A Global View

Accord Extension With Turkey’s Atatürk UNIVERSITY

A delegation from Atatürk University in Turkey visited Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg on June 4 to renew through 2015 an agreement that facilitates exchange opportunities between the two universities for students, faculty, and other personnel to study, conduct research, and collaborate on special projects. From left are Zekeriya Aktürk, coordinator of the Mevlana Exchange Program and professor of family medicine at Atatürk University; Chancellor Nordenberg; Hikmet Koçak, rector (president) and professor of cardiovascular surgery at Atatürk University; and Fatih Akçay, dean of the College of Pharmacy and professor of biochemistry at Atatürk. The agreement was established in 1999 at the behest of the then-president of Turkey, His Excellency Suleyman Demirel; by the late Thomas Detre, former Pitt senior vice chancellor for the health sciences; and Atatürk University officials.

Technical University of Košice

Anton Cizmar, rector (president) of the Technical University of Košice in Eastern Slovakia, visited the University of Pittsburgh on April 29 and met with Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg as well as several other senior Pitt officials. Cizmar also received guided tours of Pitt’s Czechoslovak, Hungarian, and Austrian Nationality Rooms from E. Maxine Bruhns, director of the University’s Nationality Rooms Program. From left, Chancellor Nordenberg; Miroslav Kiralvarga, general manager, Global Materials Management and Procurement Operations, U.S. Steel Corp.; Cizmar; and Gerald Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering.

TIES WITH ISRAEL

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg (left) had a wide-ranging discussion with Yaron Sideman, consul general of Israel for the Mid-Atlantic Region. Among the topics discussed were Pitt’s connections to Israel through academic programs in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, student exchanges and study-abroad opportunities, and research interests shared by Pitt and Israeli universities. Also participating in the June 4 meeting were Patricia E. Beeson, Pitt provost and senior vice chancellor; Lawrence Feick, senior director of international programs and director of the University Center for International Studies at Pitt; and Gregg Roman, director of the Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. After the meeting, Consul General Sideman and Roman toured several Nationality Rooms, including the Israeli Room, in the Cathedral of Learning.