LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (09/28/97)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

More on successes of USA/USA efforts

Dear Editor:

I wish to thank The Ukrainian Weekly for its very generous article on the USA/USA program. It is a tribute to the students who keep it going from year to year. This article and the accompanying editorial take our program to a higher level of visibility and thus responsibility. So I would like to make a few additional points.

First, our students come from all regions of Ukraine. This year we had students from 18 cities in Ukraine from Chernihiv to Kerch, and from Lviv to Alchevsk in the Luhansk Oblast. Only two came from Kyiv. Entry into our program is based on merit alone. (Our average pre-TOEFL score this year was 610.) Very few of our seminar participants come from privileged backgrounds; none of our scholarship winners do. (It is simply too much work for a student with an easier path ahead of him.) I estimate that about 50 percent of our students here help support their parents back home. Most of our seminar participants and scholarship winners are women. So we are developing a woman-dominated leadership group - something that institutions of higher learning in Ukraine have not yet been able to do. We also have very bright and non-chauvinistic young men.

Our students are pursuing studies in a variety of fields, from art history to economics, and from astronomy to biochemistry. They are broadening the idea of what it means to be Ukrainian. We are not promoting a brain drain. Rather we are adding value and skills to some of the brightest young talent Ukraine has to offer.

The students mentioned in the article, Yuliya Komska and Yaroslava Babych, go to Colby College and Franklin and Marshall, respectively. Our other students go to Yale, Brown, Stanford, Grinnell, Middlebury, Lafayette, Smith and Mt. Holyoke. So I wish to acknowledge these colleges also for their generosity and investment in Ukrainian talent. These schools, and many others, have funds dedicated to international students, thus our students do not compete for scholarship funds dedicated to American students. In addition, these colleges have, in some cases, even paid for years abroad for our students. As a result, in 1997 three of our students will spend at least a semester at the Sorbonne, on the London campus of Grinnell College and at the University of Mainz in Germany.

I do not want to take credit for the success of Alexander Ponomarenko. We were able to help (thanks to a contribution by E.T. Mallyck of Myrtle Beach, S.C.) Mr. Ponomarenko to the tune of $300 when he was at Cornell. But this dynamic young man raised close to $50,000 in loans (through bonds in his own recognizance) to pay for his tuition, room and board at Cornell. Likewise, our students here must work to pay for their books and all activities relating to Ukraine.

I also seek to network and assist the 30 other equally capable full scholarship students from Ukraine who are at many of the same colleges our students attend. With better funding we could serve all these students better and expand our program.

The newly forming Ukrainian Foreign University Alumni Association based in Kyiv is taking the lead in reintegrating students from Ukraine who ventured to study abroad. Over 100 students have already returned, mostly from America, and have joined this organization. Their address is: 52b vul. Bohdana Khmelnytskoho, Room 413, Kyiv, Ukraine; telephone, 044-224-7975. Their e-mail address is [email protected]; their home page is www.yale.edu/rees/tmp/uaa.html.

I am very grateful to Shop-Vac for providing funds for this year's seminar. But this was a one-time grant. Ultimately, the burden of educating its young will fall upon the shoulders of the Ukrainian community. This program can survive indefinitely on about $10,000 per year. We have already earned $1.4 million in scholarships, which we are utilizing. So we represent a very good return on the diaspora's investment. I underline that we are an investment and not a charity. No country offers as many opportunities to international students as the U.S.

For those disillusioned with events in Ukraine since independence, this program provides a new beginning and new hope. The diaspora literally has the opportunity to mentor the future leaders of Ukraine right here in its own comfortable backyard called America. For many of the students in the program this is their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize their dreams, and talents. Without their dreams Ukraine will not develop normally. History has shown that students educated abroad become highly influential upon their return home.

Our organization is not affiliated with Columbia University (as some may think) and our complete address is USA/USA, P.O. Box 250093, Columbia University Station, New York, NY 10025-1531. Since we have 501(c)3 status, contributions to our program are fully tax-deductible.

Bohdan Oryshkevich
New York

Consider what we are concerned about

Dear Editor:

I find reading The Weekly fascinating, yet sometimes perplexing. I am at times astonished about what grabs the interest of readers and what doesn't. Perhaps this indicates the state of our community, or perhaps we have yet to understand what is truly important and what isn't.

The original editorial by The Weekly criticizing the New York City event for President Leonid Kuchma was an interesting perspective. I also found Askold Lozynskyj's response interesting. What I didn't expect is the number of people grabbing this issue and running with it. Why?

The most recent response by my friend Myron Kuropas prompts me to address the issue. One can disagree and state why, but Dr. Kuropas is wrong when he states that employees of The Weekly are paid by the UNA, not by the community. Essentially who supports the UNA, the community does. Who pays the insurance premiums, the government? Some foundation? No, it's the members of the community.

What I found perplexing is the shift from Mr. Lozynskyj's letter to 1980? I don't see the connection of the letter to Valentyn Moroz. Is the real issue the convention of 1980 and not the recent letter? Sounds like it.

Yet, when issues are addressed that are crucial to our community are discussed, very few letters are seen in The Weekly. There doesn't appear to be concern by the readers about the decreasing use of Ukrainian in the Ukrainian military, no apparent concern about the elimination of Ukrainian at the U.S. military language institute.

In the same issue, The Weekly asks, "Can we talk?" Yes, the importance and survival of our communities far outweighs a meeting with President Kuchma which in the final analysis will mean very little in our lives.

Roman G. Golash
Schaumburg, Ill.

| Home Page |