“Freedom of
Speech” Finds its Course Through Kyiv Mohyla Academy – Kvit
The New Pathway’s John
Pidkowich conducted a brief interview in Ukrainian with Dr. Serhiy Kvit,
President of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, in Toronto during a recent speaking tour
of Southern Ontario. The following excerpts are based on the theme of Dr.
Kvit’s talk, titled “Freedom of Speech in Contemporary Ukraine”. The tour was
co-sponsored by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Canada and the Canada Ukraine
Foundation.
John Pidkowich: How
does the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) receive its
accreditation and where is it recognized?
Serhiy
Kvit: I think that maybe there is a difference in our
understanding of accreditation… The Kyiv Mohyla Academy is a “National”
university which means that it is a “State” university. We also have the high
status of being a research university, which places the Kyiv Mohyla Academy in
a leadership position among all universities in Ukraine. The State (Ministry of
Education) has granted us accreditation not only as a national university, but
of the 4th degree, the highest level of accreditation possible. In
our Graduate School, we have 8 PhD programs, esteemed valuable according to
Western standards. This is what sets us apart from other universities in
Ukraine as no other has a PhD program. However, the State does not understand,
hence, not recognize our PhD programs.
We
work around this situation by having the agreements with Western European and
North American universities and work with them under the cotutelle
system, a full structured PhD program through which each of our doctoral
students has two co-supervisors, one from our University and one from a Western
university partner. Each PhD student is required spend some time at the
partnering university, publish his or her work for peer review, and then successfully
defend the doctoral dissertation at a joint session. In the end, our PhD
candidate can obtain a doctoral level diploma from both universities. At
least in this manner, our Western university partners recognize our PhD
programs.
JP:
Is NaUKMA a democratic institution and how does it operate?
SK:
The Kyiv Mohyla Academy during the Orange Revolution started (student)
political strikes, housed press centres and revolution headquarter operations.
Since the election of Viktor Yanukovych as President in 2010 and his Party of
Regions coming to power, our students have been organizing and leading public
protests against the government, particularly Education Minister Dmytro
Tabachnyk’s pro-Russian and pro-Communist initiatives. Four times, our students
have been successful in not allowing Minister Tabachnyk’s draft reach the
Verkhovna Rada for consideration. In fact, alternative legislative proposals
for education reforms have come from the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
The
Kyiv Mohyla Academy is governed by an independent tribunal and if anyone wishes
to organize some activity to be taken seriously in Ukraine, we are approached.
For example, Kyiv Mohyla Academy was a co-organiser of “Stop Censorship”, a
journalist and society action group… Another “people’s movement” or rukh
called “Chesno” or “with integrity” was organized to examine all details and
nuances about information concerning election activities and results.
Also
of significance was that during the past academic year, on average, there were
17 daily media references made about the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
JP:
Please describe the academic freedoms at NaUKMA i.e. in publishing ideas or
expressing freedom of thought?
SK:
The Kyiv Mohyla Academy not only operates as a democratic institution, but will
take a public stand on important issues. For example, when our President
(Yanukovych) denied that the Holodomor occurred, the Kyiv Mohyla Academy
implemented its (“political”) strategy of research, publishing, and raising
public interest in this Famine Genocide.
We
have 30 research academic centres, 4 art galleries, 6 theatres and around 30
student organizations – academic, sport and recreation, even a student media
group. All together, students have the opportunity to fully self-realise
themselves as they wish. All these activities are built on trust. For example,
an academic centre organizes some event without the need for permission from a
director or some “head”, but works and functions to fit and meet its needs.
There is full freedom and a highly decentralised administration in that every
department or kafedra operates under its own set of policies applied to
external and financial activities. This structure leads to the ideas of
university autonomy.
PHOTO
Dr. Serhiy Kvit, President of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy