Professor Nina M. Tretiak-Shields and Ms. Lucy Tretiak-Caruso, EdM ’75, BA ’69

Professor Emeritus Nina M. Tretiak-Shields, who taught Russian culture and language from 1961 to 1981 in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, established this fund in 2001 to support PhD candidates or junior faculty members from the National University of Kharkov to study or teach at UB.

Born in Kharkov, Russia, in what is now the Ukraine, in March 1914, Tretiak-Shields attended the Kharkov university, the second oldest in the Soviet Union after Moscow University. She studied history and philosophy, and matriculated with honors in 1941, just days before World War II erupted.

Tretiak-Shields was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1943, became a refugee in Europe, and immigrated in 1950 to the U.S. with her husband, Andrew Tretiak, and their daughter, Lucy. After earning master’s and doctoral degrees, she joined the UB faculty in 1961.

Lucy Tretiak-Caruso, BS ’69 and EdM ’75 was born on July 14, 1945 in a concentration camp one week after the war ended. Lucy did her undergraduate in Leningrad and Paris where she received her PhD. She was a ballerina & danced with the Ballet Russe. She modeled professionally and spoke six different languages. Lucy went on to earn another undergraduate degree and her masters in education from UB. Lucy was a longtime member of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and a world traveler, she was a huge lover of art. Lucy worked for the NYS Board of Education in the 80’s & 90’s. She would be in charge of every school in NYS with the exception of New York City, making her a real trail blazer in a job position that only men held at that time. She retired early and spent most her time raising money for such non-profits as the Buffalo Philharmonic and Youth Theater.

Lucy went on to modify this fund in honor of her mother to support for students in UB study-abroad and exchange programs in non-English speaking countries to further their proficiency in a foreign language and increase their knowledge of their host countries’ cultures.