles of
architecture: Gothic, Greek, Roman, Renaissance and Eastern. The project had been started more than 75 years before that, but only the Renaissance niche came close
to completion. The late Verner S. Purnell (1926) donated $1 million to the project.
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