The late Paul Mellon, one of America's greatest philanthropists, art collectors and humanitarians who played a key role in the creation of Carnegie Mellon University, continues to be one of the school's most important benefactors. Representatives of Mellon's estate recently announced that the university will receive a second $20 million gift from his estate.

Carnegie Mellon received an initial $20 million from Mellon's estate following his death in February 1999 at the age of 91.

Portions of the first $20 million were used toward construction of the Purnell Center for the Arts and to build the endowment for use by the College of Fine Arts (CFA) and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (H&SS).

President Jared L. Cohon and Provost Mark Kamlet said these new funds will again be used to support the endowment for the creation of distinguished professorships, career development professorships for talented young faculty, undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships in CFA and H&SS. The chairs, scholarships and fellowships will bear the name of Paul Mellon.

They also said the gift will be used to endow new programs in the arts and humanities.

President Cohon said the fledgling Center for the Arts in Society, which funds inter-disciplinary education and research projects in the arts and humanities, and supports courses in the Bachelor of Humanities and Arts (BHA) program, will also be a beneficiary. The BHA course of study is a joint effort of CFA and H&SS.

"We are truly indebted to Paul Mellon for this tremendous gift, which we will use to strengthen our programs in the areas that meant the most to Mr. Mellon, the arts and the humanities," President Cohon said.

"Mr. Mellon's generosity will enable the university to recruit and retain top faculty and students in the arts and humanities, elevate its interdisciplinary programs in these fields and help to establish a model that will be emulated by other universities."

In 1967, Mellon played an integral role in the "largest transforming event in the university's history," according to President Cohon-the merger of the Mellon Institute of Research, which Mellon's family had established, with Carnegie Institute of Technology to form Carnegie Mellon University. In that same year he gave $5.5 million to CFA.

In his autobiography, "Reflections in a Silver Spoon: A Memoir," Mellon said he spent at least 10 years on the phone and in meetings negotiating the donation of the Mellon Institute of Research to Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Mellon, who gave more than $1 billion during his lifetime to public causes, announced the merger and the school's new name, Carnegie Mellon University, at the 1967 commencement on the CFA lawn.

During his commencement address he commended "the formation of what we all hope and we all know will be an outstanding American university" and encouraged the school to offer "the whole circle" of studies to its students.

Mellon, who received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the ceremony, advised the graduates to live life to its fullest.

"There is so much pleasure in the world-so much still to see, to taste, to hear, to feel, to smell, to enjoy," he said. "For the totally quarantined intellectual life, whether in science or the arts and humanities, can be dessicating and dehumanizing and shriveling. I hope each of you will avoid being one of those many whom we see in every walk of life-those who die at 30, but aren't buried until they're 90."

Mellon, the only son of Andrew W. Mellon, the Pittsburgh banker, secretary of the U.S. Treasury and ambassador to Great Britain, grew up in a Victorian house on the site of today's University Center.

Paul Mellon was honorary chairman of the $200 million fund-raising campaign for the university in the mid-1980s.

Bruce Gerson
(06/27/01)