Rejoining the World

Of all the things I do here, what makes me proudest and gives me most joy is my teaching the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, which just celebrated the 385th anniversary of its founding. The oldest institution of higher education in this part of the world, it had the good fortune to be closed in the nineteenth century and could be revived from nothing after Ukraine became independent. This made it possible to build something new without the deadwood other universities inherited from the Soviet period. The Ukrainian diaspora, especially those with academic positions like my old friend Jaroslaw Rozumnyj helped tremendously. And it has been worth it. Higher education, like just about everything else in this country, has suffered devastating degradation. Most universities inherited from the Soviet period have become corrupt, and disciplines like political science and economics are all too often taught by people who really have not the faintest notion of how those disciplines are practiced in the West. I shudder to think what kind of pap they are feeding their students.

Kiev-Mohyla is different. There is no corruption. Students are admitted on a strictly competitive basis and are taught by the best scholars that can be found in this country. Everyone has to know both Ukrainian and English, which means that Western scholarly literature can be assigned to the students, literature without which it is simply impossible to get up to speed with world intellectual discourse. And this makes it possible for the young men and women now in the classroom to earn degrees worth far more than a piece of paper; they are getting the tools necessary to understand the tremendous problems facing this country, problems that are not likely to get better anytime soon. My students are truly the best and the brightest this country has to offer, and I try to teach them not only facts but how to think independently and analyze problems for themselves. All of us who teach have our own philosophies of education. Mine is to try to empower my students intellectually. Some have already achieved a certain prominence. It makes me proud that my students will be among those who will try to turn this country, now being run into the ground by incompetent leadership, around. This is my contribution to Ukraine’s future, my students. There is no greater good I can do for this land.