At NKU, helping Ukraine is all part of a higher education experience
Taken together, the scenes from Ukraine of destruction, of families torn apart and of tanks rolling into cities send a message about democracy and stable economies in the world: In an instant, all can change.
The tumult underscores a responsibility of higher education: We can ill-afford to graduate students unfamiliar with the international landscape. Our democracy, and the world’s democracies, need us.
Try to imagine the wicked problems of 2022 in isolation from the world. You cannot. Gas prices represent a ready example and COVID-19 another. Add climate change to the list, along with terrorism, immigration, health care, food, clean water, the tech revolution, energy. No issue is ours alone nor are the solutions.
Northern Kentucky University is intentional in internationalizing the educational experience. Students can study abroad. They also can sit in their classroom beside fellow students from one of the 58 different countries represented at NKU. Guest artists and lecturers from around the world teach courses. Our experiential philanthropy classes often invest in international needs.
Partnerships with international universities connect our classrooms to theirs. Informatics students have put digital tools to use for joint projects with students at Nanzan University in Japan. A new agreement is in the works with Georgia, a country that – like Ukraine – spent much of the 20th century under Soviet rule. Students there will be able to earn an NKU graduate degree in cybersecurity, a subject ever more urgent with Putin unleashed.
Our universities can help in other ways, too. NKU recently provided transition housing to Afghan evacuees, demonstrating how campuses can become a refuge for people in crisis from natural disasters or global displacement.
At this moment, as we see our best selves in Ukraine’s people and their determination to be free, we are looking to strengthen our bonds to them.
We are connected already by our students, alumni, faculty and staff of Ukrainian heritage. Three of them spoke recently on a panel on campus. Fighting back tears, they described the agony of talking with family members trapped in a nation at war. But they also conveyed resilience. It is not, they said, a question of whether Ukraine will defeat Russia, but when. They spoke, too, of the warmth of the Ukrainian people, of their love of bright colors – and of their love of music.
A day later, we hosted a benefit concert by two magnificent musicians, Anna and Dmitri Shelest. Now married, they met as music students in Ukraine, then came to NKU, graduating in 2005 and afterward establishing themselves as solo artists in New York City. In performances together playing four hands piano, they have drawn critical attention, including for their 2018 album, “Ukrainian Rhapsody.”
To hear them play is to hear the grace of their fingers moving through the lightest of movements and melody, and then into fiery, fast flurries. Taken in the context of current events, the music evokes images of war and peace, degradation and hope.
The event also connected some of our current students to the music of Ukraine. The concert opened with the NKU Student String Quintet performing the Ukrainian national anthem and closed with the 15-member NKU Chamber Choir singing a Ukrainian prayer. In between, student Maddie Pittman played violin, accompanying Anna for “Melody” by Myroslav Skoryk, one of Ukraine’s most beloved composers.
We hope, as a university, to contribute to the immediate needs in Ukraine. The Shelests’ performance raised $20,000 to support Ukrainian refugees. Beyond the money, we also want to send a message that we stand with democracy and the obligation to protect it against tyranny.
In 1963 when President John F. Kennedy went to the Berlin Wall in solidarity with Germans against Soviet repression, he famously said, “Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’” Perhaps today the proudest boast is, “Я українець” or, in the letters of our alphabet, “Ya Ukrayinets – I am Ukrainian.”
Ashish Vaidya is the president of Northern Kentucky University, Francois Le Roy is the executive director, NKU’s Center for Global Engagement & International Affairs, and Mark Neikirk is executive director of NKU’s Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement.
This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 9:52 AM.