NEWS AND VIEWS
SUSTA's 50th anniversary soon to be commemorated
by Andrij W. Chornodolsky
In July 1952 the preliminary steps toward the formation of the Federation of Ukrainian Student Organizations (SUSTA) began with an initial organizing meeting held at the time of the UCCA convention in New York City. The 40 attending students set in motion the organizing process, which was primarily entrusted to the student "hromada" in Cleveland. In August of that year a joint meeting of the Cleveland and New York students clubs laid the foundation for the November forum that created an interim secretariat responsible for organizing the founding congress.
That congress was held at Columbia University in April of 1953 with of 68 delegates representing 22 Ukrainian student clubs attending. The total membership of Ukrainian students at that time was 654 at 50 universities and colleges. The first Congress elected an 11-member executive board that was headed by Eleonora Kulchycka as president.
The congress declared that it was continuing the spirit of the First All Ukrainian Student Congess held in Lviv 45 years earlier and that its purpose was to "ensure academic freedom and student rights and obligations, to represent individual student interests and nurture academic life, ... for building better organizational forums for Ukrainian students outside of Ukraine." For many decades SUSTA was in the forefront of national and human rights activism in the United States. It was an integral part of the political and social life of our community.
From the time of its founding, SUSTA's ranks have included hundreds of Ukrainian Americans in leadership capacities and thousands of members in its student clubs.
As SUSTA's 50th anniversary approaches, an ad-hoc committee is being formed to prepare a reunion weekend/conference to be held in April of 2003. Any persons having an interest in joining the preparation committee are asked to contact: achorno@aol.com. or write to SUSTA 50th Commemoration, 655 Budleigh Circle, Timonium, MD 21093.
A working group planning meeting is slated to be held at Soyuzivka in November. Watch out for further notices.
Andrij W. Chornodolsky is an alumnus of SUSTA.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, September 22, 2002, No. 38, Vol. LXX
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