Cooperative academic effort between Detroit and Lviv schools continues to expand (01/28/96)

Cooperative academic effort between Detroit and Lviv schools continues to expand

by Roman Woronowycz

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - When Vera Andrushkiw was asked in 1991 to help coordinate an academic program to expose Ukrainian M.B.A. students to doing business American style, she could not have foreseen that she would become a central figure for an extensive exchange of information, students and professors between universities in Detroit and Lviv.

Today Ms. Andrushkiw is the coordinator of International Business Programs al the School of Business Administration at Wayne State University in Detroit, and the lead person in the school's developing University Partnership Program in Ukraine.

The lecturer of the Ukrainian language in WSU's German/Slavic Studies Department, who is completing her doctorate in Ukrainian literature as well, stumbled into the academia of business, finances, management and accounting when an individual in Minneapolis asked her to organize a program in the Detroit area for students who were scheduled to visit the U.S. from the Lviv Institute of Management (LIM), then part of the Ivan Franko University of Lviv.

"Bohdan Kramarchuk called me from Minneapolis and said they couldn't make things happen there and could I do it in Detroit," explained Ms. Andrushkiw. She already knew Drs. Viktor Pynzenyk and Ivan Vasiunyk, then directors of LIM (Mr. Pynzenyk is now part of the Cabinet of President Leonid Kuchma). All agreed that first-year students from the institute's M.B.A. program should visit the U.S. to get first-hand knowledge and experience on how business is conducted in the U.S.

Ms. Andrushkiw approached WSU's School of Business Administration, even though she did not know a single soul in the department. "I simply called the dean's office and said the LIM, the second management institute in Ukraine, was looking for a partner for an internship program here to help the students learn about market economics, and could we help them out," she explained.

Dean William H. Volz and Assistant Dean Raymond Genick were excited by the prospects and along with Ms. Andrushkiw put together a program in a remarkably short period of time. A month and a half later, on September 20, 1991, 28 students from LIM arrived in Detroit for three weeks of classes, seminars and visits to Detroit-area businesses, including such firms as Peat Marwick, EDS, KPMG and manufacturing giants like Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Corp. Some of the companies also provided short-term internships. The students stayed at the homes of local Ukrainian American families, who also offered transportation and interpreting aid.

The program has retained its basic elements for the last four years with 120 students utilizing the program. It is supported by a core group of volunteers including Ihor Kozak, whom Ms. Andrushkiw called her "right hand man"; Lubomyr Tatuch and Myron Woronowycz of the Friends of Rukh (now called the Coordinating Committee to Aid Ukraine), which has also contributed financing to support the project; Roman Sepell, who has helped her organize drivers, housing and the logistics to pull off the yearly program; and the Ukrainian American community of the Detroit area, which has opened its homes and businesses to help the students.

The key to the success of the program, which has also included similar efforts in Philadelphia, organized by Walter Marushchak of the Ukrainian Professional Society of Philadelphia, is the three-pronged effort that consists of support from the WSU School of Business and LaSalle University, the Ukrainian American communities and the business communities of the greater Detroit and Philadelphia areas.

In Philadelphia during the first three years of the program, the Ukrainian National Association also actively participated with financial support.

The result has been a number of success stories among the students after they returned to Ukraine and completed their degrees. A student from the first group to come to the U.S. opened up the Trident Consulting Firm, which he began with two employees. Today the firm employs 40 people.

A biochemical firm, run by a graduate of the program, today has U.S. offices in New Jersey and Buffalo, N.Y. Another former student is head accountant for the RJ Reynolds manufacturing plant near Lviv.

Ms. Andrushkiw believes the experiences and the experience the students gather, even during the brief several-week-stays, aids them considerably in their success "What happens here is that they do change their mentality; they become empowered," she explained. "People treat them differently. They gain a new confidence, they become inspired and catch a can-do attitude."

She added that the Slavic sense of fatalism is also a tough nut to crack, but that some time spent in the West injects the students with a dose of optimism.

Ms. Andrushkiw said she hopes that, finally, it bestows upon them a responsibility to give back to society. "I try to impart a sense of 'noblesse oblige' on them." She explained that in Ukraine it is especially important for people to develop a sense of community and social responsibility.

As an example, she cited one former student who took part in the program in 1991, who this year sponsored three students by paying for their air travel. "He is, in effect, becoming one of the new benefactors," said Ms. Andrushkiw.

Financing the program has become increasingly difficult with each succeeding year because, although WSU's commitment has remained firm, the costs have kept creeping up. "For the last four years it has been difficult funding the thing. I have had to literally scramble and get every possible source I could find," said Ms. Andrushkiw.

This year the International Renaissance Foundation (the Soros Foundation in Ukraine) helped 10 students by paying their round-trip air fare, while the Eurasia Foundation kicked in $52,790 for the internship program for both Philadelphia and Detroit.

Ten students from WSU's M.B.A. program also have benefited from the set-up. Since 1993 two groups have traveled to Lviv for a month long internship at LIM, where they assisted in teaching business English and counseled at the Business Support Center. Another group is ready to go in 1996.

As the internship program achieved success, Ms. Andrushkiw and the WSU School of Business explored other avenues by which the Detroit university could share its business acumen with Ukraine.

First, Ms. Andrushkiw decided to move forward with new programs geared towards several universities in Ukraine. She used her contacts in Lviv and reached agreement with the three largest universities in Lviv with some business programs - the Ivan Franko University of Lviv, the Lviv Polytechnic Institute and the Lviv Institute of Management - to work as a consortium in terms of exchanges with U.S. universities, specifically with WSU. "I feel it is important to spread this as far as possible," she said.

After submitting several proposals, the business school was awarded a $181,950 grant for the 1994-1996 period by the U.S. Information Agency's University Partnership Grant program, which has helped the school initiate a faculty exchange with the Lviv consortium aimed at curriculum development. They were one of 12 institutions chosen from 88 applicants.

A total of 15 professors from WSU will go to Ukraine before the project's two-year duration is over to share their curriculum programs with the faculties of the three Lviv schools and to learn how the Ukrainian academic structures work. At the same time 15 Ukrainian faculty members will spend time in Detroit.

The Ukrainian professors will not only spend time becoming acquainted with the curriculums, but will also have a chance to select textbooks and materials which may be helpful to their programs in Lviv, as well as get the chance to research the libraries of WSU and the Detroit area. Ms. Andrushkiw said that many of the professors consider the latter the most valuable aspect of the program. In addition they will attend classes and give lectures at WSU.

Another interesting feature of the program in Detroit is the incorporation of English-language instruction, in which each Ukrainian instructor is required to attend daily English labs. " personally think that it is impossible to learn business without knowing English," explained Ms. Andrushkiw. "You cannot possibly develop an effective business curriculum without knowing the language."

Another feature of the International Business Programs coordinated by Ms. Andrushkiw is a banking curriculum development program. It involves intensive directed study in banking and finance at the business school as well as a three-week seminar for Ukraine's lecturers and banking professionals in Truskavets, Ukraine. It is financially supported by Harry Malynowsky, a land developer in Michigan who arrived in the U.S. from Ukraine after World War II.

Three individuals from Lviv University's economics department and two from WSU's School of Business helped develop the curriculum program. A secondary result has been the translation of a text on banking and finance, "Finance in Banking" by Frederick Myshkin, considered by many the best available in English and the first such text available in Ukrainian.

Another program WSU's efforts have spawned is inclusion of students from the Lviv consortium in the NAFSA-REAP program, a government-sponsored program that gives students up to $10,000 for travel, housing and living expenses per year to study in America. The students must show academic achievement and proficiency in English, and the participating university or a benefactor must agree to match the stipend by covering the costs of tuition and books.

Currently, five students from the Lviv consortium are taking advantage of the opportunity at WSU, where they should finish with M.B.A.'s before returning to Ukraine. WSU covered the costs for two, and Mr. Malynowsky took care of tuition and books for the other three," explained Ms. Andrushkiw.

"It's one more drop into the critical mass of people coming from Ukraine to experience a different life," explained Ms. Andrushkiw, "then going back to help change things there."

She said she does not worry that students are the opportunities provided by WSU to immigrate to the U.S. and underscored that merely six of the 120 students who have passed through the internship program did not return to Ukraine. "I think it is important that we do not begrudge these people, as some do, the opportunity to see a different world and return there to help implement change."

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