Carnegie Mellon University

Our Approach, Motivation, and Vision

In alignment with the Education 2025 strategic plan, the Core Competency Initiative (CCI) incorporates a distinctive approach that leverages faculty expertise in core areas and situates competency development in the context of the holistic student experience. Since large majorities of CMU graduates at all levels - bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral - enter the workforce immediately following graduation, the CCI is designed to help students learn and practice key skills that employers are looking for regardless of industry or position. While discipline-specific proficiencies are regularly a focus of program review efforts, competencies that cut across departments and disciplines have been identified as ripe for further focus and support. In addition, the Core Competency Initiative seeks to leverage existing expertise and infrastructure in technology and data analytics to scale these efforts across colleges and departments and to systematically collect data that can guide continuous improvement.

An introduction to the Core Competencies Initiative

With the CCI, we envision that CMU students will be able to find relevant opportunities to develop their core competency skills and monitor their progress; CMU educators will be able to incorporate core competencies into their educational activities in a coordinated manner without having to make a huge effort; and then ultimately CMU graduates will have demonstrably stronger core competency skills they can take into their future work and lives.

Core Competencies Initiative Project Leadership

Amy Burkert
Vice Provost for Education

Marsha Lovett
Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Innovation
Director, Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Joanna Dickert
Assistant Dean of Educational Experience Assessment

The Core Competencies Initiative is the result of several lines of earlier work and conversations at CMU, including:

  • Board of Trustees’ input promoting students’ core competency development in areas such as communication, teamwork, leadership, and more
  • CMU’s Self-Study Report related to our 2018 re-accreditation with the Middle States Commision on Higher Education
  • Several CMU colleges revising and transforming their college-level general education programs
  • Division of Student Affairs advancing their residential education programs
  • Deans’ Council meetings focused on the value and role of core skills as complementary and synergistic with their disciplinary curricula.

In 2019, we launched two working groups – one on collaboration & teamwork and the other on communication & presentation – to:

  • conduct a landscape scan of current activities supporting the development and/or assessment of that competency,
  • articulate a CMU-wide definition of the competency in terms of our graduates' outcomes in that competency area, and
  • generate a set of recommendations to build on and enhance current efforts to promote students’ competency development.

After a pandemic-focused pause in CCI activity, these two groups (see committee membership) submitted fulsome reports in early 2021.

We then launched two additional working groups – one on Information & Data Literacy and the other on Intercultural & Global Learning + Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI). As of late 2022, these two groups are making good progress and are expected to submit their reports in the coming months.

Altogether, the four competency areas represented by these first four working groups constitute our Core 4 competency areas.

Committee Members

Collaboration & Teamwork

Communication & Presentation

  • Mary-Lou Arscott (CFA ARC)
  • Mark Bedillion (CIT MEG)
  • Joanna Dickert, Administrative Co-Chair (Student Affairs, Provost Division, DC)
  • Martha Harty (DC PHI)
  • Ken Hovis (MCS Dean’s Office)
  • Rubab Jafry O’Connor (TSB)
  • Lucy-Anna Kelly (CMU-Africa)
  • Kimberly Kelly (Student Affairs, Athletics)
  • Elizabeth Koch (Student Affairs SLICE)
  • Marsha Lovett, Administrative Co-Chair (Provost Division, DC PSY)
  • Cecile Le Roux (CMU-Q)
  • Jonathan Minden (MCS BSC)
  • Carolyn Rose (SCS LTI/HCI)
  • Majd Sakr (SCS CSD)
  • Peter Scupelli (CFA DES)
  • Raja Sooriamurthi (DC IS, HNZ)
  • Sam Waltemeyer (DOSA SLICE)
  • Laurie Weingart, Faculty Lead & Co-Chair (TSB)
  • Emily Weiss (Provost Division, Eberly)
  • Joanna Wolfe (DC ENG)
  • Anita Williams Woolley (TSB)
  • Conrad Zapanta (CIT BME)
  • Robert Calton (formerly DC ENG)
  • Tom Cortina (SCS CSD)
  • Joanna Dickert (Student Affairs, Provost Division, DC)
  • Linda Gentile (OIE)
  • Jen Gilbride-Brown (formerly VPE)
  • Jessica Harrell (Provost Division, Eberly)
  • Chris Hertz (CIT MEG)
  • Lucy-Anna Kelly (CMU-Africa)
  • Marsha Lovett (Provost Division, DC PSY)
  • Kevin Monahan (Student Affairs, CPDC)
  • Amy Nichols (CFA DRA)
  • Rebecca Oreto (formerly Provost Division, SASC)
  • Susan Polansky (DC ML)
  • Juliann Reineke (formerly Provost Division, SASC)
  • Dudley Reynolds (CMU-Q)
  • Stacy Rosenberg (HNZ)
  • Andreea Ritivoi (DC ENG)
  • Beth Walter (TSB)
  • Necia Werner (DC ENG)
  • Danielle Wetzel (DC ENG)
  • Joanna Wolfe (DC ENG)
  • John Woolford (MCS BSC)

Information & Data Literacy

Intercultural & Global Learning + Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)

  • Richelle Bernazzoli (Provost Division, OURSD)
  • David Brown (DC ENG)
  • Tom Cortina (SCS CSD)
  • Jamie DePastino (Computing Services Data Strategy and Governance)
  • Joanna Dickert, Administrative Co-Chair (Student Affairs, Provost Division, DC)
  • Emily Edlich (CFA, ARC 2022)
  • Peter Freeman, Faculty Lead & Co-Chair (DC STA)
  • Melanie Gainey (University Libraries)
  • Rayid Ghani (SCS/HNZ, MLD)
  • April Hawk (Provost Division, C@CM)
  • Amelia Haviland (HNZ)
  • Jason Howell (MCS MSC)
  • Andrea James (Student Affairs, Athletics)
  • Ebrahim Karam (CMU ETC 2022)
  • Sophie Le Blanc (Provost Division, Eberly)
  • Kaylin Li (DC STA, 2024)
  • Marsha Lovett, Administrative Lead & Co-Chair (Provost Division & DC PSY)
  • Teresa MacGregor (formerly CMU-Q)
  • Scott Matthews (formerly CIT CEE)
  • Mikaela Meyer (HNZ PPM, 2024)
  • Bob Monroe (TSB)
  • Rebecca Nugent (DC STA)
  • Joelle Pitts, Faculty Lead & Co-Chair (University Libraries)
  • Christine Ricci (Provost Division, SASC)
  • Emma SlaytonUniversity Libraries
  • Molly Steenson (CFA DES)
  • Doug Stouch (Student Affairs, CPDC)
  • Katie Walsh (Provost Division, SASC)
  • Jennifer Wegner (TSB, UBA)
  • Lexi Adams, (Provost Division, Eberly)
  • Zahra Ahmad (SCS CB, 2023)
  • William Alba (MCS Dean’s Office)
  • Alaine Allen (CIT Dean’s Office)
  • Gaurav Balakrishnan (CIT MSE, 2023)
  • Shawn Blanton (CIT ECE)
  • Alex Ching (CIT MSE, 2024)
  • Joanna Dickert, Co-Chair (Student Affairs, Provost Division, DC)
  • Jodi Forlizzi (SCS Dean’s Office)
  • Linda Gentile, Director (OIE)
  • Wanda Heading-Grant (VP DEI)
  • Diane Hightower (formerly Provost Division, SASC)
  • Kevin Jarbo (DC SDS)
  • Ricky Law (DC HIS)
  • Ayana Ledford (DC Dean’s Office)
  • Marsha Lovett, Co-Chair (Provost Division & DC PSY)
  • Kody Manke (DC PSY)
  • Byron Martin, Co-Chair (AVP DEI)
  • Valeria Martinez (CFA Dean’s Office)
  • Colleen McMullen (TSB)
  • Korryn Mozisek (Provost Division & DC ENG)
  • Amy Ogan (SCS HCI)
  • Susan Polansky (DC ML)
  • Julie Schultz (Student Affairs, First-Year Orientation and Family Engagement)
  • Shernell Smith (Student Affairs, Provost Division, CSDI)
  • Therese Tardio (DC ML)
  • Adam Van Compernolle, Co-Chair (DC ML)
  • Annette Vincent (CMU-Q)


The current activities of the CCI – including the launch of this website – aim to implement the full set of recommendations generated by these core competency working groups, which fall into the following categories of impact:

  • Raise awareness about the CCI in general and the specific definitions and opportunities associated with each competency area.
  • Facilitate the use of educational resources that CMU educators can efficiently and effectively incorporate into their courses and educational programs.
  • Highlight practice opportunities within the curriculum and meta-curriculum so that students can identify and take advantage of opportunities to develop their core competency skills.
  • Create targeted, scalable learning resources that fill gaps in existing resources to support students’ development of core competencies.
  • Build and disseminate a dashboard to document and assess student progress.

Beyond 2023...

Additional Core Competencies areas will be woven into this site over time. We identified the Core 4 (Collaboration, Communication, Information + Data Literacy, and Intercultural & Global Learning + Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) as our starting set, thanks to input from various groups agreeing that these four competency areas would be most generally applicable and useful for students. Future priority areas will be developed in alignment with existing efforts and by soliciting further input from the CMU community.