Ukrainian Studies Fund announces campaign for new center at Columbia (10/13/02)

Ukrainian Studies Fund announces campaign for new center at Columbia

by Andrei Harasymiak

CAMBRIDGE - The Ukrainian Studies Fund Inc. (USF) has inaugurated a capital campaign to fund a new center for Ukrainian studies at Columbia University in New York City. Details of the drive were described in the most recent USF newsletter.

The USF was founded in 1957 by students of the Ukrainian diaspora and has as its mission advancing knowledge about Ukraine in the United States and Canada. The USF accomplishes its mission by establishing and funding centers of Ukrainian studies in North American universities. Its founder and president for 44 years, the late Stephan Chemych of New York, was successful in gaining wide community support for USF fund drives. As a result, the USF successfully endowed three chairs in Ukrainian studies at Harvard University in 1968 (in Ukrainian history, literature and philology) and in 1973 established the general endowed fund of the newly created Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Harvard's success in promoting university-level teaching and research of Ukraine has now created an unique opportunity for the expansion of Ukrainian studies to other premier U.S. academic institutions, and this is exactly what the USF is currently initiating.

Many considerations were factored into the selection of Columbia University as the site for a new Ukrainian Studies Center. Columbia is a prestigious and influential U.S. university. Students from Ukrainian communities who study at Columbia and at nearby New York institutions will be able to participate in the new Ukrainian studies program and benefit from its offerings. Columbia has many other students who concentrate in East European studies in disciplines such as political science, history, journalism, business, law and diplomacy. The creation of an inter-disciplinary Ukrainian studies program at Columbia will help further integrate Ukrainian studies with these fields and provide future specialists with the necessary fundamentals on Ukraine.

Columbia University boasts a strong tradition in Slavic studies and maintains a solid library collection of Ucrainica. The impressive roster of Ukrainians who taught or studied at Columbia includes many well-known individuals who today are active in diverse fields.

Columbia has always demonstrated serious interest in Ukraine. It organized important conferences on Ukraine in the past, and offers courses in Ukrainian language and literature. It continues to supervise numerous research exchanges with scholars from Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Columbia also has two Ukrainian endowed funds: the Petro Jacyk Fund for Ukrainian Studies at the Harriman Institute (established in 1995), and the Volodymyr and Lidia Bazarko Fellowship (established in 1998), both of which will help expand the new Ukrainian studies program.

The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest Ukrainian community in North America and a Ukrainian Studies Center at Columbia will help link the university and the Ukrainian community. The city's Ukrainian academic institutions will surely benefit from closer ties with the university, and Columbia's students will be able to access these scholarly institutions' resources and participate in community cultural events.

Many new opportunities for promoting understanding of Ukrainian history and culture will arise. The university attracts scholars from all over the world, including Ukraine. Columbia is often host to United Nations diplomats, government officials, businesspersons and artists who visit New York frequently. A thriving Ukrainian studies program at Columbia will provide Ukrainian specialists and students with access to important constituencies and opportunities to disseminate information about Ukraine among these influential audiences.

The Ukrainian Studies Center will work within the framework of the Harriman Institute and the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University, where the majority of students interested in East European studies enroll. The Harriman Institute, in particular, is at the forefront of research on Europe and Asia, nationalities studies, and particularly contemporary Ukraine. Such notable statespersons as Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Dr. Madeleine K. Albright have worked at the Harriman Institute.

Prof. Mark von Hagen, who was elected president of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies for the 2002-2005 term this past August at the association's Congress in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, teaches at the Harriman Institute and is its former director.

Columbia's Ukrainian studies program will focus primarily on teaching. The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and various Canadian centers already have established active research and publishing programs, thus duplication of these activities would not be a priority at Columbia. Senior staff and professors at Harvard concur that a strong teaching program at Columbia will complement their program in Ukrainian studies and create opportunities for collaborations. Canadian scholars equally praise such an initiative.

Professors at Columbia University have said they foresee the need for a sound Ukrainian Studies Center infrastructure that will be effective in developing a broad inter-disciplinary program. Their plan calls for the participation of scholars from various fields and disciplines; a system of scholarships and stipends for undergraduate and graduate students; sustained growth of the Ucrainica collection and new bibliographic work; organization of conferences and seminars; and greater coordination of academic activities, especially in accommodating visiting scholars of various exchange programs with Columbia.

This broad infrastructure is envisioned to evolve in stages, based in large part on the success of fund drives. A planned endowment fund of $5 million is to become the prime funding source for the center's programs.

The first step in establishing the Ukrainian Studies Center is focused on the establishment of a new teaching position at Columbia in Ukrainian history. Such a historian-specialist will best be able to draw on student interest about Ukraine and expand course offerings in the Ukrainian area. The USF's goal is to raise $1 million of capital within a year since this amount will be sufficient to initiate and sustain the teaching position in Ukrainian history.

The USF's latest Ukrainian-language newsletter, Obizhnyi Lystok Fondu Katedr Ukrainoznavstva (No. 168, fall 2002), provides further details on the fund drive. It is available free from: Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; telephone, (617) 495-7833. Donations for the "Columbia Project" (checks should be made out to the "Ukrainian Studies Fund") may be sent to the USF Cambridge office.

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