LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Re: Roman Zvarych teaching at NYU (05/08/05)

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re: Roman Zvarych teaching at NYU

The following letter to the editor was submitted to The Ukrainian Weekly on Wednesday, May 4. Different versions of this letter have appeared elsewhere, including in Ukrayinska Pravda, and have been circulated on the Internet and via e-mail. We publish it in this week's issue after having confirmed on May 4 with the author that he wished it to be published also in our newspaper.

Dear Editor:

I understand that there has been some controversy in Ukraine over the academic background of Roman Zwarycz [editor's note: now known as Zvarych], who is now the minister of justice in Ukraine. As a former colleague of his at New York University, I am writing to confirm that he taught interdisciplinary courses (combining philosophy, history and political theory) at NYU in the mid- to late 1980s and that he had a reputation as a very talented and popular instructor.

Prof. Zwarycz taught in the General Studies Program of New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies; at the time when Prof. Zwarycz was here I was also an adjunct member of the same faculty and he and I taught in the same sequence of courses; I am currently a Master Teacher and director of Academic Advisement and Student Services for the General Studies Program at New York University.

Prof. Zwarycz taught on an "adjunct" (part-time) basis, his title would have been adjunct lecturer, and as a faculty member he would have been addressed as Prof. Zwarycz by his students. He taught in the interdisciplinary sequence of courses known at the time (we have since revised our curriculum) as "Individual and Society" which was a four-part sequence, organized chronologically from ancient to modern times, and based on the Great Books of the Western tradition. It was an exciting curriculum and I remember Prof. Zwarycz as having been an accomplished instructor and very popular among his students.

As for credentials, it is my recollection that he had an M.Phil. degree from Columbia University, but if this requires confirmation, that confirmation will have to come from the Registrar of Columbia University. It would have been typical at the time for instructors in our programs to have master's degrees, many of our adjuncts already had Ph.D. degrees, but some were in the advanced stages of completing Ph.D. degrees (I received my own Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1985, but I began teaching here in 1984 with the M.Phil. degree, which represents completion of all coursework toward a doctorate, but the dissertation not yet complete). It was my assumption that Roman already had his master's degree, although this may not have been the case, and I do not know if he completed a doctoral degree or not.

The Great Books program in which he taught required students to read Plato's "Republic," Aristotle's "Politics," St. Augustine's "City of God," Machiavelli's "The Prince," Thomas More's "Utopia," the political trilogy of Hobbes' "Leviathan," Locke's "Second Treatise," and Rousseau's "Social Contract," John Stuart Mills' "On Liberty," and Marx and Engels' "Communist Manifesto." It was a very rich curriculum, both for students and for those of us who taught it; freshman and sophomore students engaged directly with the great ideas of the Western political tradition (no textbooks were used), and faculty were expected to allow students to read the books, ponder the ideas, and argue the merits of the different political ideas and systems. Those who took those courses, and those who taught them, had an excellent educational experience.

I well remember Prof. Zwarycz as a good example of an instructor who inspired his students to study the great ideas of the Western political tradition and it is particularly gratifying to me to know that your country's Ministry of Justice is in the capable hands of any official with such a deep understanding of that tradition.

Ronald Rainey, Ph.D.
New York

More letters appear on pages 8-9.

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