Harvard University hosts annual Ukrainian Summer Institute (05/04/97)

Harvard University hosts annual Ukrainian Summer Institute

by Patricia A. Coatsworth

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Though originally designed for Americans and other English speakers, the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI) has been bringing students from Ukraine ever since 1990. This year will bring a record 13 students from Ukraine.

As in the past, students will also be coming from other countries. So far, there will be men and women from the London School of Economics, the Austrian Defense Ministry, the University of Iceland and the University of Warsaw. All of them will be at Cambridge during the HUSI program that runs from June 23 to August 15.

The Ukrainian students will come to Harvard as recipients of scholarships awarded by the International Renaissance Foundation, the Ukrainian American Professionals and Businesspersons Association of New York and New Jersey, as well as private donors and the Ukrainian Studies Fund.

The introduction of a new language course, "Advanced Ukrainian for Business," will make this year's program more appealing to those Americans and other non-Ukrainians who see career opportunities in professional ties with Ukraine. The advanced language course, taught by Vera Andrushkiw, who will serve as Summer Institute director, will focus on business and contractual forms used in Ukraine today along with various business investment terms and problems within the general political and economic context of contemporary Ukraine. The institute received special funding from the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Department of Education to make this course possible.

Bohdan Krawchenko, vice-rector, Academy of Public Administration, Office of the President of Ukraine, will offer a graduate course on "State and Society in Contemporary Ukraine." Dr. Krawchenko, formerly director of the CIUS, is the author of a standard work on 20th century Ukraine, "Social Change and National Consciousness in 20th Century Ukraine" (1985). Though primarily for graduate students, qualified undergraduates will be admitted by special permission.

Natalia Shostak and Yuri Shevchuk, both seasoned instructors of language courses at Harvard, will teach the beginning and intermediate language classes. Students will receive eight credit units for each language course and four credits for each of the other courses they take.

Modern Ukrainian history will be taught by Prof. Roman Szporluk, Mykhailo S. Hrushevskyj Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute.

Solomea Pavlychko, senior scholar at the Institute of Literature at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, will offer a course on 20th century Ukrainian literature in which she will focus also on the works and themes previously neglected in general surveys.

Dr. James Clem, associate of the Ukrainian Research Institute and visiting assistant professor at the College of the Holy Cross will be teaching "Ukrainian Politics in Transition," which will analyze the process of democratic state-building in post-communist Ukraine.

The HUSI program also includes special seminars, cultural programs and social events. This year Virlana Tkach will lead the annual theater workshop, and roundtable discussion on U.S. media treatment of Ukraine will be held featuring media figures who have been both supportive and critical of Ukraine's treatment in the U.S. press.

The deadline for enrollment in the program is June 1. In addition to transferable college credits, all graduates will receive a special certificate from the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute at the conclusion of the intensive eight-week program. For more information and enrollment forms, contact: Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, 1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; phone, (617) 495-7833; fax, (617) 495-8097; e-mail, [email protected]; web site: http://www.sabre.or/huri/summer.html

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