The Tartan

by Ian Giles 
Staffwriter

by Owen Noble 
Staffwriter

On Thursday, Feb. 6, Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian spoke at a general body meeting of the Undergraduate Student Senate, giving a brief presentation and fielding assorted questions surrounding recent changes to the university. 

The event — small, informal, and lightly advertized — allowed Jahanian to address questions and concerns from the student body, mirroring his address to the Graduate Student Assembly a few weeks prior.

Enrollment

The event began with President Jahanian recapping changes in enrollment statistics, including a swell of undergraduate students in the class of 2028. Jahanian stated that he did not expect numbers to continue to further increase in the next year, stating that Carnegie Mellon’s number of acceptances is at a relatively “stable point.” 

In addition, Jahanian showed a graph of rising yield and lowering admission rates, currently sitting at 46.3 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively; both of these he attributed at least partially to increased prestige surrounding Carnegie Mellon.

Financial Aid

President Jahanian went on to discuss the university’s increased investment in financial aid, up from $75.5 million in 2015 to $141.1 million in 2024. 

Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan Scholars program and the upcoming Pathway Program — which grants full scholarships to U.S. citizens whose families earn less than $75,000 — were touched on, with the former being lauded as a success in allowing students from all backgrounds to enroll at Carnegie Mellon. 

Although this was the extent of information presented, most of it publicly available, Farnam also alluded to potentially increasing financial aid for graduate students in the future.

New Admin – General Position

Jahanian made clear that the “University Mission doesn’t change … regardless of who’s in the White House.” He assured the Senate that the university will stay within the bounds of the law to do the right thing and protect its students.

Title IX and Title VI

Jahanian mentioned that Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act have changed and will be further changed, as they did under the previous Trump and Biden administrations. 

Title IX has returned to 2020 rules from a 2024 change in definitions, although, according to Jahanian, Executive Order 14168 will cause targeted harm towards transgender students. 

Given the precedent set by Trump’s 2019 executive order on combating antisemitism, Jahanian predicts there will be “increased enforcement [against] antisemitic activities under Title VI.” 

Immigration

Regarding how changes to immigration policy will affect students, President Jahanian said that there will likely not be a measurable change in legal immigration or student visas after things settle down. However, there will be a slowdown in visa processing in the meantime. 

Over 50 percent of Carnegie Mellon’s graduate students are international and thus, Jahanian thereorized that we may see issues for graduate students, especially those who are from places like China or Iran, depending on potential geopolitical conflicts. 

Jahanian implored international students to work with the Office of International Education to solve whatever problems they may face.

Sophomore Civil Engineering and Engineering Public Policy student and senator Sanjeev Naiek asked President Jahanian about the Trump Administration memo which allows ICE agents to enter schools and churches, how the university would respond should ICE officers come to campus, and whether University Police would collaborate with ICE in such a situation. Jahanian responded that “we do not disclose immigration status” and that, while most of the university is a public location and that they must follow the law, university police have never been asked to collaborate with ICE. 

President Jahanian expressed that while the enforcement of immigartion law is a problem that needs to be considered in the broader sphere of the country, it would likely not affect our campus. 

DEI

Jahanian began his discussion of DEI by reading his own quote from the inclusive excellence webpage on Carnegie Mellon’s website: “Since our founding, Carnegie Mellon University has been committed to promoting academic excellence and economic mobility through education.” 

He continued, saying that “succeeding on this front requires us to both expand access and remove barriers to opportunity in pursuit of a more inclusive and diverse learning environment. 

These efforts are ongoing and, according to Jahanian, remain critical to our university’s mission to advance learning, research, and creativity and make a positive impact on society more broadly.” 

He expressed that the university goes as broad as possible in outreach, but that they do not “put their thumb on the scale.” 

Jahanian emphasized that on the national level, people try to pigeonhole the university in what they think DEI is, not asking what the university actually believes. He said that “what I believe is on our website.” 

There seems to be some question as to whether the university should continue to refer to its initiates to create a more diverse and inclusive campus environment as DEI; however, the university seems committed to doing what it can to uphold its stated principles.

New Admissions and Question about Gender Ratios in SCS

School of Computer Science third-year student and senator, Doris Wang, asked President Jahanian about this year’s change in the gender ratio in the SCS class of 2024. 

In previous years, the School of Computer Science had retained fairly even gender ratios with the incoming class in 2023 being approximately 51 percent male, 47 percent female, and 3 percent nonbinary. 

On the other hand, in 2024, the incoming class had a gender ratio of approximately 69 percent male, 28 percent female, and 2 percent nonbinary. 

Provost and Chief Academic Officer James Garrett explained this change as a result of the university complying with the Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action in university admissions. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against race-conscious college admissions.

Garrett explained that, since it was a single identity issue, gender is not permitted to be considered in holistic application reviews, as this is legally discrimination. 

All demographic information is now removed from consideration in Carnegie Mellon’s admissions. Provost Garrett and President Jahanian both expressed the need to improve the applicant pool as well as the yield for female students.

Research

Carnegie Mellon receives $205 million per year in non-federal funding and $413 million per year in federal funding. Federal funding is important for funding research at Carnegie Mellon, but it comes with rules and regulations. Jahanian described the freezing of all National Science Foundation grant money to terminate DEI initiatives — which was blocked on February 2nd by a federal judge — as “ill-conceived and kind of dumb,” as it caused unnecessary strain and panic. 

Jahanian predicted that things will hopefully settle down, but there are threats to research. He assured the Senate that the university will not let research, along with the payment and healthcare of researchers, stop in the middle of the semester. 

However, it is not possible to continue supporting research year after year when its support from the federal government has been discontinued. Since much of Carnegie Mellon’s research supports “economic prosperity and national security,” President Jahanian believes that the university’s funding should remain strong. 

Free Speech and the Fence

Finally, President Jahanian addressed the issues of free speech and the Fence. President Jahanian is “committed to civil dialogue and protecting your free speech.” He defended the decision from last semester to require political gatherings of 25 or more to be registered with the university as a way to maintain safety on campus while upholding academic freedom and free speech. 

At other institutions, for example, people not affiliated with the university have occupied campus buildings, barring students from attending classes. 

He also commented that there were other suitable public locations to stage an unregistered protest nearby, such as Schenley Park. 

Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Gina Casalegno commented on the update to the free speech guidance document which occurred as a result of the Commission on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression. On this topic, President Jahanian said, “if we got something wrong with guidelines or procedures, we’ll fix it.” 

With regard to painting over the Fence, Jahanian said, “You probably don’t like the decision we made,” but took the stance that Carnegie Mellon cannot allow profanity on the fence. 

Even though “it was not an easy decision,” it was the position of the university that painting over only a few letters would make the word clear given its context. 

He described Carnegie Mellon as our home and the fence as our front door. He would not want profanity painted on his front door and emphasized how Carnegie Mellon needs to set a good example for civil discourse.