Mayor Bloomberg Announces Carnegie Mellon University Will Open the Fourth New Applied Sciences Program in New York City As Part of Applied Sciences NYC Competition

November 20, 2013

Partnership Will Create the Carnegie Mellon University Integrative Media Program; First Applied Sciences Project to Focus on Intersections of Arts and Technology

Total Projected Economic Impact of Applied Sciences NYC Initiative is Now More than $33.2 Billion Over 30 Years

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Carnegie Mellon Provost Dr. Mark Kamlet and Steiner Studios Chairman Douglas C. Steiner today announced Carnegie Mellon University will open the fourth new applied sciences program in New York City as a part of the Applied Sciences NYC Competition. An agreement between the City, Carnegie Mellon University and Steiner Studios will create Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program, to be located at Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The announcement is the latest achievement in the City’s innovative Applied Sciences NYC initiative, which was created to expand the City’s top-tier applied sciences and engineering campuses to help spur economic growth and increase the city’s global competiveness. The initiative offered to provide City-owned land, seed investments of City capital and the full support of the Administration to universities interested in establishing or expanding applied sciences and engineering programs in New York City. Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program will be the first Applied Sciences program to provide training in creative industries that integrate technology and the arts. The Carnegie Mellon University Integrative Media Program will focus on research and education in film, gaming, social media and big data, interactive computing, the performing and visual arts, and urban planning. In addition to $3.5 million contributed by the City, Carnegie Mellon University also announced an anonymous multi-million dollar gift that will go toward the establishment of the program. The Mayor, Provost Kamlet and Douglas Steiner made the announcement at the future home of the program in Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Mayor was joined by New York City Economic Development President Kyle Kimball, Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver, Brooklyn Navy Yard CEO David Ehrenberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Council Member Steve Levin, State Senator Dan Squadron, and Assembly Member Joe Lentol.

“Three years ago, we announced the Applied Sciences NYC competition, with the goal of turning New York City into the world’s leading city for technological innovation,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “It has been an enormous success, and today’s addition of Carnegie Mellon – the fourth winning project – is another major victory for the future of our economy. With a home at Steiner Studios in the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, Carnegie Mellon’s Integrative Media Program will blend technology and the arts while giving students the opportunity to learn – and work – alongside professionals in the field. When we first launched Applied Sciences NYC, we had hoped that it would attract a world-class institution. The fact that it has attracted so many world-class institutions – and that four winning projects have emerged from it – far exceeds anything we had expected, and it’s a powerful testament to the sense of optimism that people have about New York City’s future.”

The program will further diversify what is offered across the three previously announced Applied Sciences NYC projects, including the Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology campus on Roosevelt Island; the Center for Urban Science and Progress in Downtown Brooklyn, operated by an international consortium led by NYU; and the Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia University. Collectively, these institutions are already strengthening the City’s position as a global hub of science, research, innovation and world-class urban solutions, and will help the City remain globally competitive for years to come.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s Applied Sciences initiative is charting a new course for New York City’s economic future, and we are thrilled to welcome Carnegie Mellon to our City,” Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel said. “Carnegie Mellon’s faculty and students will help double the number of applied science and engineering students and faculty in New York City in the coming years.”

“We are proud to partner with Carnegie Mellon, a premier academic institution for both technology and the arts, to launch the Integrative Media Program at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios, which will help make New York City a leader in the creative industries that integrate technology with arts and design,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation President Kyle Kimball. “This marks the fourth partnership created under Mayor Bloomberg’s groundbreaking Applied Sciences NYC initiative, which has already dramatically increased New York City’s capacity in applied sciences and engineering and which will continue to strengthen the City’s economy for years to come.”

“Carnegie Mellon University’s new Integrative Media Program will further strengthen New York City’s position as a thriving center for film, television, media and digital production,” said Media and Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver. “Throughout this Administration, our office has supported the media and entertainment industry, fostering significant job creation, including 30,000 new jobs since 2004, and stimulating the economy with an industry that generates an annual direct spend of more than $7 billion. This new applied sciences program at Steiner Studios will unite the technology and creative industries in ground-breaking ways for the next generation of innovators.”

“Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement of the Carnegie Mellon Integrative Media Program is a powerful milestone that further strengthens New York City's position as a center of innovation,” said Rachel Haot, Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York. “Building on the success of the Applied Sciences NYC initiative, the intersection of technology and arts education at the core of this program will bolster digitally fueled creativity and cross-sector collaboration, and represents an important investment in the City's future.”

“We believe New York City will be the perfect setting for CMU to provide education in these technology-based modes of expression and production – social media, games, special effects, responsive environments, product design and manufacturing, just to name a few of the areas where we will be working together,” said Carnegie Mellon Provost Mark Kamlet. “Along with Carnegie Mellon’s new Simon Initiative in effective technology-enhanced learning, there will be unprecedented opportunities to crystallize new thinking by faculty and students in this area, and design technology to support human creativity, improved learning, and more diverse social interactions on a global scale.”

“The convergence of media and technology is real, and its epicenter belongs in New York City. No university has Carnegie Mellon's strengths in the arts as well as software, hardware, business and science,” said Chairman of Steiner Studios Douglas C. Steiner. “My father David, a proud CMU alumnus, has always been a huge supporter of the school, so it is with immense family pride that we can be home to such an innovative program, where the students can see out their windows the real-life application of their studies. This program will integrate content creation, dissemination and consumption, and further New York City's role in this burgeoning economic sector.”

In August 2015, CMU’s Integrative Media Program will launch in a 16,000 square-foot facility at 25 Washington Avenue, a historic seven-story building recently renovated using sustainable building practices to house soundstages, photo studios, post production and various support spaces in addition to academic facilities. This $60 million gut renovation expands the Steiner Studios lot from 355,000 to 580,000 square feet, and from 13 to a total of 18 soundstages on an overall campus of 46 acres. In addition to the facilities at 25 Washington Avenue, CMU and Steiner Studios are developing a collaboration plan for a state-of-the-art performance capture stage and post-production coursework at Steiner Studios.

Carnegie Mellon is the only leading university in the country with top-ten ranked departments in computer science, engineering, design and the arts and houses internationally renowned programs in areas that merge technology and arts and design expertise. The CMU-Integrative Media Program will leverage those strengths and launch two new Master’s degrees, in Emerging Media and Game Design, while also offering Master’s degrees in Urban Design, Computational Data Science, Production Technology and Management, and Integrative Innovation in Products and Services. Graduating students will have access to a variety of emerging fields, including, but not limited to, animation, social media, gaming, visual effects and sound design.

The degrees will be offered collaboratively across CMU’s College of Fine Arts, School of Computer Science, College of Engineering and the Tepper School of Business, and include options for students to engage in semester-long, and year-long training at the Brooklyn facility after commencing study at CMU’s Pittsburgh campus. Part-time and full-time options exclusively at the Brooklyn campus are also being considered. Finally, students may pursue these degrees as part of five-year combined Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. As the program continues to develop, other relevant Master’s degrees, including those in learning media and technology-enhanced learning, may also incorporate residencies at the Steiner Studios campus.

Under the direction of the Vice-Provost for Design, Arts and Technology, the program will matriculate 40 students and 10 additional visiting students annually. Six new CMU faculty and staff members will lead instruction at the Brooklyn campus, connected to over 40 faculty presently delivering relating curricula in the Pittsburgh campus. The hallmark visual effects curriculum will train a new corps of specialists and create a new industry center in New York City, which shows great potential for expansion in the number of advanced post-production facilities and experts. The establishment of a strong base of digital media professionals will further enhance New York City’s appeal to the film and television industry, which already films nearly 1,000 feature films, shorts and television series each year, contributing $7.1 billion to the City’s economy annually. It will also support growing activity in such areas as games, social media, mobile app development and the maker movement. The 25 Washington building will also house the Brooklyn College Graduate School of Cinema.

Collectively, the Carnegie Mellon, Cornell-Tech, NYU, and Columbia projects selected for development thus far are expected to generate more than $33.2 billion in nominal economic activity, over 48,000 permanent and construction jobs, and approximately 1,000 spin-off companies by 2046, fulfilling the initiative’s goal of dramatically transforming the City’s economy for the 21st century. When all four Applied Sciences NYC projects are fully underway, the number of full-time, graduate engineering students enrolled in New York City Master’s and Ph.D. programs will more than double, ensuring the strength of New York City’s position in a global economy driven by technological fluency and innovation.

Steiner Studios opened at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2004 as New York’s first Hollywood-style film and television production facility and is the largest such complex on the east coast. The 25 Washington Avenue building is a critical part of Steiner Studios’ $637 million master plan, which at full build-out will generate nearly 5,200 full-time jobs and more than 4,300 construction jobs. The lot is currently home to HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, The Following with Kevin Bacon, and Warner Brothers' The Carrie Diaries. Past feature films shot at Steiner include: Sex & the City, Inside Man, Burn After Reading, Enchanted, American Gangster, and The Adjustment Bureau. Past television work produced on site include: Girls, Damages, Mildred Pierce, Pan Am, Bored to Death and In Treatment.

“The only thing better than one cutting-edge, high-tech, applied sciences higher education institution, is four such higher education institutions in the Big Apple,” said U.S Senator Chuck Schumer. “They will form the vanguard of a thriving, growing, innovating and preeminent New York City well into the future. From dry docks, to movie lots, to dot coms, to PhD’s, this announcement solidifies the epic transformation of the Brooklyn Navy Yard from an industrial age powerhouse to an engine of growth for the new American economy. Kudos to Mayor Bloomberg for the vision and will to get this done.”

“New York City's historic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and Steiner Studios will ensure that New York City's leadership in the high-tech economy remains strong for years to come,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “The partnership, which will create Carnegie Mellon University's Integrative Media Program, will ultimately transform the City's economy by drawing new businesses to the region, sparking innovation, and creating thousands of jobs.”

“From its days as the nation's premier naval shipbuilding facility to home of the largest film production studio outside of Hollywood, the Brooklyn Navy Yard has a long history of being a center for innovation in New York City,” said David Ehrenberg, President and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. “The investment by Carnegie Mellon University -- a world-class arts and technology program -- would not be possible if not for unwavering commitments to the Yard by the City and Doug Steiner. This project will help place Steiner studios and the Navy Yard at the forefront of technological innovation in the media sector while generating high-quality jobs for local residents.”

“This partnership is yet another example of how the Navy Yard is reinventing itself in a way that fosters education, entrepreneurship, technological advancement and new jobs,” said U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez. “This is another great step in preparing our next generations for leading in the arts, media and technology, right here in Brooklyn.”

“I want to thank Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Bob Steel, NYCEDC President Kyle Kimball and President Emeritus Seth Pinsky, Brooklyn Navy Yard President David Ehrenberg and President Emeritus Andrew Kimball, Carnegie Mellon University President Dr. Subra Suresh and Provost Dr. Mark Kamlet for all ‘applying’ themselves and making the fourth Applied Sciences Competition project come to reality in Brooklyn, USA!” stated Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “Of course, special thanks to Doug Steiner for housing Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which will fuse education, research and the pillars of our creative economy. This program is sure to have a lasting positive economic impact in Brooklyn and beyond.”

“There is no better location than Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for this excellent new program,” said Council Member Steve Levin. We are all looking forward to the opening of Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program and welcome this new opportunity for our students to advance in the applied sciences.”

“I join the administration in announcing the creation of Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Media Program, which will be located at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios. The city’s partnership with Carnegie Mellon to expand educational programs in the applied sciences represents a strong push to build academic and career opportunities throughout this city through the Applied Sciences NYC initiative,” stated Council Member Letitia James. “I am deeply proud that this vision will be realized at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, an area already revitalized through an influx of business technology and manufacturing.”

“I have watched with awe the explosion of high tech arts companies in North Brooklyn. Starting an Integrative Media program in the Navy Yard nearby Steiner Studios is so smart,” said Assemblymember Joseph Lentol. “It sparks new excitement for all the ingenious ways we will be entertained, we will learn and we will communicate in the future. Brooklyn's thriving arts/media economy has led to great prosperity in this borough. With the Carnegie Mellon Integrative Science program, it's only going to grow more and better.”

“Today, New York City takes another step forward as a leader in the Applied Sciences, which is so critical to job creation and to our economy,” stated State Senator Marty Golden. “I will continue to advance efforts such as these to make sure that the Big Apple remains the premiere city to attract the best and the brightest.”

Applied Sciences NYC was designed to capitalize on the considerable growth presently occurring within the science, technology and research fields in New York City, and builds on the Bloomberg Administration’s record of creating a better diversified and more competitive economy for the future. In July 2011, NYCEDC issued an RFP seeking a university, institution or consortium to develop and operate a new or expanded campus in the City in exchange for City capital, access to City-owned land and the full support and partnership of the Bloomberg Administration, and subsequently received 7 responses from 17 world-class institutions from around the globe.

Contact:

Marc La Vorgna / Jake Goldman (212) 788-2958

Kate Blumm / Ian Fried (NYCEDC) (212) 312-3523

Barbara Wagner (Steiner Studios) (212) 843-8035

Ken Walters (Carnegie Mellon) (412) 480-4396