Pitt’s Nationality Rooms are turning 100. Here’s how to celebrate.

The Cathedral of Learning's Nationality Rooms turn 100 this year, and the University of Pittsburgh is celebrating with a full slate of events.

Throughout this spring, the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs (NRIEP) centennial commemoration brings together students, alumni, community members and the public.

Think documentary premieres, gallery talks, student research presentations and even a gala in the Cathedral of Learning's Commons Room.

The NRIEP traces its roots to 1925 when the Cathedral was conceived. Pitt sociologist Ruth Crawford Mitchell was inspired her work with second-generation immigrant students and proposed inviting Pittsburgh's ethnic communities to design their own classrooms inside the Cathedral of Learning.

Within two years, before the building was even finished, five room committees were already formed and eight more were being organized.

Today, NRIEP has grown to 31 rooms and raised nearly $5 million to support more than 1,800 Pitt students studying abroad. The rooms draw nearly 30,000 visitors a year, and the people connected to the program span generations.

That mix of architecture, community history and global learning is what the centennial celebration highlights through the events below:

Read the room

Wednesday, March 18, noon-12:45 p.m.

Lina Insana, associate professor of Italian and chair of the Department of French and Italian, will give a gallery talk on "Uncovering the Italian Room's Transnational Traces." Insana, who grew up in a local immigrant family where English was not the first language at home, received an NRIEP scholarship as a Pitt undergraduate and later returned to the University to teach and lead student trips to Italy.

Co-curated with students in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, the talk digs into University Archives and Special Collections to examine how decisions made in Rome and Florence shaped the Italian Room's decorative style, how Pittsburgh's Italian immigrant community was involved, and how manual labor, philanthropic support and institutional leadership came together to build the room.

Where: Hyland Gallery, Hillman Library, 3960 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15260
Tickets:Free and open to the public

Women who built a room

Thursday, March 19, 11-11:45 a.m.

Joanna Conings, a doctoral candidate in the Department of French and Italian, will lead another gallery talk on "The Women Behind the Walls." It will uncover the hidden labor that made the French Nationality Room a reality, tracing the transatlantic letters, fundraising efforts and quiet negotiations of women whose contributions rarely made it into the official record.

Where: Hyland Gallery, Hillman Library, 3960 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15260
Tickets:Free and open to the public

Students take the floor

Saturday, March 21, noon-4 p.m.

The Student Research Presentations bring Pitt students into the spotlight with original research on the architecture and archival history of several Nationality Rooms. Lovemerry Illin presents "Affirmation and Erasure: Lessons from the Architecture of the Irish Room"; Liv Beckage follows with "The Czechoslovak Nationality Room Collection: Archival Sorting, Digitization and Hidden Gems"; and Angel Cramer closes with "Women of the Italian Nationality Room". A reception in the Braun Room will follow the final talk.

Where: Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15260
Tickets: Free and open to the public.

Explore online, anytime

If you can't make it to a live event, there's plenty to discover on the NRIEP centennial website. Multimedia projects like the The Legacy Project showcase the people, places and traditions behind the classrooms. Archival research ranges from a history of the student tour guide program Quo Vadis to reflections on the global learning experiences the rooms have made possible.

A century on film

100 Years of Sharing Stories of Regional Ethnic Communities Through Spaces that Inspire and Create Cultural Connections, produced by Anthem Video, moves through the program's story in chapters: its origins, its scholarship mission, the multigenerational communities behind the rooms and the creative programming that keeps those connections alive today. Check back on the NRIEP centennial website after the March 19 premiere to watch the film.

Book a tour

The Nationality and Heritage Rooms inside the Cathedral of Learning are open for guided and self-guided tours year-round. Book online or stop by the Visitor Center to inquire. Guided tours run every day except Tuesdays; self-guided tours are available weekends only during the spring semester.

A limited-time Centennial Specialty Tour is also available: Led by NRIEP's Manager of Education Programs - who has 19 years of experience with the program - the tour examines a curated set of rooms around themes of preservation, renovation and local-to-global connections.

Tickets: $10 for adults 19 and over; $6 for youth 18 and under; free for children under 5.

Photography by Aimee Obidzinski