OT: Pitt policy I have serious issue with (re: new Nationality Rooms)

[CrazyPaco]

According to this great article on Nationality Rooms director Maxine Bruhns, Pitt has capped the number of Nationality Rooms at 33 (which include #30, the Korean room, scheduled to dedicated in November, as well Phillipine to begin in 2016, Finnish soon after, and Iranian).

Caping the program at 33 is effectively blocking a new room committee from moving forward with their proposal for #34, a Moroccan Room, as mentioned in the linked article.

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). These policies, and their often uncushioned seating, make them somewhat unpopular with students and professors. Previously, technology has been an issue (slides, projectors, video) but new rooms are both required to be ADA compliant and to be fitted for the latest technologies. In fact, some old rooms, like the French room, have been retrofitted with credenzas to provide theme-appropriate and inconspicous pop-up video screens. So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

Now why is this so obviously stupid? You have groups of people in the region willing to take on an extremely difficult fund raising project, upwards of $750K or more, for the purpose of gifting to the university a museum quality installation; something that makes Pitt absolutely unique in all the world and serves as a tourist attraction for the city. These efforts take up to a decade to pull off and engage and synchronize a local community group with a university that they often have no prior ties to...a level of engagement that is extremely difficult for Pitt to pull off even with alumni groups. These committees typically continue to remain involved with the university long after the room is dedicated, engaging in both cultural education and performance programs at the university as well as continuing to fundraise for scholarships for Pitt students to study abroad in the country that their committee represents. This not only represents the potential for loss of world class installations (for a major university that is conspicuously absent an equivalent class stand-alone museum of its own) that builds on the phenomenal tradition and purpose of the existing room collection, but also a loss of study abroad opportunities for Pitt students. What is startling is a apparent willingness to surrender the exposure and engagement of new cultures for university community, something that cuts at the very heart of the liberal arts mission of the university, for the sake of... well, I don't really know.

Further, what does this say to future immigrant communities? Does it suggest they're not welcome in building the future Pittsburgh or Pitt? For a hypothetical example, should the Mexican community in Western Pennsylvania not have the opportunity to build a Mexican Nationality Room sometime in the future? Vietnamese, Thai, Colombian, Egyptian, Danish? This isn't an argument about immigration policies; this is about American citizens who have pride in their heritage and wish to share that heritage with the city and University of Pittsburgh, at their own expense...as a gift...to Pitt...a gift.

You have about 75 class rooms and lecture halls on floors G through 3 of the Cathedral. If installing rooms up to the existing cap, about half would be Nationality Rooms or similar (counting the Frick Auditorium and Mulert Room). With 33 rooms built, you have something like 7 more untouched standard class rooms on floor 3, and 24 standard rooms and lecture halls on floor 2. Why wouldn't you want to these to match the style and atmosphere of the rest of the Cathedral of Learning instead of sticking out like the sore thumbs that they are? Heck, 100 years in the future, if they ran out of room in the Cathedral for new rooms, why wouldn't they continue to allow the Nationality Room project to grow by having these rooms be added to additional buildings? These are gifts of great worth beyond the dollar signs. If students tushies are too sensitive for wooden chairs, wouldn't it make more sense to provide loaner stadium seat cushions rather than to effectively shut down the future growth of the entire Nationality Room and Cultural Exchange program? Why on earth would Pitt think it is a good idea to discourage future room committees at all? It should be encouraging gifts and engagement with the university on this type of level! It is almost unthinkable.

The cap was put in place by the provost: Patricia Beeson: beeson@pitt.edu

 

[OriginalEther]

Thanks for the info

Oddly, my father in law would give his right to teach in one of those rooms, especially the English room

 

[Saboteur]

According to this great article on Nationality Rooms director Maxine Bruhns, Pitt has capped the number of Nationality Rooms at 33 (which include #30, the Korean room, scheduled to dedicated in November, as well Phillipine to begin in 2016, Finnish soon after, and Iranian).

Caping the program at 33 is effectively blocking a new room committee from moving forward with their proposal for #34, a Moroccan Room, as mentioned in the linked article.

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). These policies, and their often uncushioned seating, make them somewhat unpopular with students and professors. Previously, technology has been an issue (slides, projectors, video) but new rooms are both required to be ADA compliant and to be fitted for the latest technologies. In fact, some old rooms, like the French room, have been retrofitted with credenzas to provide theme-appropriate and inconspicous pop-up video screens. So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

Now why is this so obviously stupid? You have groups of people in the region willing to take on an extremely difficult fund raising project, upwards of $750K or more, for the purpose of gifting to the university a museum quality installation; something that makes Pitt absolutely unique in all the world and serves as a tourist attraction for the city. These efforts take up to a decade to pull off and engage and synchronize a local community group with a university that they often have no prior ties to...a level of engagement that is extremely difficult for Pitt to pull off even with alumni groups. These committees typically continue to remain involved with the university long after the room is dedicated, engaging in both cultural education and performance programs at the university as well as continuing to fundraise for scholarships for Pitt students to study abroad in the country that their committee represents. This not only represents the potential for loss of world class installations (for a major university that is conspicuously absent an equivalent class stand-alone museum of its own) that builds on the phenomenal tradition and purpose of the existing room collection, but also a loss of study abroad opportunities for Pitt students. What is startling is a apparent willingness to surrender the exposure and engagement of new cultures for university community, something that cuts at the very heart of the liberal arts mission of the university, for the sake of... well, I don't really know.

Further, what does this say to future immigrant communities? Does it suggest they're not welcome in building the future Pittsburgh or Pitt? For a hypothetical example, should the Mexican community in Western Pennsylvania not have the opportunity to build a Mexican Nationality Room sometime in the future? Vietnamese, Thai, Colombian, Egyptian, Danish? This isn't an argument about immigration policies; this is about American citizens who have pride in their heritage and wish to share that heritage with the city and University of Pittsburgh, at their own expense...as a gift...to Pitt...a gift.

You have about 75 class rooms and lecture halls on floors G through 3 of the Cathedral. If installing rooms up to the existing cap, about half would be Nationality Rooms or similar (counting the Frick Auditorium and Mulert Room). With 33 rooms built, you have something like 7 more untouched standard class rooms on floor 3, and 24 standard rooms and lecture halls on floor 2. Why wouldn't you want to these to match the style and atmosphere of the rest of the Cathedral of Learning instead of sticking out like the sore thumbs that they are? Heck, 100 years in the future, if they ran out of room in the Cathedral for new rooms, why wouldn't they continue to allow the Nationality Room project to grow by having these rooms be added to additional buildings? These are gifts of great worth beyond the dollar signs. If students tushies are too sensitive for wooden chairs, wouldn't it make more sense to provide loaner stadium seat cushions rather than to effectively shut down the future growth of the entire Nationality Room and Cultural Exchange program? Why on earth would Pitt think it is a good idea to discourage future room committees at all? It should be encouraging gifts and engagement with the university on this type of level! It is almost unthinkable.

The cap was put in place by the provost: Patricia Beeson: beeson@pitt.edu

Doesn't sound like it as permanent as the 10 Commandments.....maybe the policy will change in the future. maybe Pitt is putting a policy in place because there are 80 other nationalities out there and to select one over the other 79 would royally piss off all 79...this way, you can say "gee, we would like to, but we don't have the room. But if you have millions you want to throw our way, we can make an exception"
Just a hunch on my part.

 

[GENAC]

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

I agree with your entire post and have no idea why Pitt would refuse more of something that makes our university one of a kind.

However, I had several classes in nationality rooms and don't remember the no food and drink rule ever being enforced. Walk into any nationality room on a normal class day, and you'll see a trash can full of food and drink containers or students eating and drinking.

And, for the rooms that have movable furniture, it gets moved.

 

[Panther Parrothead]

Doesn't sound like it as permanent as the 10 Commandments.....maybe the policy will change in the future. maybe Pitt is putting a policy in place because there are 80 other nationalities out there and to select one over the other 79 would royally piss off all 79...this way, you can say "gee, we would like to, but we don't have the room. But if you have millions you want to throw our way, we can make an exception"
Just a hunch on my part.

I tend to agree. If enough people put-up a fuss -- or perhaps more accurately - if the right people put-up a fuss, the policy will change.

 

[HailtoPitt]

Pitt administration shooting themselves in the foot.... again.

I know that some people HATE teaching in these rooms, but I say tough.

 

[JoseLind13]

I can see the reasoning, but agree that choking the growth of such an iconic feature of our university is disappointing. I am also disappointed that plans for the Latin American & Caribbean room were scrapped. I understand the themes are most driven by fundraising and donors' preference, but this is such a massive cultural omission when there is such specific focus in other regions of the world.

 

[HailtoPitt]

I can see the reasoning, but agree that choking the growth of such an iconic feature of our university is disappointing. I am also disappointed that plans for the Latin American & Caribbean room were scrapped. I understand the themes are most driven by fundraising and donors' preference, but this is such a massive cultural omission when there is such specific focus in other regions of the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean aren't nationalities.

 

[JoseLind13]

Latin America and the Caribbean aren't nationalities.

No kidding? Neither are "African heritage" and "Early American" but both are proud pieces of the collection. The stated intent of the rooms is to represent the nationalities, heritages, and cultures that shaped Pittsburgh's history. Only proposing one room to cover all of those nations could be argued as a slight, but still far better than a complete omission.

 

[HailtoPitt]

No kidding? Neither are "African heritage" and "Early American" but both are proud pieces of the collection. The stated intent of the rooms is to represent the nationalities, heritages, and cultures that shaped Pittsburgh's history. Only proposing one room to cover all of those nations could be argued as a slight, but still far better than a complete omission.

I would limit it to countries only from here on out. Having an "African Heritage" room does a disservice to Africa. There are lots of countries in Africa and they certainly don't have all the same heritage and culture. There are probably 20 countries that would be considered part of Latin American, and lumping them all together in one room would be terrible, in my opinion.

I would just keep expanding and allow any country to have a room where there is funding.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Too many significant countries unrepresented to stop now. My wife's family is from Spain and was shocked to learn there is no Nationality room for Spain.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

The most enjoyable class I had as an undergrad in the late 1960's was Intro to Slavic Languages and Literatures taught in, I think, the Polish room by a visiting professor from Columbia University (WWII Polish Army Vet) who was an awesome teacher. We read the lit in English translation and the cultural background behind the lit was the subject of his lectures.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

According to this great article on Nationality Rooms director Maxine Bruhns, Pitt has capped the number of Nationality Rooms at 33 (which include #30, the Korean room, scheduled to dedicated in November, as well Phillipine to begin in 2016, Finnish soon after, and Iranian).

Caping the program at 33 is effectively blocking a new room committee from moving forward with their proposal for #34, a Moroccan Room, as mentioned in the linked article.

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). These policies, and their often uncushioned seating, make them somewhat unpopular with students and professors. Previously, technology has been an issue (slides, projectors, video) but new rooms are both required to be ADA compliant and to be fitted for the latest technologies. In fact, some old rooms, like the French room, have been retrofitted with credenzas to provide theme-appropriate and inconspicous pop-up video screens. So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

Now why is this so obviously stupid? You have groups of people in the region willing to take on an extremely difficult fund raising project, upwards of $750K or more, for the purpose of gifting to the university a museum quality installation; something that makes Pitt absolutely unique in all the world and serves as a tourist attraction for the city. These efforts take up to a decade to pull off and engage and synchronize a local community group with a university that they often have no prior ties to...a level of engagement that is extremely difficult for Pitt to pull off even with alumni groups. These committees typically continue to remain involved with the university long after the room is dedicated, engaging in both cultural education and performance programs at the university as well as continuing to fundraise for scholarships for Pitt students to study abroad in the country that their committee represents. This not only represents the potential for loss of world class installations (for a major university that is conspicuously absent an equivalent class stand-alone museum of its own) that builds on the phenomenal tradition and purpose of the existing room collection, but also a loss of study abroad opportunities for Pitt students. What is startling is a apparent willingness to surrender the exposure and engagement of new cultures for university community, something that cuts at the very heart of the liberal arts mission of the university, for the sake of... well, I don't really know.

Further, what does this say to future immigrant communities? Does it suggest they're not welcome in building the future Pittsburgh or Pitt? For a hypothetical example, should the Mexican community in Western Pennsylvania not have the opportunity to build a Mexican Nationality Room sometime in the future? Vietnamese, Thai, Colombian, Egyptian, Danish? This isn't an argument about immigration policies; this is about American citizens who have pride in their heritage and wish to share that heritage with the city and University of Pittsburgh, at their own expense...as a gift...to Pitt...a gift.

You have about 75 class rooms and lecture halls on floors G through 3 of the Cathedral. If installing rooms up to the existing cap, about half would be Nationality Rooms or similar (counting the Frick Auditorium and Mulert Room). With 33 rooms built, you have something like 7 more untouched standard class rooms on floor 3, and 24 standard rooms and lecture halls on floor 2. Why wouldn't you want to these to match the style and atmosphere of the rest of the Cathedral of Learning instead of sticking out like the sore thumbs that they are? Heck, 100 years in the future, if they ran out of room in the Cathedral for new rooms, why wouldn't they continue to allow the Nationality Room project to grow by having these rooms be added to additional buildings? These are gifts of great worth beyond the dollar signs. If students tushies are too sensitive for wooden chairs, wouldn't it make more sense to provide loaner stadium seat cushions rather than to effectively shut down the future growth of the entire Nationality Room and Cultural Exchange program? Why on earth would Pitt think it is a good idea to discourage future room committees at all? It should be encouraging gifts and engagement with the university on this type of level! It is almost unthinkable.

The cap was put in place by the provost: Patricia Beeson: beeson@pitt.edu

Football. Please focus on what is really important and what people care about it.

 

[dave97]

According to this great article on Nationality Rooms director Maxine Bruhns, Pitt has capped the number of Nationality Rooms at 33 (which include #30, the Korean room, scheduled to dedicated in November, as well Phillipine to begin in 2016, Finnish soon after, and Iranian).

Caping the program at 33 is effectively blocking a new room committee from moving forward with their proposal for #34, a Moroccan Room, as mentioned in the linked article.

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). These policies, and their often uncushioned seating, make them somewhat unpopular with students and professors. Previously, technology has been an issue (slides, projectors, video) but new rooms are both required to be ADA compliant and to be fitted for the latest technologies. In fact, some old rooms, like the French room, have been retrofitted with credenzas to provide theme-appropriate and inconspicous pop-up video screens. So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

Now why is this so obviously stupid? You have groups of people in the region willing to take on an extremely difficult fund raising project, upwards of $750K or more, for the purpose of gifting to the university a museum quality installation; something that makes Pitt absolutely unique in all the world and serves as a tourist attraction for the city. These efforts take up to a decade to pull off and engage and synchronize a local community group with a university that they often have no prior ties to...a level of engagement that is extremely difficult for Pitt to pull off even with alumni groups. These committees typically continue to remain involved with the university long after the room is dedicated, engaging in both cultural education and performance programs at the university as well as continuing to fundraise for scholarships for Pitt students to study abroad in the country that their committee represents. This not only represents the potential for loss of world class installations (for a major university that is conspicuously absent an equivalent class stand-alone museum of its own) that builds on the phenomenal tradition and purpose of the existing room collection, but also a loss of study abroad opportunities for Pitt students. What is startling is a apparent willingness to surrender the exposure and engagement of new cultures for university community, something that cuts at the very heart of the liberal arts mission of the university, for the sake of... well, I don't really know.

Further, what does this say to future immigrant communities? Does it suggest they're not welcome in building the future Pittsburgh or Pitt? For a hypothetical example, should the Mexican community in Western Pennsylvania not have the opportunity to build a Mexican Nationality Room sometime in the future? Vietnamese, Thai, Colombian, Egyptian, Danish? This isn't an argument about immigration policies; this is about American citizens who have pride in their heritage and wish to share that heritage with the city and University of Pittsburgh, at their own expense...as a gift...to Pitt...a gift.

You have about 75 class rooms and lecture halls on floors G through 3 of the Cathedral. If installing rooms up to the existing cap, about half would be Nationality Rooms or similar (counting the Frick Auditorium and Mulert Room). With 33 rooms built, you have something like 7 more untouched standard class rooms on floor 3, and 24 standard rooms and lecture halls on floor 2. Why wouldn't you want to these to match the style and atmosphere of the rest of the Cathedral of Learning instead of sticking out like the sore thumbs that they are? Heck, 100 years in the future, if they ran out of room in the Cathedral for new rooms, why wouldn't they continue to allow the Nationality Room project to grow by having these rooms be added to additional buildings? These are gifts of great worth beyond the dollar signs. If students tushies are too sensitive for wooden chairs, wouldn't it make more sense to provide loaner stadium seat cushions rather than to effectively shut down the future growth of the entire Nationality Room and Cultural Exchange program? Why on earth would Pitt think it is a good idea to discourage future room committees at all? It should be encouraging gifts and engagement with the university on this type of level! It is almost unthinkable.

The cap was put in place by the provost: Patricia Beeson: beeson@pitt.edu

I think it is obvious they are capping it in honor of Tony Dorsett. How can put not be supportive of that?

Hail to Pitt!

Dave

 

[CrazyPaco]

Doesn't sound like it as permanent as the 10 Commandments.....maybe the policy will change in the future. maybe Pitt is putting a policy in place because there are 80 other nationalities out there and to select one over the other 79 would royally piss off all 79...this way, you can say "gee, we would like to, but we don't have the room. But if you have millions you want to throw our way, we can make an exception"
Just a hunch on my part.

No, it doesn't seem permanent as even Maxine Bruhns is trying to get it changed for Morocco, but there is zero good reason to even think about capping it. If you run out of room, you move to a new floor. If you run out of floors, you move to a new building. Pitt should be encouraging any group that thinks it can get itself together for such a project. It is no small undertaking.

 

[CrazyPaco]

I tend to agree. If enough people put-up a fuss -- or perhaps more accurately - if the right people put-up a fuss, the policy will change.

This is why I included the email address for Provost Beeson.

Please consider dropping her a short email. beeson@pitt.edu

 

[CrazyPaco]

I can see the reasoning, but agree that choking the growth of such an iconic feature of our university is disappointing. I am also disappointed that plans for the Latin American & Caribbean room were scrapped. I understand the themes are most driven by fundraising and donors' preference, but this is such a massive cultural omission when there is such specific focus in other regions of the world.

I actually knew some people involved with the Latin American room. Once Cathy Bazán-Arias, who was the driving force and room committee chair, was no longer involved it petered out. They couldn't fundraise for it. It isn't the only nationality room to die recently. The Danish room also recently petered out, as has the Thai room. But every single room (except Early American) has germinated from the efforts of community groups. In fact, they've turned down money from governments and individuals. Pitt wants the program to represent the local communities.

If its any consolation, there is a Latin American Reading Room in Hillman Library.

These are major undertakings and require an average of a decade of serious effort. I think more good intentions fail than make it.

 

[CrazyPaco]

Too many significant countries unrepresented to stop now. My wife's family is from Spain and was shocked to learn there is no Nationality room for Spain.

No local, organized Spanish community I guess. Your wife could start one. ;-)

 

[CrazyPaco]

No kidding? Neither are "African heritage" and "Early American" but both are proud pieces of the collection. The stated intent of the rooms is to represent the nationalities, heritages, and cultures that shaped Pittsburgh's history. Only proposing one room to cover all of those nations could be argued as a slight, but still far better than a complete omission.

The Early American Room actually originated from a different room program. Originally, there were to be three room programs: 1st floor were to be the nationality rooms, 2nd floor was be dedicated to different Pennsylvania groups and/or different academic disciplines, and the 3rd floor was to be dedicated to Pittsburgh with different eras in Western PA history represented.

Only one room was every completed in the later two plans, and that was what is now the Early American Room donated by George Hubbard Clapp (of Clapp Hall and Alcoa fame).

The Nationality Room program took off, the rest didn't, and the Early American was subsumed into the Nationality Room program.

In the 1970s, the Nationality Room program loosened the definition/criteria of what could be represented in a room so that the African Heritage Room could go forward (as well as those of the then Soviet Union). This doesn't preclude other African countries from having their own room, as the push for the Moroccan room demonstrates, but the African Heritage Room was really meant to represent the heritage of Pittsburgh's African-Americans community in general...hence the entire continent.

BTW, I once read an article where Maxine was saying why the program couldn't expand to the 2nd floor: no elevator service and thus not ADA compliant. Well, I'm pretty sure that can't be true or they wouldn't be able to hold any classes on 2 at all. And even if it was, why the heck wouldn't you install a lift of some sort, perhaps in a stairwell. Again, easily solvable problems (even if they went the route of having to build omething like the did on the side of Heinz Chapel) vs killing the growth of the nationality room program. Doesn't make sense, at all. ~24 rooms on two. Mulert Memorial room is already there, too.

 

[Palm Beach Panther]

Please email Provost Beeson as I just did and express your displeasure with this decision.

 

[Ray-Ray]

According to this great article on Nationality Rooms director Maxine Bruhns, Pitt has capped the number of Nationality Rooms at 33 (which include #30, the Korean room, scheduled to dedicated in November, as well Phillipine to begin in 2016, Finnish soon after, and Iranian).

Caping the program at 33 is effectively blocking a new room committee from moving forward with their proposal for #34, a Moroccan Room, as mentioned in the linked article.

Before I get into the obvious reasons that this policy is, in my opinion, flat out stupid, let me take a stab at why it is in place. Likely, it is because there is a relative crunch on class room space due to the inability of Admissions to not overshoot targeted freshman class numbers coupled with the unpopular requirements of the Nationality Rooms to have a no food and drink policies (along with no rearrangement of furniture). These policies, and their often uncushioned seating, make them somewhat unpopular with students and professors. Previously, technology has been an issue (slides, projectors, video) but new rooms are both required to be ADA compliant and to be fitted for the latest technologies. In fact, some old rooms, like the French room, have been retrofitted with credenzas to provide theme-appropriate and inconspicous pop-up video screens. So, from what I can surmise, we are left with students not being able to slurp on frappuccinos for 50 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week because they are have the unfortunate privilege of learning in most unique educational spaces in the world. The horror.

Now why is this so obviously stupid? You have groups of people in the region willing to take on an extremely difficult fund raising project, upwards of $750K or more, for the purpose of gifting to the university a museum quality installation; something that makes Pitt absolutely unique in all the world and serves as a tourist attraction for the city. These efforts take up to a decade to pull off and engage and synchronize a local community group with a university that they often have no prior ties to...a level of engagement that is extremely difficult for Pitt to pull off even with alumni groups. These committees typically continue to remain involved with the university long after the room is dedicated, engaging in both cultural education and performance programs at the university as well as continuing to fundraise for scholarships for Pitt students to study abroad in the country that their committee represents. This not only represents the potential for loss of world class installations (for a major university that is conspicuously absent an equivalent class stand-alone museum of its own) that builds on the phenomenal tradition and purpose of the existing room collection, but also a loss of study abroad opportunities for Pitt students. What is startling is a apparent willingness to surrender the exposure and engagement of new cultures for university community, something that cuts at the very heart of the liberal arts mission of the university, for the sake of... well, I don't really know.

Further, what does this say to future immigrant communities? Does it suggest they're not welcome in building the future Pittsburgh or Pitt? For a hypothetical example, should the Mexican community in Western Pennsylvania not have the opportunity to build a Mexican Nationality Room sometime in the future? Vietnamese, Thai, Colombian, Egyptian, Danish? This isn't an argument about immigration policies; this is about American citizens who have pride in their heritage and wish to share that heritage with the city and University of Pittsburgh, at their own expense...as a gift...to Pitt...a gift.

You have about 75 class rooms and lecture halls on floors G through 3 of the Cathedral. If installing rooms up to the existing cap, about half would be Nationality Rooms or similar (counting the Frick Auditorium and Mulert Room). With 33 rooms built, you have something like 7 more untouched standard class rooms on floor 3, and 24 standard rooms and lecture halls on floor 2. Why wouldn't you want to these to match the style and atmosphere of the rest of the Cathedral of Learning instead of sticking out like the sore thumbs that they are? Heck, 100 years in the future, if they ran out of room in the Cathedral for new rooms, why wouldn't they continue to allow the Nationality Room project to grow by having these rooms be added to additional buildings? These are gifts of great worth beyond the dollar signs. If students tushies are too sensitive for wooden chairs, wouldn't it make more sense to provide loaner stadium seat cushions rather than to effectively shut down the future growth of the entire Nationality Room and Cultural Exchange program? Why on earth would Pitt think it is a good idea to discourage future room committees at all? It should be encouraging gifts and engagement with the university on this type of level! It is almost unthinkable.

The cap was put in place by the provost: Patricia Beeson: beeson@pitt.edu

I wonder if the hard seats at Heinz Field is the reason students leave the football games early.

 

[rojo36]

I agree with your entire post and have no idea why Pitt would refuse more of something that makes our university one of a kind.

However, I had several classes in nationality rooms and don't remember the no food and drink rule ever being enforced. Walk into any nationality room on a normal class day, and you'll see a trash can full of food and drink containers or students eating and drinking.

And, for the rooms that have movable furniture, it gets moved.

And from stories I have heard, furniture in many of the rooms has been damaged over the years. So there should be some policies in place. Eating in the Nationality Rooms is not necessary either.

 

[CrazyPaco]

And from stories I have heard, furniture in many of the rooms has been damaged over the years. So there should be some policies in place. Eating in the Nationality Rooms is not necessary either.

To be fair, I believe the furniture is remarkably undamaged considering the nature of typical college classrooms and considering some of this furniture is almost 80 years old. But these are working classrooms, and damage is going to happen, unless Pitt wants to turn it into a museum with roped and glassed off sections, which would be a huge mistake, but how these spaces would be presented nearly anywhere else. (actually, think about that, how many schools do student get to utilize hand crafted antique furniture)

Pitt is responsible for maintaining and repairing rooms in perpetuity, and to that end, should be fundraising for that cause if it is a financial burden (which I don't think it is). Regular maintenance and restoration is conducted and part of the nationality room program budget.

I'll tell you the space in most need of repair: the Frick Auditorium.