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Carnegie-Mellon Model for PSU's Future (a public CMU)

BroadwayVik

Active member
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Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, Pa.

A major national research university, Carnegie Mellon serves 5,500 undergrads and 3,000 grad students [we would have close to 30,000 combined] in seven colleges reflecting CMU's academic diversity:

Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering) [we would have the Oregon Institute of Technology], the College of Fine Arts [we have the College of Arts], the College of Humanities and Social Sciences [we would have something similar], the Mellon College of Science [we have the Collaborative Life Sciences], the Tepper School of Business [we have the Karl Miller Center], the School of Computer Science [we have the Meseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, overlap needs to be reconciled with OIT] and the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management [we have the College of Urban and Public Affairs, Hatfield School of Government].

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Students have to apply to specific schools. Last year, CMU received a record 18,864 applications and admitted 6,357. The drama program in the College of Fine Arts has the most competitive admissions; engineering is the most popular major overall, but business is catching up. Students laud Pittsburgh. "We have all the amenities of a nice-sized city, but not the hustle and bustle of a city like Chicago or New York," says Mike Hall, associate director of admission. CMU is known for fostering entrepreneurial spirit: staff, faculty, students and alumni have created or spun off more than 170 companies from the university since 1995. That reflects CMU's sterling academics; 15 faculty members and alumni are Nobel laureates. Overlap schools: Cornell and MIT. Business students sometimes overlap with the University of Pennsylvania, and music students with Juilliard and the Eastman School of Music.

Oregon Tech Arts: The Carnegie-Mellon for the rest of us.
 
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Former PSU executive on how urban planning expertise could lift the University
Portland Business Journal
Jonathan Fink, PSU professor of geology and past VP of research
December 5, 2016


Ask the local business community what Portland needs, and near the top of most lists will be “a great research university.”

Last winter, then mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler said that Portland should invite a top-notch university like MIT to set up a satellite here.

Phil and Penny Knight’s $500M gifts to Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and University of Oregon (UO) show that philanthropic dollars go where there is a vision for how a good university can become great; in OHSU’s case in cancer research, and in UO’s in a half-dozen scientific fields. Commitment to excellence can be a powerful magnet for funding.

Over the past six years, as Portland State University’s first vice president for research (VPR), I was asked repeatedly whether our university alone could provide Portland the research heft that its economy demands. The question is even more urgent today, as PSU searches for its next president and next VPR.

It’s instructive to see what’s worked elsewhere.

Most of the best-known research universities, like Stanford and Berkeley, took advantage of federal funding programs in the second half of the 20th Century to reach the upper echelons.

Others, like Arizona State and University of Texas, used state funds targeted at research-based economic development to construct facilities and recruit faculty.

Still others, closer to PSU in size and stature, built national reputations around a single theme. University of Wisconsin’s Milwaukee campus established a stellar research identity centered on the abundant freshwater resource provided by the Great Lakes and relied upon by their region’s signature product — beer.

So what path forward might be most promising for PSU and, by extension, Portland?

With uncertainty about the Trump Administration’s plans, and a looming state budget shortfall, PSU cannot rely on federal or state support to catch up.

Instead, we need further differentiation and collaboration among Oregon’s four research universities to make them more attractive to corporate and philanthropic partners.

PSU is recognized internationally for its scholarship about cities — in urban planning, social work, environmental science, and civil engineering. This reputation piggybacks on the innovative policies of Portland’s city government, with which PSU has exceptionally strong ties.

PSU’s urban agenda is arguably the only one where it has the potential to become the national leader, at least in the short to medium term. The emergence of “Smart Cities” at the intersection of urban planning and computer science is an especially ripe target for PSU and Portland to exploit.

Faculty at Oregon State track how the state’s hinterlands produce the resources — water, food, fish, timber, energy — that are mostly consumed in cities. Marrying PSU’s urban strengths with OSU’s rural ones could increase the competitiveness of both schools.

OHSU and PSU recently launched a new joint School of Public Health, built in part around PSU’s urban-oriented School of Community Health. Emphasizing health issues associated with rapid global urbanization and emerging technologies could help define the joint OHSU-PSU brand.

PSU should position itself as the front door to comprehensive city-based problem solving and economic development, possibly including construction of a building to house researchers from all four universities. Such cooperation can assure that investments like those by the Knights get fully leveraged to solidify Metro Portland’s position as a global leader in technology-oriented, socially-conscious urban innovation and policy.
 
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A good name for the newly-constituted institution could be the Oregon Institute (of Science, Technology and the Arts) or, simply,

The Oregon Institute

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