4 minute read
with Ukraine
COLLABORATE Nanovic in Solidarity with Ukraine
Shoulder-to-Shoulder with Our Friends in Lviv
Students from the Ukraine Society of Notre Dame listen to Rev. Fr. Andrij Hlabse, S.J. during a prayer vigil for peace in Ukraine at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Archbishop Gudziak giving his address at Notre Dame’s 2022 commencement ceremony. Graduating students waved Ukrainian flags. For the Nanovic Institute, Ukraine has a human face. As a member of the Catholic Universities Partnership since 2003, the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv has emerged as one of the Nanovic Institute’s, and indeed the University of Notre Dame’s, firmest friends in Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2006, Nanovic has hosted 22 visiting scholars from UCU, including 18 university leaders who have completed the Catholic Leadership Program, held in collaboration with the Mendoza College of Business. These Ukrainians are the Institute’s colleagues and friends.
When the Russian army invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Nanovic Institute responded to this violation of the lives and sovereignty of the Ukrainian people with solidarity and a commitment to providing a platform for substantive dialogue and the sharing of reliable information. In the context of Russia’s growing threat against its southern neighbor and the opportunities for virtual conferencing that the pandemic era has afforded, the Institute had organized flash panels on the crisis before late February. On the very day of the invasion, Nanovic organized an urgent virtual flash panel of experts, tapping into the deep pool of Russian, international relations, and political science scholars that work at Notre Dame. The panel gave immediate responses to the outbreak of war reaching an international audience of several hundred.
This panel was the first of five previously unplanned panels (and a total of 13 events) that were organized or co-sponsored by Nanovic over the course of the spring semester and dealt with various dimensions of the crisis in Ukraine including the problem of Russian propaganda, global perspectives on the war, and the future of Russian and Eastern European studies. In April, the institute brought the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist, Polish-American Anne Applebaum to campus for a special Nanovic Forum (see p.18). The Institute also created an information and resources page on its website as a platform for the perspectives and information shared by colleagues and former visiting scholars from UCU.
The Nanovic Institute has been central to the broader Notre Dame response to the war in Ukraine, on campus and beyond. Nanovic has helped to amplify on-campus events and programs focused on understanding the crisis and showing solidarity, including those organized by the Notre Dame Ukraine Society student club. Nanovic leadership also helped craft the expansion of Notre Dame’s existing partnership with UCU, a new agreement that builds upon the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both universities in 2019 and which significantly expands this existing academic, religious, and cultural partnership.
The war in Ukraine has remained central to much of the Institute’s programming over the summer months. Discussion and dialogue at both the CUP 2022 summer conference hosted by Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani University in Tbilisi, Georgia and the leadership program at the Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway focused on resilience and recovery in higher education, with particular attention to the evolving situation in Ukraine. The Institute also worked with the Catholic University of Croatia, a core CUP member, to bring students from UCU and other CUP institutions to the beautiful Adriatic city of Dubrovnik for a summer school titled “Practicing Resilience, Preparing for Recovery.”
In his address at Notre Dame’s 2022 commencement ceremony, Ukrainian Metropolitan-Archbishop and President of UCU Borys Gudziak said “Notre Dame has offered a singular response to the Russian invasion and devastation of Ukraine. My presence reflects your heartfelt solidarity. It is a sign of your capacity to love generously, to embrace, to serve, and save the suffering, to bless the cursed and lift up the downtrodden and trampled. A friendship launched by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and Jim McAdams 18 years ago is being continued by the present director of the Nanovic Institute Clemens Sedmak and his wonderful team.” As the war continues, the Nanovic Institute remains committed to showing solidarity for its friends in Ukraine, highlighting their suffering and struggle for freedom, and helping to forge a path toward peace and rebuilding. ◆
“Notre Dame has offered a singular response to the Russian invasion and devastation of Ukraine. It is a sign of your capacity to love generously, to embrace, to serve, and save the suffering.” — Borys Gudziak, Ukrainian Metropolitan-Archbishop and President of UCU
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: The Hesburgh Library Word of Life Mural is lit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag in solidarity with the people of Ukraine; Notre Dame community members and exchange students from Ukraine walk to the Grotto during Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations on August 24; Father Andrij Hlabse, S.J., a theology Ph.D. candidate and Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic priest, presides at the prayer vigil for peace in Ukraine in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on February 28; Maryna Chuma ’23 speaks at the studentorganized gathering outside the Notre Dame Main Building on March 3.
