Administered by the Global Studies Center (GSC) with support from the Provost's Office, the PiNTS network convenes diverse local and national partner organizations to bring threatened scholars, artists, and practitioners to Pitt and to Pittsburgh. Our program aims to provide scholars with safe and stable working and living environments as a way of helping them to regain their footing, rebuild their professional networks, and reset their careers.
By leveraging the Provost's funding with GSC endowment monies and partnerships with national organizations like the Artist Protection Fund and the Scholar Rescue Fund, we provide our visitors with a salaries, benefits, visa and other legal assistance, and help acclimating to University and local life. Through our membership of the New University in Exile Consortium, we provide scholars with intellectual and professional development opportunities and a network for engagement with similarly situated colleagues around the world. Our scholars work with Pitt faculty and students – as teachers, interlocutors, and colleagues – and contribute to the rich intellectual life of the University.
PiNTS employs a graduate student intern who assists with relocation and navigating life in the city. Through our partnership with City of Asylum , some scholars live on their northside campus, where they connect with exiled writers, artists, and musicians and engage the broader Pittsburgh community. This housing, provided at no cost by CoA, helps to stretch our funds further.
In our first two years, we have hosted a political scientist from Turkey, a Vietnamese rock star and free speech activist, and a Congolese documentary filmmaker (all in partnership with City of Asylum, and the latter two as Artist Protection Fund fellows). We are preparing to welcome a Cuban dissident couple (a writer and a women’s rights activist) in November (again with City of Asylum) and an Iranian sociologist and legal scholar in late fall (with Scholar Rescue Fund). We also have emergency efforts underway to assist scholars displaced as a result of the changing political situation in Afghanistan. Several of our PiNTS Scholars are research fellows at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Governance and Markets.