History
Richard King Mellon and his wife had a long-time interest in urban and social issues. In 1965, they sponsored a conference on urban problems, at which they began discussions with both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Tech (as Carnegie Mellon University was then known) to create a school focused on public affairs. In 1967, Carnegie Mellon President H. Guyford Stever, Graduate School of Industrial Administration Dean Richard Cyert, and Professors William Cooper and Otto Davis met and formed a university-wide committee to discuss creating a school that would train leaders to address complex problems in American urban communities. Otto Davis was asked to draft a proposal to create such a school. In 1968, William Cooper and Otto Davis presented the final proposal for the School of Urban and Public Affairs (SUPA) to the R. K. Mellon Foundation. Seeing that Carnegie Mellon was strongly committed to creating the school, the R. K. Mellon Foundation sent a proposal to President Stever to finance it with an initial grant of $10 million, and on November 1, 1968 President Stever created SUPA - later the Heinz School.
Areas of study
Today, the Heinz School has an international reputation for excellence in educational programs and faculty research. Its programs include information technology, criminal justice policy, policy analysis, finance, environmental policy, health care and medical management, and educational technology.
