Ukrainian Free University is accredited by Ukraine

MUNICH - Dr. Leonid Rudnytzky, acting rector of the Ukrainian Free University (UFU), and Dr. Volodymyr Machulin, president of the High Accreditation Commission (VAK - Vyscha Atesttsciyna Komisia), the official agency that accredits institutions of higher learning in Ukraine, signed an agreement that de facto and de jure fully validates all academic degrees of the UFU.

The agreement was brokered by Dr. Anatolii Pohribny, dean of the Faculty of Ukrainian Studies at the UFU and Head of the Ukrainian Writers Union. The signing of the document on May 21 was a culmination of a five-year process of negotiations between the two institutions. Although the UFU was officially recognized by Ukraine's Ministry of Education as early as November 12, 1992, the VAK had refused to confirm the validity of the University's degrees until now.

The agreement is of great importance for the future of UFU. It will enable qualified graduate students from Ukraine to obtain their academic degrees at the UFU and to make use of the rights and privileges inherent in them, without additional examinations and bureaucratic requirements.

"Inasmuch as some 75 percent of all Ukrainian Free University master's and Ph.D. candidates hail from Ukraine, the importance of the agreement cannot be overestimated. This is especially good news for the numerous UFU graduates who are already occupying various academic positions in Ukraine," noted Dr. Rudnytzky.

The agreement has an even more far-reaching significance, however. "It strengthtens and enhances the role and function of the UFU as a graduate institution of higher learning and as a connective link between Western Europe and Ukraine," Dr. Rudnytzky pointed out. In addition, it integrates the UFU into the Ukrainian academic world.

Thus, the Ukrainian Free University, a university in exile that was founded in 1921 in Vienna and moved later the very same year to Prague, has now been legally admitted into the academic fold of its native country.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 25, 2004, No. 30, Vol. LXXII

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