Slovak president to visit Pitt and tour Nationality Rooms

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová will visit the University of Pittsburgh on Sunday to meet with Chancellor Joan Gabel and other campus leaders, months after a delegation from that country visited to explore potential academic collaborations.

Both trips come at a time when Pitt and other universities are emerging from a pandemic that hindered educational exchange around the world.

When he visited campus in June, Slovak Ambassador to the U.S. Radovan Javorčík stressed the value of maintaining strong links between the United States and Slovakia, whose immigrants to Pittsburgh helped propel the city’s growth.

Pitt has the only permanent Slovak studies program in the United States.

Čaputová is expected to tour the Czechoslovak Nationality Room in the Cathedral of Learning, one of 31 renowned classrooms meticulously constructed to depict designs from abroad predating Pitt’s founding in 1787. The ambassador also toured the Nationality Rooms in June.

Čaputová on Sunday also plans to give a talk in Alumni Hall on campus at 10:40 a.m.

Gabel will introduce the president and is expected to have a conversation with her moderated by Ariel Armony, vice chancellor for Global Affairs.

The talk in Alumni Hall is open to the public, but the rest of the visit is not.

In a statement released through Pitt spokesman Jared Stonesifer on Thursday, university officials described Sunday’s visit in general terms that did not mention the one in June.

“The goal of the engagement is to leverage Pitt’s unique position as one of the few institutions with a Slovak language program in the U.S.,” the statement read.

Čaputová’s appearance in Pittsburgh is part of a working visit to the U.S. following a state visit to Canada, according to the website of the Slovak presidency. The post said she was accompanied in Canada by a delegation from companies “involved in green transformation, sustainable energy and digital technologies.”

Those who came to Pitt in June also included Michal Fedák, Slovakia’s state secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport.

Prior to that June visit, Renáta Kamenárová, director of Pitt’s Slovak Studies program, told TribLive that a collaboration, should it occur, could manifest in various ways both financial and otherwise.

“I really hope it could help increase enrollment, that we would have more scholarships and be able to send more students to study in Slovakia,” she said.

Ties between this region and Slovakia that date back more than a century have even broader implications as Pittsburgh becomes more interesting to many internationally, Armony said Thursday.

“It is a city that continues to innovate, that continues to leverage its knowledge into economic development for the city and the region, and as we know, the University of Pittsburgh is a major player in that sense,” he said.

“These connections are very, very important because we learn from others, we can collaborate with others, there is always potential investors.”

He said Čaputová also plans to visit locations including the Heinz History Center and Andy Warhol Museum, suggesting her trip is more than superficial.

“It has a lot of symbolic value,” he said.

The Slovak community has a long history of supporting Slovak studies at Pitt, officials have said.

Slovakia became an independent country in 1993 after the split of Czechoslovakia, following the 1989 collapse of Communist Party rule in Soviet bloc nations.

About 5.5 million people live in the Central European country that’s smaller than Pennsylvania. It is bordered by Poland, Czechia (the Czech Republic), Hungary, Austria and, to the east, Ukraine.

Slovakia’s first female president, Čaputová has served in the office since 2019. She announced last year that she is not running for reelection this year.