ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Dear Members of the ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon Community:

I am writing this morning to share one of the most significant developments in ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½â€™s history — a moment that will strengthen our foundation, expand our capacity to serve society and open an extraordinary new chapter for our institution.

Today, we announce a historic $3 billion gift from Citadel CEO and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin to support ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ — the largest philanthropic investment by an individual in the history of higher education.

This remarkable gift includes a $1 billion investment in our Pittsburgh campus, with support split evenly between the university’s highest priorities and our top-ranked School of Computer Science, now renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science. It also includes $2 billion to launch , a new campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood.

Ken’s investment in Pittsburgh is an especially powerful recognition of both ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon’s foundation and its future. Pittsburgh remains the heart of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. This is our home, our center of gravity and the place where, for more than a century, we have shaped the distinctive culture that defines this university. This support will strengthen our core and advance our highest priorities while expanding our capacity to serve the nation.

There are two ways you can join us in celebrating this historic milestone today:

• 11 a.m. of our announcement event in Pittsburgh.
• Noon-2 p.m. Drop by our campus-wide celebration on the Cut for an afternoon of giveaways, food and fun.

In addition to philanthropic support, Ken will be joining our Board of Trustees, bringing his leadership and perspective to our institution at a pivotal moment for higher education.

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has built a remarkable legacy by anticipating the future, innovating at the intersections of disciplines and responding with rigor, imagination and purpose. We have dared to take bold leaps early and often: establishing the world’s first drama school and robotics department; pioneering fields such as artificial intelligence, learning science, transition design, management science, machine learning and computational biology; and building one of the world’s most advanced autonomous science facilities, a powerful combination of robotics, AI and cloud computing that can recast the pace of discovery from years to months. The full list of proof points is long and impressive.

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Miami represents one of our boldest moves yet.

We are bringing the full imagination of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon — across the sciences, engineering, computing, business, policy, design, the arts and the humanities — to a new model of education and research, organized around societal challenges and built to meet today’s pace of change.

We will rethink what students learn and how they learn it, bringing together AI, hands-on experience and the creativity and judgment to lead in a changing world.

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Miami will invert the traditional higher education model and organize academics and research around complex societal challenges, including human health and biological discovery; national security and strategic capabilities; energy and climate resilience; and advanced manufacturing and industrial transformation. These are challenges that touch every community and are critical to our nation’s competitiveness and national security. They demand the combination of technological leadership and human ingenuity that defines ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon, and new collaborations across academia, industry and the public sector. ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Miami will be designed to meet these needs — and the urgency of the moment.

Once complete, the campus is expected to support more than 3,500 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students, nearly 300 faculty and more than 600 staff members across a 35-acre campus. Construction is slated to begin in 2027, and the current plan, pending necessary regulatory approvals, is to begin enrolling graduate students in 2028, with the inaugural undergraduate cohort arriving in 2032. There are so many reasons why Miami is a unique complement to our strengths, and we are working to connect our community here with new opportunities and partnerships in Miami.

Miami is a global, entrepreneurial city, with a rich array of multicultural communities that each have their own history and aspirations. We intend to approach this new beginning with ambition and humility — listening carefully, building trust, and working alongside the local community to become a serious long-term contributor to Miami’s civic, intellectual and economic life, in a way that also enriches Pittsburgh.

I am deeply grateful to Ken Griffin for his extraordinary vision, partnership and belief in what ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon can achieve. His gift reflects confidence in our faculty, students, staff, alumni and partners — and in the qualities that have long defined ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½: academic excellence, creativity, interdisciplinary collaboration and a willingness to take on hard problems with a relentless focus on impact.

Our Board of Trustees voted unanimously to support this historic investment in ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon, and I am incredibly thankful for their counsel, guidance and unwavering stewardship of the university.

In addition, I extend my profound appreciation to Provost Jim Garrett and the many academic and administrative leaders, faculty and staff who have helped inform our early conversations and planning process.

From the beginning, we have looked to our ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon community for guidance on a fundamental question: What would it mean to build a new ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ campus that preserves our uncompromising standards of excellence while creating new models for teaching, research, partnership and impact?

That work will continue in earnest. In the days and weeks ahead, we welcome your ideas for how the $500 million Pittsburgh investment can strengthen research, education and creativity at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, as well as any input you wish to share as we build ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Miami. Our community's ideas and aspirations will help shape what comes next in Pittsburgh, Miami and beyond.

Finally, I am grateful for our broader university community across all of our global locations. ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon’s future is bright because of the people who bring our mission to life every day, in classrooms and studios, in labs, libraries and stages across our campuses and around the world.

This is a profoundly unique opportunity and responsibility. With ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Miami, we will build on the values that have always defined our institution, strengthen the nation’s capacity to discover and compete, forge a new model for higher education, and prepare generations of students to lead with knowledge, creativity, humility and purpose.

I look forward to building this next chapter with all of you — for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Mellon, for Miami, for Pittsburgh and for the future we will shape together.

Sincerely,

Farnam Jahanian
President
Henry L. Hillman President’s Chair