They teach Americans: how Ukrainian professors got into the best US universities

Photo: depositphotos

Several stages of the competition, perfect knowledge of English, many interviews and open lectures - Ukrainian teachers sometimes fought for several years for the coveted position in American colleges. Professors from Harvard, Columbia University and Hunter College told ForumDaily how they managed to get jobs in prestigious educational institutions in the United States and how teaching at American universities differs from what is customary at home.

Yuri Shevchuk, Columbia University: “My students fall in love with the Ukrainian language”

Columbia University Library. Photo: Depositphotos

He works in the most prestigious area of ​​New York - Manhattan, a few blocks from Central Park. Here, on 13 hectares, Columbia University is located, which is considered one of the best educational institutions in the world. Three US presidents, 9 Supreme Court judges, 29 Oscar winners graduated from this university.

Yuri Shevchuk here is the first teacher from Ukraine. For more than 10 years he falls in love with Americans in a difficult Ukrainian language, especially for them he wrote the book “Ukrainian for beginners”, organized a cinema club. At the same time, Yuri never studied a teacher of the Ukrainian language. “I have 2 specialties: I received one at Kiev University at the Faculty of Romance-Germanic Philology. In America, I took a political science course at the New School for Social Research University,” he says.

The professor became a Ukrainianist by accident. In the late 90s, friends invited him to visit the USA, and during the trip, Yuri stopped at Harvard, at the Ukrainian Research Institute. I stopped by to meet my overseas colleagues and look at the famous university. And he was immediately offered to teach Ukrainian at the Summer School - this is a special 2-month program, during which a student can take several academic courses and gain additional points.

“I immediately refused. Ukrainian is my native language, I speak and think in it, but I don’t know how to teach it. I am very good at teaching English and French, but not Ukrainian. And then I was presented with an argument that I could not resist. They told me: no one can do that. In Ukraine under the Soviet Union there was no specialty “Ukrainian as a foreign language,” Yuri continues.

Yuri decided that someone needed to start, and the following summer he returned to the United States with the appropriate visa to teach. Before this, I had been preparing for almost a year - how to present Ukrainian to the Americans, how to explain to them complex grammar and pronunciation.

“It was scary and associated with a lot of stress, because I had to study everything myself in a panic. To get to the bottom of everything and somehow predict my students’ questions,” recalls Yuri. He jokingly calls himself “an impostor from Ukrainian studies,” but his lectures were so successful that starting in 1990 he came to Harvard almost every summer. And in 2004, a position as a teacher of the Ukrainian language opened at Columbia University. “And I became so bold that I decided to go after her,” Yuri continues.

He sent documents for 2 the day before the deadline for filing and did not even hope for a positive response. He was just scheduled to leave, so for some time Yuri did not even check the answering machine. And when he returned, he was already awaited a message asking him to come for an interview at Columbia University. Yuri was in the short list of applicants for the position. Then he had to pass an interview and give an open lecture for students.

“I wasn’t worried because I was sure they wouldn’t take me. I just decided that I would do everything in my power to be honest with myself. And I remember very well that I was more worried about whether I would have time to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” he says.

He managed to get to the museum, and 2 days later they called him to inform him of the results of the interview. Usually candidates are considered for 2 weeks, but here the decision was unanimous, and Yuri was quickly invited to work. “I was shocked, I probably shouted something, so much so that all my colleagues ran to my table.”

Yuri Shevchuk. Photo: from the personal archive

His position is lecturer of the Ukrainian language. The contract must be renewed every 5 years, while the teacher undergoes a kind of re-certification - the commission again comes to the lectures, looks at what scientific activities the professor has managed to carry out during this time, what works he has published. Yuri has successfully passed this test twice already. He teaches 2 language courses and 3 on the history of Soviet and post-Soviet cinema, this is 1-8 classes per week. He says that we are not even talking about such a workload as in Ukrainian universities.

“There is no workload that simply negates any opportunity to be a good teacher: how can you prepare well for lectures if you have more than 20 teaching hours per week?”.

Yuri has time for both preparation and scientific activities. From the first lecture, he captivates students with the Ukrainian language so that they then cannot stop speaking. True, he warns that it will not be easy for them to find interlocutors in Ukraine.

“Just imagine a student who pays $12 thousand a year for a Ukrainian language course. He comes to Kyiv for the first time, opens his mouth, and hears in response: “Don’t you understand Russian?” This is in the worst case, and in the best case they simply ignore him or answer him in Russian,” says Yuri.

He honestly tells students about all the modern realities in Ukraine, tries to find films in Ukrainian for his film club, and constantly comes to give lectures in his homeland. He says he doesn’t rule out moving back to Ukraine. After all, he has 2 favorite cities - New York and Kyiv.

Irina Vushko, Hunter College: “After graduate school at Yale, I looked for a job 5 years”

College Hunter. Photo: hunter.cuny.edu

How difficult it is to get to the United States, not just to work, but even to study, historian Irina Vushko realized after her master’s degree. She first graduated from a university in Lviv, then defended her diploma in Budapest and decided: she would look for graduate school in the USA. The girl had no problems with English - American professors taught in the master's program. But collecting the right package of documents turned out to be quite an ordeal. “It wasn’t easy because I didn’t know all the nuances of the admissions process. And even then, in 2002, everything was much more complicated - no Facebook, no fast Internet. But the master’s program helped because I needed an English diploma, English texts, recommendations,” says Irina.

Irina Vushko. Photo - from personal archive

It took her 3 of the year to go to graduate school. At first Iryna did not even consider Ivy League universities, but colleges didn’t accept the young scientist more simply. Luck smiled only when the girl tried to go to Yale University.

“For the first 2 years, I didn’t even apply to this type of university; I thought there was practically no chance. And then in 2001 I was told that Yale had hired a new professor of Eastern European history, which was my specialty. And I gave in, just to ease my conscience. I thought there was no chance at all,” continues Irina.

But the girl was accepted. Moreover, they offered a full scholarship for all 6 years of graduate school. “At American universities, when you go to graduate school, you automatically receive a scholarship. That is, it comes in one package; I did not apply for a scholarship separately,” explains Irina.

So Irina ended up in America and immediately understood: writing a dissertation in Ukraine and the USA are completely different things. “In the first semester, I thought they would kick me out. I had never been to America before, my English was imperfect. It was very difficult at first to get used to the rhythm of training and the amount of work. Here in America, you are only being prepared for a couple of years to start writing a dissertation. We re-read an incredible number of books, constantly wrote something, and held discussions. Essentially, you live in the library, it’s a full-time job,” the historian recalls.

During graduate school, Irina managed to live a year in Vienna, where she worked in archives, and a year before defending her dissertation she began to look for work. It turned out to be even more difficult than to go to Yale.

“I was not offered a job right away. Positions are very few, and getting a position even after a university like Yale is very difficult. I have been looking for a 5 years job. ”

During this time, she continued to engage in scientific activities, won various short-term grants for research and constantly applied to American universities. In each one, it was necessary to go through several stages: first, send a resume, a motivation letter and part of a dissertation, then they could schedule a first interview. “Usually it takes place at general scientific conferences. In this way, a short list of applicants is formed. Then you are called to the university, where you spend a whole day or two - giving a lecture, a seminar, meeting with the administration, potential colleagues,” says Irina.

And then all that remains is to wait. To convey the good news, College Dean Hunter personally called Irina in Lvov. She managed to open a visa 3 days before departure - and for the fifth year now she has been a professor of history at one of the best colleges in the country. He teaches the history of Eastern Europe, as well as the history of Europe between the two wars.

“I only go to work 2 days a week, the rest of the time is my time. I choose the courses I want to teach, I make my own schedule. At the university, not only teaching is important, but also where and what we published, in which conferences we took part. That’s why the conditions are like this: so that the teacher has time for scientific work, it is a priority,” says Irina.

So far, the girl works under a contract, but has already applied for academic tenurethat means almost a lifetime contract, which only an employee can break.

Sergey Bad, Harvard: “The stars stood up somehow, so that I was invited to Harvard”

Sergei Plokhy is a real star in the field of Eastern European history. He doesn’t just teach at one of the best universities in the world, where millions aspire to enroll. He is the director of the Ukrainian Scientific Institute at Harvard University and the author of books on the history of Ukraine, which are published in the United States in English.

Sergey Bad. Photo: from the personal archive

“It was a real miracle to get an internship abroad, especially in the USA,” the professor recalls his first trip to America. This was in 1987, and improving US-Soviet relations made it possible for Ukrainian scientists to go on exchange trips to the United States. First, representatives of technical sciences were sent, and when it was the turn of the humanities students, Sergei Plokhy was among the three historians.

“The main impression from that trip was the library, especially compared to the Dnieper one (Sergey Plokhy graduated from and taught at the Dnieper University named after. Potter - ForumDaily). We had very little literature. And there is a lot of stuff out there, in the public domain. This was the biggest shock. And I turned out to be completely unprepared for the level of scientific discussion that existed in the United States. I came to lectures with American professors and could understand little, not only because of the language, but also because it was a completely different story. We are accustomed to history, which is tied to dates, events, and so on, but they actually taught social history,” says Sergei Plokhy.

Sergey Bad. Photo: from the personal archive

He didn’t even think about staying in the States after the internship. He says that at that time it would have meant cutting off all ties with family, friends, and colleagues. Therefore, Sergei returned to Ukraine, defended his doctorate and a couple of years later received an invitation to work in Canada, at the University of Alberta. First, the professor moved himself, then he brought his family - he and his wife thought they would stay for a maximum of a year, the children would improve their English, and then back home. But things turned out differently - in the early 2000s, Harvard announced a competition for the position of professor of Ukrainian history, and Sergei decided to try. The competition lasted 2 years, names were gradually crossed off from the long list of applicants, until, finally, a short list of candidates for the position was formed. Sergei Plokhy hit him.

“The competition was very serious, and when I found out who was on the short list with me, I decided - okay, I guess I’m not going to Harvard. But the stars somehow aligned themselves in such a way that they invited me,” recalls Sergei.

The professor says, 10 years ago, letters usually came with refusal, and good news was reported by phone or email. After the formal “yes” received by e-mail, the scientist began to gather at Harvard.

Now he combines the position of professor and director of the institute and actively writes books in English. Sergei Plokhy notes that he was lucky with the language - his parents sent him to an English-biased school, so he did not feel a strong language barrier in the United States. And I decided to write books in a foreign language almost immediately after moving.

“I had a little bit different: at first I decided that I needed to write books in English, and then tightened up the language. But, of course, I have a editor. ”

Sergey Plokhiya’s position is for life, he has about 10 students in the group and plenty of time for research. “The idea of ​​such a position is that I can do what I want in scientific work. And I take advantage of this freedom.”

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