Nearly 14 years after declaring its independence from Yugoslavia, the Republic of Macedonia continues to suffer growing pains—ethnic tensions, high unemployment, weak infrastructure, and the aftereffects of Greece’s 1990s economic embargo protesting the new state’s use of the name Macedonia (which the Greek government argues is strictly a Hellenic term) and of cultural symbols that Greeks claim for themselves.

But Pitt’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs (GSPIA) is aiding the fledgling, landlocked, Vermont-size nation by helping to educate Macedonia’s next generation of leaders. GSPIA’s Graduate Center for Public Policy and Management (GCPPM) will graduate its first class of 16 professionals on May 28 in Macedonia’s capital city, Skopje.

GSPIA started GCPPM—the first public policy graduate program in the Balkans—in fall 2003 after more than a decade of planning between officials at Pitt, the U.S. Department of State, and national and regional government officials in Macedonia. The program, which has cooperative agreements with Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and South East European University in the neighboring city of Tetovo, awards its graduates either the Master of Public Policy and Management degree or the Certificate in Public Policy and Management.

The first class to graduate from Pitt’s GCPPM program in a group photo taken as the fall 2003 semester began. GSPIA Professor William N. Dunn, director of the GCPPM, is standing directly under the “M” on the background banner. Codirector and GSPIA Associate Dean David Y. Miller is the eighth person from the right.

GCPPM’s first graduating class includes a unit head and a technical assistant from the Ministry of Finance of Macedonia, a World Bank project manager (who is the class valedictorian), the unit head and two staff members from Macedonia’s Unit of Public Administration Reform, teachers, a journalist, and an adviser to the mayor of Skopje.

More important than their professional diversity is the ethnic diversity of the program’s students.

From the start, Pitt, U.S., and Macedonian officials recognized that, in addition to learning public administration skills, GCPPM graduates must embrace ethnic diversity as a condition for keeping the new country intact and peaceful. Macedonia suffered through an armed insurgency by ethnic Albanians in 2001.

Writing in the program’s newsletter, William Dunn, GSPIA professor and director of GCPPM, said it is crucial to integrate ethnic Macedonians (the majority ethnic group, comprising about two-thirds of the population) and ethnic Albanians (the largest minority ethnic group, with roughly one-quarter of the population) into GCPPM, engaging both groups “in a common educational enterprise through which they become professional colleagues and friends.”

It appears that goal has been met. Vesna Atanasova, a citizen participation specialist with the global consulting firm Development Alternatives, Inc., and a member of GCPPM’s first graduating class, wrote:

“For me, the worthiest aspect of these studies is in the phenomenon of life-long friendships that we (the first class) spontaneously established from the very beginning, and we consider it a most precious achievement. These couldn’t have been possible without Pittsburgh’s professors, who unselfishly shared with us the knowledge and applied the concepts of teamwork and teambuilding. Unconsciously, we were exposed to the process of changing our thinking, opening our views, and overcoming all prejudices. Age, professional background, and ethnic origin have become meaningless since we learned what it means to share a common goal and to be driven by the same values. We proved unity in diversity, and we are very proud of this. I anticipate that the end of the studies will serve as a beginning of many joint projects, and I strongly believe that the relations that we have established will last forever.”

GCPPM’s curriculum resembles those in GSPIA and other American public policy and management school programs, featuring courses in public management, economics, policy analysis, statistics, and information technology. But some localized course material is mixed in, as well—for instance, exploring the benefits and pitfalls of Macedonia joining the European Union. The program also emphasizes real-world problem solving, using face-to-face teaching as well as Web-based instruction that GSPIA professors developed in collaboration with Pitt’s Center for Instructional Development and Distance Education and a Macedonian Internet provider. In each GCPPM course, at least 18 hours are spent in face-to-face instruction in classrooms in Skopje; the remaining 27 hours of instruction are provided via live, interactive distance education broadcasts linking Pittsburgh campus instructors to students in Skopje.

“The system has worked so well that it is possible to speak of an international virtual classroom that spans the Atlantic,” wrote Dunn.

Rexhep Prekpuca, head of the public relations department of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia and another member of GCPPM’s first graduating class, appreciated the quality of the distance education program. “We can follow the lessons excellently,” he wrote in the GCPPM newsletter. “It feels as if the lecturer is in class, standing in front of us.”

Enthusiastic appreciation for the program overall was voiced by other graduates, as well.

Vesna Sekulovska, head of the Macedonian government’s Unit of Public Administrative Reform, said studying through GCPPM has already helped her career.

“The skills I learned at the GCPPM enabled me to apply a multifaceted approach in preparing, analyzing, and suggesting solutions to different problems,” she wrote. “Such professional and analytical approach to my work didn’t pass unnoticed; I was asked to become a member of a number of government commissions and working groups, and finally to become head of the Unit for Public Administration reform.”

Sekulovska added: “As one of the strategic priorities of the Macedonian government, a successful reform of public administration requires experienced, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic public servants who will lead the process of transition from the concept of government to governance, from ‘rowing’ to ‘steering.’”