John Warner (college president)

Warner became department chair in 1938 and dean of graduate studies in 1945. In 1950, he became the university's fourth president. During his tenure, the graduate business school, named the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, was established in 1949. The first computer on campus—an IBM 650 digital type machine—was housed there in 1956. Also Hunt Library, including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, opened and the Scaife Hall of Engineering was completed. Warner acquired funding to support the development of Tech's Computation Center, the beginnings of Carnegie Mellon's leadership in the field of computer science.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

Throughout his administrative career he remained active in his academic field. He authored more than eighty published works on scientific subjects as well as on secondary and higher education. During World War II, he headed government research on plutonium for the Manhattan Project.^[11][12][13]

Warner died at the age of ninety-one at the Friendship Village retirement home in Upper St. Clair Township, Pennsylvania on April 12, 1989. A memorial service was held in his honor at the Skibo ballroom at Carnegie Mellon on June 2, 1989. Warner Hall, the main administrative building at Carnegie Mellon, was named after John Warner.^{[14][15][16][17]}