By MARTY LEVINE
When the Cathedral of Learning was still just an idea on paper in 1925, the first five Nationality Rooms that ring its main floor were already being organized. This year, for its centennial celebration, the Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs office will offer several exhibits and events to celebrate — and director Kati Csoman has plans for fresh ways to use the rooms.
“I hope the University community and the broader community can feel a sense of pride about how special the program is and how special these spaces are,” Csoman says.
The first Nationality Rooms director, Ruth Crawford Mitchell, came to Pitt as a lecturer in the early 1920s. Many of her students were the children of immigrants, and through Pitt’s Americanization Institute, Mitchell started and ran courses to teach educators about these students’ languages and cultures.
Thus began the program’s mission of telling the stories of regional ethnic communities past and present. The Nationality Rooms “represented the cultural heritage of primarily ethnic immigrant communities” in Pittsburgh in the 1920s, Csoman says. By 1927, when the Cathedral was still years from completion, there were already 14 room committees at work. Today there are 31 rooms completed, with a Finnish room the latest one in progress. The rooms attract 5,000 visitors on their own annually, with another 15,000 taking part in tours.
Mitchell eventually headed Pitt’s intercultural exchange office too, and her two roles were later combined to form the current program. The Nationality (and Heritage) Rooms committees have not only continued to hold educational and cultural programs in their rooms (which of course are also used daily as classrooms) but also have headed many drives to send students abroad for learning experiences.
From just after World War II to today, they have raised almost $5 million for more than 1,800 Pitt students’ experiences — including Csoman’s own scholarship years ago from the Hungarian room, which changed her life, she recalls.
The Nationality Rooms were “the first place of the University where international exchange was happening and the money was being raised to support this,” she notes.
Csoman highlights several spring events for the centennial commemoration:
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On March 19, 2026, a documentary will premiere to highlight the history of this department — its conception and the work of the room committees against the background of an evolving Pittsburgh. The film will show how, as ethnic organizations and houses of worship were closing through the decades, the rooms became one factor that provided Pittsburgh groups with continuity.
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On March 22, an invitation-only gala for Nationality Room volunteers and others in the University community also will celebrate their legacy.
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Two research projects on Nationality Room history will have exhibits this spring in the Archives and Collections Exhibit Gallery on Hillman Library’s third floor, including gallery talks. Check for details later on the Nationality Rooms website.
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The head of the department’s education programs will be leading two centennial specialty tours, which will focus on preservation and renovation, highlighting both the room committees’ original intentions and each room’s local and global connections. These tours may be booked at the Visitor Center in the Cathedral’s Common Room or via the program’s website.
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The centennial also will be celebrated as part of long-standing events, such as the rooms’ annual free Holiday Open House (noon-4 p.m. Dec. 7, 2025) and, for the committees, at their annual gathering in November to decorate their rooms.
Reinterpreting the spaces
“There is a lot to the legacy that we’d like to retain and we have a responsibility for the stewardship of the spaces,” Csoman says. “The spaces were intended not to change.” However, “we are wanting to reinterpret the spaces” in a way that is “more contemporary. “We are looking at ways to bring them alive” in new ways.
For one, she wants to see more engagement with Pittsburgh Public Schools’ students “so they may be able to find something about their background in these spaces,” and also with Pittsburgh’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, with which she is already working to plan collaborations.
She also is partnering with the Heinz History Center on a heritage kitchen center, since members of the Nationality Room committees have given cooking demonstrations there. “So there are more opportunities for us to go on the road,” she says.
It’s also possible that, if another room is allocated to her department, a digital room may be developed there — an evolving space that could represent other communities.
“I would love for the University community to appreciate how the history of the program is more than just a collection of old spaces,” she says. “This history is really about the interactivity of the University community with the community (at large) and it continues that purpose.
“People like to say this is the only place like this in the world” — indeed, although there are many historical reconstructions of rooms in museums, these are the only such spaces that have been functioning classrooms with a lengthy history of community involvement.
“That’s all pretty unique,” she says. “And they are certainly used.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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