On Oct. 10, RIT Kosovo opened a new satellite campus in partnership with the Harry Fultz Foundation in Tirana, the capital of Albania. This new addition to RIT’s international presence joins three other campuses in the Balkan region: two in Croatia (Dubrovnik and Zagreb) and one in Kosovo (Pristina). RIT has been firmly established in these cities for nearly two decades, offering a variety of degrees and international study programs. The history of these campuses, in addition to RIT’s desire for a broader global presence, has driven continued investment in this region, a commitment that continues today. James Myers, the Associate Provost for International Education and Global Programs, emphasized the goals for domestic and international students on global campuses.
“It’s about international students having access to our approaches and our degrees. It’s also about the sort of research and innovation opportunities that exist in each of those places,” Myers said. “Kosovo is exciting because it’s really been an experiment in building a new country. Croatia’s, this hyper-service economy, you know, tours in a common environment, and now part of the European Union.”
The Balkan region has been characterized by political instability since its unification into Yugoslavia, following World War II. After the collapse of its socialist regime in the 1980s, cultural and ethnic tensions boiled over, resulting in Yugoslavia’s breakup in the early 1990s. The eventual independence of these nation-states – the last being Kosovo in 2008 – created a heavy burden of rebuilding, which drew international influence.
RIT School of Performing Arts Director Dr. Erica Haskell is an ethnomusicologist, researching the connection between music and culture, and spent many years in the 2000s studying in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Croatia. Haskell recalled the United States’ efforts at the time to foster cultural diplomacy in the region.
“The United States never had to have an embassy in Sarajevo, because Bosnia-Herzegovina wasn’t a country. But once it became a country, embassies were founded by many countries,” Haskell stated.
This development led to cultural diplomacy, as Haskell explained, the “idea that you’re making friends or connecting internationally through culture by, let’s say, sending a band somewhere, or promoting your country beyond your borders.”
Following the Yugoslav wars, Dr. Haskell noted that English, while common in the region before, became more prominent, with domestically popular bands often adopting the language and using it in their lyrics.
Today, RIT’s partnerships in Croatia, Kosovo and now Albania have created thriving academic settings. Reflecting on his recent trip to Kosovo, Student Government President Rafael Gilboa spoke favorably about the campus’s culture and RIT’s prestigious reputation in the region.
“[RIT is] the most expensive, most elite university in the entire country of Kosovo,” Gilboa stated. “It’s a country where most people do go to college, but most of them go to public free universities (…) Students are incredibly smart, and they’re doing a lot of cool things and they’re going to run businesses within a couple of years.”
As the lone English private non-profit university in Kosovo, RIT’s global campus boasts some of the most prestigious programs in computing and information technologies and data analytics. Similarly, RIT’s Croatian campus enjoys a similar status as one of the only private universities in the country. With the extension of RIT Kosovo in Tirana, which has the only American-accredited degree programs in the country, RIT seeks to expand this repertoire of excellence to Albania.