Ukrainian Studies Fund raises $750,000 for Columbia's inter-disciplinary program (10/12/03)

Ukrainian Studies Fund raises $750,000 for Columbia's inter-disciplinary program

by Andrew Nynka

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - The goal of establishing a permanent program of inter-disciplinary Ukrainian studies at Columbia University took a major step forward recently as officials at the Ukrainian Studies Fund (USF) announced that funding for the project had reached $750,000.

"I'm of course elated and grateful to the Ukrainian community for its generosity and its vote of confidence in our Columbia efforts to rebuild Ukrainian studies here," said Dr. Mark von Hagen, a professor of history at the university.

The sum of $750,000 - the first part of what is hoped will be a larger endowment - will support a course on 20th century Ukrainian history that will be taught by Dr. von Hagen and Dr. Frank Sysyn of the University of Toronto. The course - the first beneficiary of the USF's Columbia University Project - will be offered in the spring of 2004.

In addition to the current funding, faculty at the university and officials at the USF are hoping to raise a total of $5 million in order to endow a larger program of Ukrainian studies at the Ivy League school.

Such a vision, Dr. von Hagen said, would include funding a visiting professor of history every other year, establishing a position in Ukrainian language teaching, and endowing a permanent chair that might move between the history and Slavic language departments.

Both Columbia University and the USF have also said that additional funding could support a position at the school that would be responsible for archiving, processing and expanding the university library's Ukrainian materials.

There is interest also in supporting visiting scholars from American and foreign schools who would use the university's Ucrainica collection for research purposes.

Additionally, the USF and Columbia University hope to create a system of scholarships and stipends for undergraduate and graduate students whose work would involve Ukrainian studies. Dr. von Hagen said that teaching and research would be paramount in Columbia's Ukrainian Studies Program, although it might occasionally be used to publish Ukrainian material.

In addition to the planned Ukrainian history course, Columbia University offers a course on Ukrainian literature, taught by Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, called "The Ukrainian Cultural Renaissance, 1917-1934." Dr. Chernetsky's course is offered through the department of Slavic languages, which also provides elementary and intermediate Ukrainian language courses. An advanced Ukrainian language course is planned for the spring of 2004.

The university is also planning a series of lectures, seminars and conferences focusing on Ukraine during the course of the 2003-2004 academic year. In cooperation with Columbia's Harriman Institute, the university's School of International and Public Affairs has regularly brought Ukrainian politicians and diplomats to speak at the university and has a tradition of focusing on Eastern Europe. Dr. von Hagen said that endowing a Ukrainian Studies Program at the school is a logical next step.

An initial donation of $250,000 from the Self Reliance (New York) Federal Credit Union makes up the bulk of the current endowment for the Ukrainian program. Since that donation was announced in The Ukrainian Weekly on April 6 the endowment has received $25,000 each from the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh), the Heritage Foundation of First Security Federal Savings Bank of Chicago and an anonymous donor. The endowment also received a gift of $7,500 from Ivan Stebelskyi, formerly of Colorado and now a resident of Sambir, Ukraine.

As part of its gift, NTSh also said it will donate $25,000 a year for the next five years. That news, university officials said, meant that they would allow the course to take place in the spring of 2004 even though an original agreement between Columbia University and the USF stipulated that such a course could only proceed once the sum of $1 million was collected.

The Ukrainian Studies Fund was founded in 1957 by students of the Ukrainian diaspora and has as its mission the advancement of knowledge about Ukraine in the United States and Canada through the establishment and funding of centers of Ukrainian studies at North American universities.

The USF successfully endowed three chairs in Ukrainian studies at Harvard University in 1968 (Ukrainian history, literature and philology) and in 1973 established the general endowed fund of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Donations for the USF's Columbia Project may be sent to the USF Cambridge office at: Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138. Checks should be made out to the Ukrainian Studies Fund.

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