University opens in Kosovo: new school helps to rebuild Kosovo - Update

University Business, Dec, 2003

Kosovo might seem as an unlikely location for a university, considering the region's notoriety for ethnic cleansing, economic depression and political instability. But Rochester Institute of Technology (NY), which previously started two other universities in Eastern Europe, doesn't seem to think so.

In fact, just a few months ago, RIT launched the American University in Kosovo, located in Pristina. The university's first freshman class of 70 is being taught in English by mostly American faculty. "We didn't choose them, they chose us," says Wiley McKinzie, dean of RIT's college of applied science and technology. "The Kosovars want to build their own infrastructures--they're establishing all kinds of social, economic and political structures, including a new university. They're trying to find ways to make their society a more viable one." The university specializes in business, economics, computers and the application of management and technology with economic and manufacturing challenges in mind. Initially, students are earning their two-year associate degrees, but eventually the goat is to offer four-year degrees too. The school accepts anyone who lives in Kosovo, though the freshman class primarily consists of Albanians. "We hope that other ethnicities, such as the Serbians will also come to the school," McKinzie says. "We've seen a tot of mixing of ethnicities in our Croatian university. So there is hope."