The Vision for Dietrich College

From the day classes began in 1969, Dietrich College has been a home to interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.

Carnegie Tech and Mellon Institute combined in 1967 to create Carnegie Mellon University. The proposal for the new university called for the establishment of a College of Humanities and Social Sciences. A committee of senior faculty appointed by Margaret Morrison Carnegie College’s dean, Erwin Steinberg, developed a plan for the “New College.”

“[W]e do not want another liberal arts college in the traditional pattern. We want to develop a college which is well suited [...] to the needs of society in the years ahead,” he said. “On this campus we have a perhaps unique combination of strengths in the sciences, in technology, and in the fine arts. [...] Rather than set up the usual kind of liberal arts college, we have an opportunity to be innovative, to institutionalize new educational ideas suited to the needs of the students and the times.”