PITTSBURGH — The Cathedral of Learning is turning 100 years old.
Workers broke ground on the historic landmark on Pitt’s campus on September 27, 1926.
If you’re inside the Cathedral and take the elevators nearly to the top, you’ll find the David C. Frederick Honors College. It takes up floors 34 through 37 and is one of only a handful of Honors Colleges around the country.
“We are one of the oldest Honors colleges in the nation. We have had Honors programs here since the 1950s and we were established as a college in 1987,” Honors College Dean Nicola Foote explained. “So right now we’re about 14% of the undergraduate student body. So we have 3,500 Honors students.”
The Honors College is for students seeking any type of degree and is catered to those who want to push themselves. It provides a lot, like monitorships, research opportunities, scholarships and study abroad programs. Pitt students visited 75 countries last year.
“We like to say it’s possible at Pitt and that’s what we facilitate here in the Honors College. And you see that in our outcomes. Pitt’s overall placement rate is just astonishing. nd for the Honors College, 98.5% of our students are in professional-level jobs or graduate school within six months of graduation,” Foote said.
There is also a wall of winners inside the Honors College, celebrating Rhodes, Goldwater, Truman, Fulbright and other scholars.
“We have our sign that recognizes our naming benefactor, David C. Frederick, and his wife, Sophie Lin. David was Pitt’s first-ever Rhodes Scholar and is now one of the winningest constitutional lawyers in American history. He has argued more than 60 cases at the Supreme Court,” Foote said.
The space also comes with a lot of symbolism, especially after a renovation in the early 2000’s.
Dave Hornyak is an Honors College alum and has worked there since 1983. He explained the unique staircase in the Honors College.
“So, the materials that we used in the renovation call back to the industries of Pittsburgh, whether it’s the glass, the wood, or the steel.
And this steel in particular was fabricated to age over time. So as the weather changes in the summer with the humidity, it sort of weeps, and it will flake off a little bit. It represents the changing Pittsburgh seasons in Pittsburgh," Hornyak said.
One of the most unique features of the Honors College is the BPhil, or Bachelor of Philosophy degree. It’s the highest degree offered at Pitt, and the school is one of only about a dozen universities to offer it.
“Students spend a full year working one-on-one on a research project with a faculty mentor. They have to identify an original question, collect their data, write it all up, analyze, and then they defend their work like a mini doctoral dissertation,” Foote said. “So, the Frederick Honors College flies in external examiners for the students. And there’s only a handful of students that complete this. We have about 50 B-FILs a year out of the 3,500 Frederick Honors students.
The BPhil degree was enticing to freshman Adithri Pingali. She and fellow freshman Anya Roy quickly enrolled in the Honors College.
“I hope to grow a lot, both as a student and personally, to get out of my comfort zone,” Pingali said.
“I decided I wanted to be in Pitt’s Honors College because of the interdisciplinary emphasis that they have and the level of opportunity you have for research,” Roy added.
Striving to be at the top of their learning, while atop the building that inspires so many.
“We like to think we’re an intellectual beacon here at the top of the cathedral,” Foote said.
You can’t come to work and not feel inspired in an environment like this. It’s just spectacular. There’s nowhere like it.
This is just one of the many stories in WPXI’s special “The Cathedral of Learning: 100 Years”. It airs Sunday, September 27 at 8 a.m. on WPXI and the WPXI Now streaming app. It’ll also appear on wpxi.com and the WPXI YouTube page.
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