Alberta Sbragia Message Wall

Alberta,
You were an inspiration to me as a young faculty member who felt a bit like a fish out of water when I started out at Pitt. Participating in the events and projects at the Center was as important as were the funding opportunities and was just watching you lead, teach, and mentor us. When I once presented a research paper early on, I remember that Alberta’s summary of it was far more prescient than my own attempts at expressing what I had been trying to do. I am grateful to Alberta for taking me as junior faculty member on a research trip to post-Communist Berlin in the mid-1990s, and I’ll never forget a jet lagged and seasick Alberta indulge the overwhelming attention along with copious amounts of drinks and food of our Portuguese hosts during Semester at Sea in 2000. I wish you all the best; you are and remain my role model.

Reinhard

PS: I am so sorry that won't be able to attend

Dear Alberta,
I am presently on sabbatical leave and, regretfully, I cannot attend the symposium in your honor. However, I want you to know that your support for Italian Studies at Pitt and the Italian faculty has been highly appreciated. It has been a personal privilege and a pleasure to work with you, in your many capacities, for so many years.

Thank you!
Francesca

How to thank a friend who changed my life? Alberta, you already know, because I have said thank you, but it always bears repeating. For others, I will briefly explain. When I served as dean of GSPIA, I worked closely with Alberta and all of the center directors at UCIS (the University Center for International Studies). But for over 30 years, before becoming dean, I had studied the management of the US Federal government. My plan had always been to step aside after 10 years and to return to teaching and research, but as that time neared, I really didn’t want to spend my time studying the George W. Bush administration. (Who knew that I would look back on that era with nostalgia?) And so I was looking around for a new direction.

The initial spark that steered me towards the EU, and specifically the European Commission, was in 1999, when the Prodi Commission was forced to resign. I invited Alberta to come down and explain informally to the faculty what this meant and why it had happened. And that was the first time I thought seriously about the challenge of managing an organization with staff members who came from 28 countries, with the obvious (and some non-obvious) language and cultural differences. That idea stayed with me, and five years later, in my last year as dean, I started reading about the EU and the Commission in earnest and planning a research project on the impact of enlargement on the Commission.

Alberta was behind me during the whole process. Not only was she personally supportive, but the resources and contacts of what was then called the EU Study Center were a tremendous help, including providing the contact and conduit that allowed me to get funding from the Commission for my research. And of course, because of her, when I introduced myself and said I was from the University of Pittsburgh, doors opened.

Of course, I was completely naïve, and so I thought that, since the largest wave of enlargement took place in May, 2004, I could take my one-year sabbatical in Brussels in 2006-7, conduct my interviews and return to Pittsburgh to write the book. I had no idea of the length and complexity of the recruitment process. So in fact, I arrived just when the first wave of new staff entered, and I was able to follow some people over the next several years and to continue to add new arrivals, including those from the 2007 enlargement. Eventually I did write that book, and I have continued to return to Brussels at least once a year and, although officially retired, or what I describe as “semi-retired, am continuing to do some writing about the EC.

Then there was the time Alberta called me while I was on a Fulbright in Leuven and asked if I could cover for her for a year as center director while she took a well-deserved sabbatical. That didn’t quite work out as planned, as part-way through the year she announced that she was moving on to be vice-provost. Fortunately, the center has remained in good hands (i.e., not mine).

I very much value my friendship with Alberta and her husband, Martin, and look forward to staying in touch as we all move into retirement. It has been an honor and a pleasure to know her.

Warmly,
Carolyn Ban

Dear Alberta,
As I have shared with many people, you have always been the person I looked to for mentoring and advice. You were the one that convinced me to take the position as head of the Center for Latin American Studies, explaining that it was the best administrative job on campus. I did take pause, however, when I realized you gave me that advice after leaving your parallel post for something else. Even in Latin American Studies your presence and leadership has always been felt, as it has in the political science department. That leadership, plus your compassion and willingness to listen and provide a thoughtful comment will be sorely missed. I wish you, however, the very best in your retirement.

A big hug,
Scott Morgenstern

Alberta's combination of intelligence, humility, and obvious caring attitude toward students and colleagues has made her the consummate academic. I attribute much of this to her rural upbringing, where getting along with others is a necessary element of everyday life. Working with Alberta is always a process of engagement and cooperation. Traveling with her allows one to meet some of the most interesting people in the world -- her friends and intellectual colleagues. She is connected at the highest levels, but able to find common ground with everyone. I cherish the singular honor of following her in the Chancellor Mark A Nordenberg University Professorship. Her model as the first holder of that position set a standard that both challenges me and allows me to bask in the glow of her success. She has made my life -- and the lives of many others -- much better simply because we have been able to inhabit the University of Pittsburgh with her.

Dear Alberta,
You have always been such a perfect role model in every respect! I've learned a lot from you, not just about political science, but about how to be a mentor and have a meaningful impact on my students. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to work with you!

Thank you!
Margit

Dear Alberta,
Our paths crossed for the first time at APSA in 1993. You were chairing a panel on European integration. Alberta, you may not remember, but that is also the first time I met Gary. You treated us to lunch. (Did we ever reciprocate?) So unwittingly you "brought us together" – or perhaps you were just your classy self in pretending not to notice the firecrackers?

Alberta, you have been the soul and engine of EU studies. You were pivotal in bringing EU studies into mainstream political science in the 1990s and in modernizing its chief association, EUSA (then called ECSA). Perhaps most critically, by hosting EUSA at Pittsburgh, you have been its guardian angel and fierce institutional defender. Alberta, you are first class!

Warm wishes,
Liesbet

Dear Alberta,
Many thanks for your contributions to our collective understanding of national and EU level environmental policy. They have enriched us individually and collectively, raising the profile and stature of what used to be a relatively small sub area of political analysis. I have benefited enormously from working with you on papers and journal special issues. And you supported me in those very early, critical stages of my career by writing references and endorsements. Alberta - your are a star and an institutional capacity builder par excellence! Enjoy your symposium. And of course enjoy whatever comes next in your life.

All good wishes,
Andy

I was privileged to be Alberta Sbragia's student. She was a very open and thoughtful teacher and an erudite scholar, whose example has inspired me. I remember a long classroom table at a graduate seminar and our unending discussions of the European Union policy. The spark for knowledge she set in my heart and mind, I always carry with me.

I first met Prof. Alberta Sbragia when I took her European Union graduate class in the fall of 2009 at the University of Pittsburgh. But even before then, her warm e-mail messages before my arrival made me feel so welcome at Pitt. I am so grateful to have taken a class with her. She not only played an instrumental role for us to understand how the EU really works and the literature, but she also opened our eyes to what academia and what this field are all about. We always felt that she would be there, looking out for our best interests in every way. I will never forget the conversations we shared - about the European Union, about my home country Turkey and about life in general, the support she gave us through the EU Center of Excellence and all the interesting events that she invited us to. How excited we all were to be invited by her to attend the luncheon given by the university in honor of the European Commission President Barroso in the fall of 2009!

I have not seen Prof. Sbragia in the recent years much unfortunately, but I do hope I can be in touch with her in the future as well. I will always cherish her genuine encouragement and support. Having her as a mentor especially in the early years of my graduate training has been invaluable for shaping me as an academic.

I would like extend my sincere gratitude to Prof. Sbragia for everything, and I wish her the very best in all her future endeavors.

With respect,
Yasemin Irepoglu Carreras

Alberta,
As a colleague from another discipline, who shares a fascination with Europe, and as Director of the Humanities Center, I have found it a pleasure and felt it an honor to work with you.

Dearest Alberta,
I have fond memories of the first time we met in Pittsburgh back in 1991, almost thirty years ago. As I remember it, we met through Susan Strange, whom I knew from the time when I was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. She had told you that there was a young Belgian assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University with an interest in the European Union and transatlantic relations, who would benefit from the friendship of a kindred spirit. This was all you needed to seek me out and so, a couple of days later, we bonded over delicious food in a Lebanese café in Pittsburgh. There followed many other meetings in different parts of the world, sometimes combined with good food and even art. You once told me in jest: “Pascaline, when I think of you, I think of food.” For a Belgian, this is definitely a compliment and I was honored to be asked for advice on finding a good restaurant in Brussels when your Dean organized an important meeting there.

You came to Brussels frequently during my years at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research and we collaborated on publications. At your invitation, I was honored to come back to Pittsburgh in 2001 and 2002 to teach US-EU Relations at Pittsburgh University. I particularly remember how warmly you welcomed your guests, always seeking to make them feel at home and encouraging them to meet other professors, while also liaising with the wider Pittsburgh community. I loved the fruitful and friendly atmosphere you created in the European Studies Center which you so ably directed.

When I moved to Australia to direct the Monash European and EU Centre, you came to stay with my family in 2008 and taught Comparative Regionalism as Distinguished Visiting Professor. The students loved the course and your insightful teaching sparked my own interest in finding out more about this stimulating topic. You also gave an excellent conference entitled 'An Asia Pacific Union? Geopolitics, Geoeconomics and the Model of the European Union' which was very well attended and received. Once again, you shared our food and visited the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. Since then, we have kept in touch as I have now returned to Europe and you have continued working in Pittsburgh.

This is, of course, not the end of the story as I believe you will not really retire. But I think you can already look back with great pride on all the students and professors you have inspired over the years. One of your students whose PhD thesis you supervised spoke for us all when she wrote: “A very special thank you to Professor Sbragia for sharing her energy, passion, intellect, and endless support. Professor Sbragia, you are so much more than an academic advisor: you are a real ‘mentor’ and a role-model for all of us.” You have indeed been a mentor and role-model for many students and professors over the years. For me, in addition to all this, you have also been a trusted friend and this remains as true today as when we first met.

Professor Pascaline WINAND
Director of Studies
College of Europe I Natolin Campus

I cannot thank you enough for everything you have done for me! You were so supportive throughout my graduate career (and beyond!), and taught me so much. And it was not just in academics. You helped me grow as a person.

I don’t know if you know, but I had never been outside the country before my first trip to Brussels to interview the EU permanent representatives. I was so nervous – and it was not just nerves about my first trip to Europe. I was terrified of interviewing these diplomats. How could I talk to such important and high-ranking people?! What should I say? How would they react? Would they even talk to me? But you never doubted me and my research. You believed in me, and believed that my efforts would be successful. That helped give me the courage to go out and do it. I honestly don’t think I could have built up the nerve without your support. You helped me learn to believe in myself, and that has been so important for me, both in graduate school and especially after. You have had an incredible influence on my life!

The moment when you hugged me after hooding me at graduation is one I will remember forever. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor!

Sincerely,
Heather (McKibben)

Dear Dr. Sbragia,
Thank you for being one of the most inspiring mentors I ever had! Wish you a joyful retirement!

Hugs from Turkey,
Gunes

I met prof. Alberta Sbragia the very first days of my amazing experience as a Fulbright Scholar at Pitt, at the welcome reception at Schenley Park. Of course I knew her: her fame had preceded our acquaintance and I already admired for her academic achievements and the passion she seemed to transmit, although I hadn't met her yet.

Then, I met her. And one of my first thought was that in front of me I had a true "Magistra": I wished one day I could have become like her. She was (and she is) extremely friendly, welcoming and willing to share academic and human experience. Then I thought, immodestly, that I have many things in common with Alberta: I'm a woman, I'm an academic, I'm Italian and I ... am hopelessly in love with the true and original idea of European Union.

Thank you, Alberta for the time you found to have lunches with me and discuss our mutual scientific interests, and even more our lives as human being, to have nice words for me and my family. Thank you for the passionate suggestions and example you have given me and thousands of other people. Thank you for having shared with me a very special moment at 60th Anniversary of EU Celebrations in Rome, a moment I will surely never forget. I wish I had met you well before we did, but I'm happy I met you.

Have a good life!
Raffaella, Carmine and the kids

Dear Alberta.
I am writing this note to wish you well now and during all the upcoming years that will follow your retirement from the University. I am especially grateful for your assistance while I was adjusting to my new role as Dean of the Honors College. The advice you gave me always was excellent and patiently delivered, and it helped to clarify matters that had seemed opaque. Evidently, I was not prepared for how much I had to learn about the University and its procedures and policies, despite having spent 40 years here including 16 years as department chair, and the mentoring you provided certainly facilitated the transition. It was very welcome and much appreciated then, and, in retrospect, I consider it remarkable but characteristic of your good sense and good will.

All best wishes,
Edward M. Stricker, Ph.D.

Alberta Sbragia was extremely supportive of me as a student and I will always be grateful to her for her help. She and her family have crossed paths with me for decades and I am fortunate to have known all of them.

I have known Alberta since she was a graduate student carrying out her dissertation research in Italy. I think we met for coffee at a bar in Piazza San Marco in Florence and I knew immediately that here was not common-or-garden grad student. The next time we met was (wait for it!) in the restaurant of a casino in Carson City, Nevada, where she had taken her mom for dinner and we had taken our kids during a trip to show them the mines in Nevada. When we met again she was “all grown up,” a faculty member at Pitt, where she effortlessly rose to dean status and gained the affection and respect of her colleagues – as well as of the profession at large. I wish her a satisfactory retirement, though – knowing her – the only change in her activity level will be that she gets paid less for doing more of what she loves to do.

Dear Alberta,
All my very best wishes for this new chapter of your life! You may not remember, but our professional friendship started when I introduced that proud Italian-American to the inimitable gourmet specialty of St Louis, Missouri -- the Toasted Ravioli! I was a PhD student at MIT but had recently moved to Chicago to follow my husband, who had just started a job there. A newcomer to the Midwest, I attended an EU conference in St Louis, where I did not know anyone. You took interest/pity in me and we started talking –first outside the conference room, and then over lunch. From that first conversation to many subsequent ones, you modeled for me what a professional scholar, and a female scholar, ought to be, with kindness and a down-to-Earth attitude that resonated particularly well with me. You showed me what Comparative Politics had to say about European integration. I admired your leadership, direction, and generosity in providing public goods in professional organizations. And you opened your heart in sharing your hard-earned wisdom and self-reflecting challenges on how to combine parenting with academic scholarship.

Your mentorship over the years has meant a lot to me and I am so grateful to have crossed paths with you so early in my career.

Fondly,
Sophie

In my three decades in the Political Science department at Pitt, I had the privilege to work with many great and good colleagues, most of whom became friends. I never had a colleague whose relationship I cherished more than Alberta. Almost immediately upon my arrival, she greeted me warmly and, over the years, was extraordinarily generous with her time and her help. My only frustration with Alberta was that, as her responsibilities increasingly took her away from my department, I was unable to see her as often as I would have liked.

Alberta has been, to me and countless others, the model of true professionalism. As a scholar, an educator, and an administrator, she has had few peers. As a friend, she has had even fewer peers. And her sheer decency puts her in a category rarely seen.

I wish her all the best in her retirement.

Thank you, Alberta, so much for everything. You are an outstanding scholar and person, who has played the single most important role in shaping and supporting my professional career. It is a distinct honor and genuine pleasure to know you and to consider you my mentor, model and friend.

Dear Alberta (Cara Alberta, if I may)
These very days approaching the Pittsburgh seminar in your honor, I am cherishing the memories of the period spent as a visiting fellow at Pitt in January 2007, hosted upon invitation by you and Guy. It has been an amazing moment of intellectual development for me. Even more significant, I had the chance of appreciating intellectual guidance by you and Guy. I since benefited so much, and for that I am so grateful.

During my period at Pitt, I fully discovered your total dedication to students and colleagues alike. Your kindness of spirit, commitment to "real life" people and their deepest needs in everyday encounters, and to those institutions (be them the University of Pittsburgh or the Institutions that make the European Union) are positive forces for the lives of real people, which allowed them to grow, thrive, and hold up the values of democracy and liberty.

A year later, the 4th "Transatlantic Dialogue" conference was organized as part of a series promoted by American Society for Public Administration and the European Group for Public Administration, which is now in its 15th edition. The conference held at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, led to (amongst other publications) two co-edited volumes on the topic of interconnecting the "European" stream of research on Multi-Level Governance and the "American" strand on intergovernmental relations. It is then that I had another major opportunity of discovering how profoundly you really give all your intellectual energies in any sentence of every work you have written. You never allowed for banal, inattentive, copy-pasted sentences or passages to intrude into your writings.

Thank you, dear Alberta, for all you have given to the multiple communities of political scientists, public administrators, those enamoured of the great European experiment of peace that was born out of WWII, and of course the students and academics alike at University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere all over the world that have had the welcome chance of knowing you. It has been truly an honor to have goten to know you, and I wish you and all your dears all the very best.

Edoardo

I have been so fortunate to have Alberta as a colleague. I remember once attending a meeting where most of the people in the meeting were sitting around a table, but others were sitting in chairs around the edges of the room. Not knowing where I should sit, I came in and sat in one of the chairs, thinking it was the safest bet. Alberta looked at me sternly and asked "What are you DOING? You're supposed to be sitting at the TABLE!" I moved to the table as fast as I could, and I think about it every time I walk into a room like that. Now I take a seat at the table, for fear Alberta might find out if I don't.

Dear Alberta
My congratulations and deep respect for the work on our common topic - the EU. You re-created a network which was and is of major importance for many researchers also across the Atlantic Ocean.

Best,
Wolfgang

Alberta is a European Studies powerhouse. EUSA is so grateful for her deep belief in and commitment to growing regional studies in the US and beyond.

Alberta Sbragia has been an inspirational teacher and mentor for many years. I thank her for all of her support and encouragement and wish her all the best for her impending retirement.

Alberta,
It is too long since we were in close touch, though our sons have been in touch with each other - a fine example of inter-generational friendship transfer. What a lot you have achieved since those early days of the Brookings study prompted by the 1992 programme. And - goodness - you have more than earned a period of less intense professional engagement. These days we Europeans are going through very testing times - not least in my country and that other European country that you know best. I have taken to introducing myself as a specialist in European disintegration. Choose something more cheerful for your retirement project! Tanti abbracci!

Helen Wallace

Alberta,
Thank you for your kindness, generosity as well as intellectual guidance over more than two decades (as well as sharing your passion for Italian food and wine!). Hopefully retirement will allow you to finally visit New Zealand.

Every best wish.

Dear Prof. Sbragia,
I am sorry that I will not be able to attend the symposium organized for your retirement. I feel lucky that I was one of your students. You have been a great teacher, scholar and colleague. When I think of graduate school days, great memories run through my mind. If I may share one of them, you might remember that I had received summer research funding from the European Studies Center to conduct research in Turkey in summer 2006. We were talking about our research plans and I told you that I would spend the money on my field work in southeastern part of Turkey, a conflict-ridden zone. And you responded "Zeki, be careful there!" And I responded by saying "Prof. Sbragia, do not worry about me, I will be fine." And you replied back by saying "Zeki, I am not worried about you. I am worried about the money. I do not want to spend money on a dead person!" I am still curious whether you were joking or not!

I wish you the happiest of retirements!
Kind regards,

Dr. Zeki Sarigil
Bilkent University
Ankara, Turkey

Dear Alberta,
Thank you very much for hosting me in the Fall of 2005. Your kind generosity is much appreciated and I am much indebted to your encouragement, which led me back to academia (Linköping University) and now to SIEPS, The Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies. I hope to see you again in the near future.

All the best,
Lars

Alberta,
You and I have had a number of conversations over the years. You probably don't remember these conversations, as they were few and far between. But they always left a mark on me. I have always appreciated the insights you have shared, from the fact that in academia real jerks do not get their due (you told me that I was sweetly naive), to insights on learning disabilities in kids (you prepared me for a train wreck that might come, and regrets I might have), to the deep well of knowledge you have from your many years studying regionalism and Europe.

By being a class act, always kind, and trenchantly smart, you have been one of my role models in a world with few female role models. Thanks for being you - and for sharing a little of yourself with me. You have had an impactful career in ways which you may not even know.

Best,
Karen J. Alter

It was a great honor for me to attend Alberta's class and to have her as my dissertation adviser during my study at Pitt. She was a wonderful teacher and mentor. Although I am back in my home country after graduation and only exchange emails with her at times, she is a truly unforgettable person in my life. I cannot thank her too much for her professional and warmhearted teaching and mentoring. I wish her all the very best after she enters retirement.

When I arrived at Pitt in 1986, Alberta was one of the first members of the Political Science Department to introduce herself. She was one of the first to extend an invitation, and she was one of the first to lend support. When there was an illness in my family, she was always among the first to call. When I or a member of my family experienced an accomplishment, she was always among the first to offer congratulations. Though we worked in very different areas of the discipline using very different approaches, I quickly learned that it was impossible to have a conversation with her without learning something. I came to rely on her as a mentor, as a support system, and most importantly as a trusted friend. I didn't see Alberta often, but when I did she was unfailingly warm and gracious. She was among my very most cherished colleagues, and I wish her and Martin all the happiness in the world in their retirement.