…So as we proceeded to work, you know, I was living in a house up there and it was, it was interesting for me because when I looked out the back window, from my bedroom, I was looking down on what I later found out was the Faculty of Architecture for the University of Pristina. You know the parallel university, and I could look down into this unfinished building, it had no windows, you know it was just the concrete and the red bricks. You know that was all it was, but there was no glass and the students were sitting on benches inside this unfinished building, bundled up in coats and hats and gloves during the winter, and they had their drawing boards and t-squares and everything. And I would just stand up there and watch this and think, ‘you know, my God, how can they want to study so much’
Michael McClellan was born in 1956, in Kentucky, USA. He studied political science at the University of Louisville. He also studied photojournalism and international relations at Syracuse University. In 1984, he joined the US Foreign Service and worked in many countries. In 1996, he came to Kosovo to work as a diplomat at the Information Center, the first American office in Kosovo. He served in Kosovo for more than five years. In 2000, he returned to Kosovo where he began the establishment of the American University of Kosovo.