On the quiet third-floor corridor of the University at Albany’s main library, behind a simple door, is a room brimming with ancient treasures from a distant land: shards of Bronze Age metalwork; shimmering silver coins imprinted with the likeness of Roman Emperor Lucius Verus; beautiful ceramics that could grace a modern dinner table; and a trove of figurines commemorating long vanished individuals of note. These priceless antiquities hail from the sunbaked soils of Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean, roughly three-fifths the size of the state of Connecticut.
How these rare objects made their way through millennia and across the globe to the campus of UAlbany is a story that reveals more than a half-century of history forged with the island nation: a legacy of academics, athletics and an uncommonly energetic group of Cypriot alumni who keep alive what is arguably one of the University’s deepest and most enduring of international connections.
In 1969, while on a Mideast lecture tour, James Heaphey, professor of public administration in the Graduate School of Public Affairs, (later to become Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy) received an invitation from his friend, Taylor Belcher — then U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus — to visit the island and meet its leader, President Archbishop Makarios III. At the time, Cyprus was roiling with increasingly violent disputes between its Greek and Turkish communities, which could not agree upon the direction of the country following its 1960 independence from Britian. It was an opportunity for American diplomacy that was, perhaps, not lost on Ambassador Belcher.
“Let’s put it this way: Cyprus is a small island and the United States wanted to make sure that it stayed in the Western camp,” says Stuart Swiny, esteemed archaeologist
and UAlbany associate professor emeritus in anthropology. Swiny notes that Makarios was also keen to establish academic ties within the U.S. since his country had no institutions of higher learning at the time.
Out of that initial meeting between a president, an ambassador and a professor came the idea for a social science research and training center to assist the development of Cyprus. It was to be the first of its kind in the United States and would be located at the University at Albany. In that moment, the Institute of Cypriot Studies was born.
With the approval of then University President Evan Collins, the institute was quickly up and running. UAlbany faculty members traveled to Cyprus to conduct research projects and provide expertise in water rights management, regional economic policy, international political science and — befitting UAlbany’s own origins — recommendations for the development of a Cypriot teacher training college. The pedagogical development idea came from then associate dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs, David Martin, MA ’53, who had been given the reins of the institute from Heaphey, the founding director. However, of all the research endeavors the University brought to the island, perhaps none was more visible nor more popular with the Cypriot community than the archaeological expeditions.
The first expedition arrived in the spring of 1970, but it immediately suffered a devastating loss when the group’s co-leader drowned in a swimming accident after arrival in Cyprus. Classics Professor John Overbeck assumed leadership for the team and engaged Swiny, who was not yet affiliated with the University but happened to be on the island. The results of that expedition led to the publication of Overbeck and Swiny’s book, Two Cypriot Bronze Age Sites at Kafkallia (Dhali), which they dedicated in memory of the colleague who had died.
The University’s footprint on the island grew as more archaeological digs broke ground and cultural exchanges blossomed. Martin’s spouse, Frances Martin ’71, an artist, led a popular printmaking workshop for other artists and art teachers. More than 50 members of the University Chorale group performed before President Makarios in the Summer ’73 Cyprus-American Music Festival. A Times Union newspaper article covering the event reported “a spontaneous outpouring of appreciation from the people of Cyprus themselves, Greek and Turk alike with all the political implications contained therein.”
The good feelings would not last: The next summer, a military coup overthrew Makarios, who fled to Malta, barely escaping an assassination attempt. In response to the coup, Turkey invaded and seized control of the northern one-third of the island. In the violence of 1974, thousands went missing and hundreds died. Professor Paul Wallace, an archaeologist in the classics department, was leading an expedition in Cyprus when the hostilities broke out.
“I was in the middle of all that,” recalls Wallace, now retired and living in Vermont. “It was a scary time for sure, but we finally got out.” Wallace and his team were evacuated to Beirut.
Within 10 days of the coup, the military junta responsible for it collapsed and its installed president resigned. Makarios eventually resumed the presidency, but the country remained physically divided, with Turkey in control of the north. It would take another five years before UAlbany expeditions returned to Cyprus, but they would do so in full measure. In those subsequent years, Swiny, now as the director of the institute, led more than 50 undergraduate and graduate students on six archaeological expeditions on the island. The classes were so popular and the experiences so transformative that two students penned a book entitled All Things Cypriot: Studies on Ancient Environment, Technology and Society in Honor of Stuart Swiny.
The University at Albany has more than five decades of rich history connecting it to the island nation of the Republic of Cyprus, the third largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is situated north of Egypt, to the east of Greece, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. Nicosia serves as both its capital and largest city. The northern third of the island is under the de facto governance of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized solely by Turkey in the international community.
1. 1974 – Archaeological Research site at Akhera
Site of Professor Paul Wallace’s field research that was interrupted by the country’s 1974 outbreak of political violence and Turkey’s military incursion, resulting in Wallace’s evacuation to Beirut.
3. 1992 – The University of Cyprus, the nation’s first university opens its doors to students.
Among the faculty are University at Albany graduates and fellows from Albany’s Institute of Cypriot Studies
5. 1970 – UAlbany’s first archaeological expedition in Cyprus.
Led by Professor John Overbeck at the ancient city of Idalion (Dali), the expedition is disrupted by tragedy when the co-leader, Paul Lapp from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, drowns in a swimming accident. The team explores the fortified settlement of Kafkallia instead.
6. 1977 – University offers six-week “Summer in Cyprus” archaeology program in Larnaca.
Students offered practical work on the “dig” with formal academic instruction in archaeological techniques, Cypriot archaeology and history led by the country’s director of antiquities, Dr. Vassos Karageorghis, who also served as a visiting professor in classics at the University.
9. 1984 – Professor Paul Wallace uncovers remnants of a 3,000-year old city
The old city known as Marion, evidence of what may be the first trade link between Athens and Cyprus-which provided Athens with copper.
Due to the success of the Institute of Cypriot Studies, the undergraduate population from Cyprus swelled in Albany during the late 1970s and early ’80s. More than 30 Cypriot students enrolled during the 1982-83 academic year, with another nine students intending to transfer from the Junior College of Albany (Russell Sage College today.) In a 1990 letter inviting Cyprus’s President George Vassiliou to campus, President H. Patrick Swygert celebrated the presence of the Cypriot students: “Here at the University at Albany, students from Cyprus have constituted the largest undergraduate population from a single country other than the United States.”
Cypriot students like Maria Iakovou ’79 says her experience at the University was lifechanging: “It was the best thing that happened to me. Otherwise, I could not have gone to university a year after the war of 1974. My family had lost everything.” Iakovou, now a professor of prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology at the University of Cyprus, gives special credit to former institute director Martin and his wife, Frances, as particularly “wonderful” to her and her country.
Some 22 individuals from various ministries of the Cypriot government pursued master’s degrees as institute fellows. Two of those students, Andreas Mantovanis, MPA ’82 and George Charalambides, MPA ’83 ascended to the highest levels of the Cypriot government in the ’90s as the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Defence, respectively. Since then, dozens of Cypriot UAlbany alumni have held senior public positions and continue to do so today.
Feelings of deep regard and connection to the University still reverberate throughout the UAlbany Cypriot alumni community, says George Crassas ’83, the unofficial “coordinator” of the group. Crassas, the senior officer at the Office of the Commissioner for Administration & Human Rights (National Ombudsman’s Office), has thrown well-attended and boisterous reunions for more than 20 years and has hosted at least three UAlbany presidents. In March of 2023, he welcomed President Havidán Rodríguez, Vice President for Advancement Fardin Sanai and more than 120 alumni and guests in the capital city of Nicosia.
He recalls living as an undergrad on Alumni Quad with other Cypriots and the feeling of belonging it created.
“It was pleasant. People would come and it would feel comfortable from Day 1 because you could easily associate with a guy from your own country, which is 6,000 miles away,” said Crassas, who recently returned to campus to tour the ETEC building. “It was this feeling of being at home.” That feeling was so strong that Crassas later sent his son, Panayiotis, to UAlbany to receive his degree — 29 years after he had graduated. These strong familial ties to the University are not unique, says Crassas. He knows of several Cypriot UAlbany alumni who also sent their children to become Great Danes.
In the ’80s, the senior Crassas helped establish the Greek and Cypriot Student Association — known for its civic engagement, cultural celebrations and a few legendary parties that are well-documented by ads in the Albany Student Press from the time. He was also part of a recreational soccer team lovingly dubbed “The Aliens” (later “the Olympians”) whose roster was filled mostly by Cypriots.
Soon thereafter, a connection of Cypriot soccer was established at the University, a 20-year throughline that exists to this day.
In 2015, UAlbany’s Men’s Soccer Head Coach Trevor Gorman was into his fourth year at the helm of the team when he received an email recounting UAlbany’s historic Cypriot connections. Gorman learned of the archaeological digs, the vibrant alumni group, and of talented young soccer players whose family members had come to the school in the ’80s. He also learned from the Office of International Education that Cypriot soccer players have played for the University since 2002, perhaps even earlier. Within the year, an intrigued Gorman was on a plane to the Mediterranean.
“I took a trip over to Cyprus, spent about four or five days watching players and meeting people, and kind of getting a greater sense of the country, the culture, everything about it,” recalls the coach over a Zoom call. “I actually ended up having dinner one night with five guys who had all graduated from the University at Albany and they had this amazing story where they had grown up best friends...in the city of Nicosia.”
Since 2016, Gorman has recruited a half dozen Cypriots to the team. Four of those players were on the roster in the fall of 2022 — including Miltiadis Hadjipanyiotou, a senior midfielder from Nicosia whose uncle graduated from UAlbany in the ’80s. “I found that UAlbany was the best fit for me, both academically and soccer-wise,” says Hadjipanyiotou who returns to the team with best friend and fellow Cypriot, George Pitsillides. “It’s been a great experience … I’ve enjoyed it all.”
In 2017, the Great Danes won their second straight America East Conference Championship on the foot of Cypriot player Andreas Assiotis, who scored the game-winning goal in a thrilling double-overtime win against UMass Lowell.
At precisely 3 p.m. on Nov. 16, 1989, a crowd of dignitaries, including former Ambassador Belcher, gathered on the third floor of the University Library for the inauguration of The Taylor and Edith Belcher Cyprus Room. Hundreds of Cyprus-related books and research journals lined the walls. The Cypriot flag stood in the corner of the room. Glass cases filled with antiquities, once buried by time, would serve as cultural emissaries to the future. The room itself would act as a reminder of the decades of international collaboration, academic exchange and cultural goodwill between UAlbany and the people of Cyprus. Today, the room is slated for renovation in the fall of 2023, its future uncertain.
In 1992, the University of Cyprus became the first university in the country as it opened its doors to undergraduates. Among the new faculty were two Cypriot alums from UAlbany’s School of Education, Christos Theophilides, MPA ’79, EdD ’82 and Nicos Valanides, MS ’86, EdD ’90, PhD ’90. Both students were part of UAlbany’s Institute of Cypriot Studies and had returned to their home country to help usher in a new era of higher education, fulfilling the vision first set out in 1969 when a president, an ambassador and a professor dared to dream great things.
