Former Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. “Jerry” Cohon, who led the university for 16 years, was remembered Sunday as a visionary for the university who had a great impact on the region’s economy.
Cohon, 76, who died Saturday in Ligonier, “was widely respected and immensely beloved, and his leadership and scholarship have shaped the trajectories of an untold number of Tartans over the years,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian.
Cohon was the university’s president from 1997 to 2013.
“His brilliant mind, unyielding energy and unimpeachable integrity have made our institution — and our society — better in innumerable ways,” Jahanian said.
Jahanian described Cohon as a “mensch,” a Yiddish word for a person of integrity and honor.
“Jerry had an enormous impact both as a builder of CMU and as a contributor to the transformation of the region’s economy. He was a wonderful person, tremendous friend and a great partner,” said former University of Pittsburgh President Mark Nordenberg, who led Pitt from 1995 to 2014.
Nordenberg said he and Cohon co-chaired the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse, Pittsburgh Robotics Foundry and Pittsburgh Life Sciences, all of which were economic development partnerships grounded in research. It allowed both universities to land highly competitive national funding that they would not have received working alone, Nordenberg said.
He and Cohon determined each institution should make cooperation a high priority and thereby strengthen both universities and the region, Nordenberg said.
“Very few people had a more direct impact on the transformation of Pittsburgh’s economy than Dr. Jared Cohon,” said former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.
Cohon helped to shape promise and hope for the region, said Peduto, president of Sabean Innovation Inc. and the distinguished executive in residence at CMU’s Heinz College.
State Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, posted on social media platform X that Cohon was “a uniquely strong believer in the future of Pittsburgh. His legacy is one of bold leadership and progress.”
Dean at Yale
Cohon came to Carnegie Mellon in July 1997 from Yale University, where he had been dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His 16 years in office at CMU constitute the second-longest tenure of any president in the university’s 124-year history. Only the late Richard Cyert’s 18-year term, from 1972 to 1990, was longer.
It was a huge jump in responsibility — from a single school of a few hundred people within an Ivy League university to a sprawling university of 10,000 people whose expertise stretched from computer science and engineering to fine arts, theater and public policy.
Cohon immersed himself in the history, traditions and aspirations of Carnegie Mellon and was a visible presence on campus, often seen passing through the campus on foot headed to and from meetings, or through the University Center for various student and employee events. The building was later named the Jared L. Cohon University Center.
Under Cohon’s leadership, student applications doubled. A university that had fewer than 8,000 students enrolled 11,000 by the time he announced his plans to return to teaching.
Beyond Pittsburgh, CMU’s growing global presence included campuses in Silicon Valley, Calif., Qatar and other overseas programs and locations in Europe, Latin America and Australia.
During his time, the university created a campus near Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in 2011. CMU Africa expanded from a graduate program attracting local applicants to becoming the only American research university with a full-time faculty and operations in Africa, according to a 2019 story in Quartz, an online magazine.
Sponsored research nearly doubled during his tenure. The school’s endowment — while still smaller than such peers as Northwestern and Stanford universities — grew toward $1 billion.
Cohon was seen as a brilliant academic. He sometimes spoke in a monotone but also displayed a gentle wit. He played the drums, something that endeared him on campus.
Near the school’s centennial in 2000, Cohon wondered aloud to a reporter why a university whose influence already stretched from Broadway and Hollywood backlots to the moon shouldn’t one day deliver a U.S. president.
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In 2010, Carnegie Mellon had just offered Cohon a fourth five-year contract when he announced he would stay until June 30, 2013 — by which time he would be 65.
Public work
After leaving the presidency, Cohon was a professor in civil and environmental engineering and engineering and public policy at CMU’s Heinz College.
He worked on large-scale water problems in Argentina, China, India and the United States and on energy facility issues, especially nuclear waste. Cohon also co-chaired the Commission to Review and Evaluate the National Energy Laboratories in 2014 and 2015.
Over the past five years, Nordenberg said, he and Cohon worked on a partnership in response to the murder of 11 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill in October 2018. They laid the foundation for the Collaboratory Against Hate, a joint research and action center dedicated to combating extremist hate groups by developing effective interventions to combat hatred.
“Our partnership has been very active in the last five years,” Nordenberg said.
Cohon and his wife, Maureen “Bunny” Cohon, had a house in Ligonier Township, Westmoreland County, that they purchased in 2005.
Cohon was a Cleveland native, the second of two children. The family’s Jewish roots stretched overseas to Lithuania in Eastern Europe.
He received an undergraduate degree in civil engineering in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his master’s degree and a doctoral degree in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Before arriving at Yale, Cohon served 19 years at Johns Hopkins University. He worked his way up from assistant professor in the geography and environmental engineering department to full professor and eventually was named research vice provost.
In addition to his wife, Cohon is survived by a daughter, Hallie Donner, and two grandchildren.
A celebration honoring Cohon’s life will be held on the Oakland campus at a later date, CMU said.