National University of Ostroh Academy: a Ukrainian diaspora success story

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

OSTROH, Ukraine - Few diaspora projects in Ukraine have been as successful as the investment Americans and Canadians have made in the National University of Ostroh Academy.

Its 270,000-square-foot campus is among the most attractive in Ukraine, and its 2,500 students receive a liberal arts education that competes with the curricula offered at universities in Kyiv or Lviv.

When becoming rector in 1994, Dr. Ihor Pasichnyk was surprised to see one of Ukraine's most historic sites had deteriorated from Soviet neglect.

"It was a ruin in the full understanding of the word, and nobody wanted to come work here," Dr. Pasichnyk said. "There wasn't a table, there wasn't a chair, there wasn't a book or a teacher. There was nothing."

In October, the National University at Ostroh Academy will open a three-story, 19,300-square-foot library that will house 370,000 books and hundreds of periodicals.

The first virtual library at a Ukrainian university will occupy the building's second floor, offering students access to a huge global database of research sources.

The cylindrical library complements cozy cottages, where about 50 teachers currently reside, as well as the renovated classrooms and halls in the 22,800-square-foot renovated main building originally constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries.

How Dr. Pasichnyk was able to rehabilitate the historic Ostroh Academy into a top-rate Ukrainian university in a matter of 12 years is an example of how the Ukrainian diaspora can have a significant, positive influence in Ukraine.

Leaders of the Ukrainian diaspora interested in reviving Ukraine's oldest institution of higher education established relations with Dr. Pasichnyk, who was recommended for the university's top post by Shevchenko Literature Institute Director Mykola Zhulynskyi and Viacheslav Briukhovetskyi, the rector of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

In 1996 Dr. Myron B. Kuropas launched exchange programs for Ostroh professors to study at Northern Illinois University. Soon after, Dr. Lubomyr Wynar of Kent State University initiated efforts to create a diaspora studies institute.

Since these initial contacts, diaspora contributions have played an integral role in the university's reconstruction and development, Dr. Pasichnyk said.

Although the National University of Ostroh Academy is a government institution, it receives minimal funding from the state that covers only salaries, utility bills and occasional improvements.

For example, the Ukrainian government provided $60,000 of the library's $1.2 million total cost, while the diaspora contributed about $200,000.

About 80 percent of the funding for the library came from diaspora sources - the majority of which was American, Dr. Pasichnyk said.

Since 1999, Dr. Kuropas has directed the Friends of the National University of Ostroh Academy, which is affiliated with the Ukrainian National Foundation (UNF) through which he helped raise $290,000 in the diaspora.

Dr. Pasichnyk estimates that the U.S. diaspora contributes about $50,000 annually through the Ukrainian National Association, the parent body of the UNF.

In addition, the UNA contributes at least $10,000 annually to a program enabling the university to recruit talented orphans or semi-orphaned children from villages into a preparatory program. The university houses, clothes, feeds and educates these students for a year to prepare them for their higher education.

The confidence placed in Dr. Pasichnyk by community leaders caused individual diaspora members to initiate their own projects.

Oleksander Mykhailiuk organized a fund to award 60 grants totaling $3,000 annually to Rivne high school graduates who come from low-income families, achieve good grades and demonstrate patriotic ideals.

The Dr. Volodymyr Kuz Fund, named in honor of the Canadian marathon runner, awards $50 annually to 20 new students who don't drink or smoke and consistently engage in sports.

American Natalia Danylenko has organized an annual competition in Ukrainian patriotism, "Honor the Past, Building the Future," that offers students significant awards.

However, Ostroh Academy isn't dependent on the diaspora and has developed other sources of income to finance its revival, Dr. Pasichnyk said.

Though he declined to reveal the university's annual budget, significant sources of revenue include foreign language courses and correspondence course tuition, he said.

Ukrainian patrons also have arisen.

When he was director of the National Bank of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko contributed to the university.

So did former Lviv Mayor Lubomyr Buniak, until his ouster last year.

"When we opened, no one believed that Ostroh Academy could be reborn," Dr. Pasichnyk said. "Lubomyr Buniak was one of the few people who believed."

Exchange programs have brought American professors to teach for a semester at the university, and 30 Ostroh students trade places with Canadian university students annually.

Not everything has been roses.

Dr. Kuropas managed to obtain a Eurasia Foundation grant enabling five Ostroh professors to study in the U.S. with the goal of establishing a Faculty of Educational Foundations at the university.

Four completed their master's degrees, but only three returned to Ukraine, Dr. Kuropas said. As a result, Ostroh Academy can no longer qualify for Eurasia grants, and possibly others, he said.

In addition to the library, the university is constructing a $500,000 lecture hall, Dr. Pasichnyk said.

It plans new residence halls because it now faces a housing shortage, given that the vast majority of students arrive from other Ukrainian cities to study.

This year Ostroh Academy is celebrating the 430th anniversary of its founding as the first institution of higher education not only in Ukraine, but all of Eastern Europe.

The festivities will also mark the 425th anniversary of the Ostroh Bible, the first published in a Slavic language, and the 450th anniversary of the Peresopnytska Gospel, the first text that resembles contemporary Ukrainian and contains the first documented reference to Ukraine.

Dr. Pasichnyk has invited President Yushchenko to unveil the new library in October and kick off the commemoration.

"Above all, we want these celebrations to have a wide resonance throughout Ukraine and to interest Ukrainian teachers and students to learn our history," Dr. Pasichnyk said. "The Ostroh princedom and the Ostroh Academy is the most glorious page of our history which, unfortunately, is largely unknown."

First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko, who recently visited Ostroh Academy to lead the "Honor the Past, Building the Future" contest, said the school is a center of spirituality, scholarship and tolerance.

Students asked whether she would want her children to attend the National University of Ostroh Academy.

"I would be proud if they studied here," Mrs. Yushchenko said. "But I know that for them to gain admission they would have to be well-prepared, and we still have to work another 10 years for our children to have the necessary knowledge."

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 11, 2006, No. 24, Vol. LXXIV

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