University supports Ukrainian academics through Nonresidential Scholars Program

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State is one of nine Big Ten schools providing an academic lifeline to scholars in war-torn Ukraine.

The University is sponsoring seven Ukrainian academics as part of the 2025 IU-Ukraine Nonresidential Scholars Program. Three of the scholars are being funded by the College of the Liberal Arts’ Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literature, two by Penn State Global, one by the College of Agricultural Sciences and one by the Edwin Erle Sparks professorship of Catherine Wanner, professor of history, of anthropology and of religious studies.

Established by Indiana University in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the program supports Ukrainian scholars whose work and ability to travel has been impeded by the war. Thanks to financial support from the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the program has expanded to include Penn State, the Ohio State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Michigan State University, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington and University of Maryland.

All fellows in the program receive a $5,000 stipend to continue their scholarship. In addition, they gain access to the participating schools’ significant online library resources, and the opportunity to collaborate with faculty members on research and teaching projects. The fellows also present their research at bimonthly virtual research seminars that will serve as the cornerstone of Indiana’s Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Studies Conference in March.

This year’s cohort, the third overall, consists of about 35 Ukrainian scholars working in the social sciences and humanities. The theme for 2024-25 is “Preservation and Restoration,” particularly as it relates to the war in Ukraine.

Wanner said Penn State has long been engaged in this type of outreach through other programs such as the Scholars at Risk Network, which evacuates scholars from war zones and places them in American universities.

“It became clear that, especially in the case of Ukraine, it was going to be difficult to sustain a residential program given the level of displacement and the mobilization,” Wanner said. “This nonresidential model provides assistance to scholars wherever they are, making it much more useful for Ukrainian scholars and sustainable for American universities.”

And the program provides a number of benefits to the Penn State community, Wanner said. She recalled one of her classes watching a virtual guest lecture with a Ukrainian scholar that was abruptly interrupted by the sound of air raid sirens going off. The scholar, she said, had minutes to get to a bomb shelter.  

“Kyiv was being bombed at that moment,” Wanner said. “It was quite an extraordinary experience for those of us sitting in Happy Valley — hearing those sirens and feeling what it’s like to live with that kind of constant stress and vulnerability. These are valuable experiences that illustrate how horrific it is to endure an invasion and live amidst war. These kinds of exchanges are a great way to bring these contemporary issues to the fore.”

In addition to Wanner, the other Penn State faculty members collaborating with the Ukrainian scholars are: Ekaterina Haskins, professor of communication arts and sciences; Alexandra Staub, professor of architecture; Olena Zotova, associate teaching professor of Russian; Yuliya Ladygina, associate professor of Slavic and global and international studies; Adrian Wanner, distinguished professor of Slavic languages and comparative literature; and Calvin Norman, assistant teaching professor of forestry.

The Penn State-supported Ukrainian Nonresidential Scholars are:

Tetiana Kalenychenko

For her project, “Religion that Unites More than Divides: Issues of Adaptive/Agonistic Peacebuilding in Times of War in Ukraine,” Kalenychenko is analyzing the role Ukrainian peacebuilders play in strengthening social cohesion. Her initiative will strive to develop new insights into the role dialogue plays as a form of internal peacebuilding and conflict mediation.

“The efforts of Ukrainian dialogue facilitators and peacebuilders have received little international attention and support, despite the fact that ambitious plans are underway to help rebuild Ukraine, and significant amounts of money are being mobilized for this effort,” Kalenychenko wrote. “Our hope is that these efforts will involve the Ukrainian peacebuilding community in their work in order to ensure that their reconstruction efforts are conflict sensitive and peace positive.”

Svitlana Shlipchenko

Shlipchenko’s project, “Urban Studies: Decolonization in Public Spaces of Ukrainian Cities: Lessons (Un)learnt,” is looking at the symbolic landscapes of Ukrainian cities in relation to the processes of decolonization.

“The term ‘decolonization’ has already become a buzzword in Ukraine — a growing body of literature addresses this complex concept and its implications,” Shlipchenko wrote. “However, amidst the drastic transformations marked by the ongoing war and decolonization efforts, when the polarization of approaches and attitudes toward heritagization is at stake, it becomes crucial to develop an expert look at the ways the symbolic landscapes are being dealt with and the role academia and other institutions, such as museums and universities, can play for developing decolonial perspectives, optics and knowledge, fostering dialogue, and engaging with identitarian politics to overcome the legacy of epistemological violence.”

Viktor Susak

In describing his project, “Preservation and Restoration of Micro-Communities in Cities: A Source for Sustainable Development of Ukrainian Society,” Susak compares the openness and trust that existed within Soviet-era neighborhoods in the city of Lviv to the late 1980s and ’90s, when the uncertainties of the country’s post-Soviet sociopolitical situation led to the significant physical and emotional deterioration of these friendly micro-communities, resulting in isolation and nihilism.

“To address the gradual physical deterioration of these buildings, some have formed condominium associations (OSBBs), where the responsibility for the situation falls on the residents themselves,” Susak wrote. “However, these OSBBs are not yet functioning properly — the isolation of neighbors from one another continues, and a nihilistic attitude toward common property persists. To eliminate these negative trends, there is a need for research to preserve and restore the micro-communities of these buildings.”

Lesya Kalynska

Kalynska is the director, writer and producer of the critically acclaimed documentary, “A Rising Fury,” an examination of the war on Ukraine. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2022 and was nominated for best documentary in 10 international film festivals, winning the Supreme Jury Award at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival in 2023.

Her next documentary, “Before the Dawn,” is currently in production. It tells the story of several brave Ukrainians – a soldier, a rock star, a journalist, a mother, a politician, a writer, and children — that Kalynska and her team have been following for more than a decade.

“This project is about preserving culture and democracy in Ukraine, about brave Ukrainians fighting for their lives and freedom,” Kalynska wrote. “I want to tell the true contemporary history of Ukraine over the last 10 years in the form of a docuseries so that global audiences will learn how we arrived at this crucial moment in history.”

Oksana Pukhonska

Contemporary films and literary texts, the plots of which examine the traumatic experience of Ukrainians, serve as the foundation of Pukhonska’s project.

“The authors and heroes of such text cultures are emigrants or descendants of emigrants who narrativized the trauma of Ukrainians, placing it in the context of world historical and cultural experience,” Pukhonska wrote. “Events in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity and during the Russian-Ukrainian war should motivate the creation of such texts.”

Oleksandr Zaitsev

Zaitsev’s historical project will explore the relationship between Ukrainian integral nationalism and German Nazism from 1930 to 1939, analyzing Ukrainian nationalists’ attitudes toward and interactions with the Nazis, and whether they adopted or rejected aspects of Nazi ideology, organizational principles and methods.

“This project seeks to move beyond the polarized perspectives of viewing Ukrainian integral nationalism as either fascist/Nazi or as part of a legitimate national liberation struggle,” Zaitsev wrote. “Instead, it acknowledges that both the European ‘epoch of fascism’ and Ukraine’s fight for independence were critical contexts for understanding the development of Ukrainian nationalism in the interwar period.”

Serhiy Shevchenko 

Shevchenko’s project, "Eco Fortress: Restoring Together," is aimed at increasing student awareness of the need to restore Ukraine’s ecological economic balance in the wake of the war’s devastating effects.

“It provides training and practical training of specialists in the field of eco-economy, restoration of natural resources and sustainable development,” Shevchenko wrote. “The attenders will participate in activities aimed at rehabilitating polluted and damaged areas, reviving natural landscapes, cleaning water bodies and soils, as well as creating new environmental initiatives.”

Wanner said she hopes the Nonresidential Scholars Program continues to flourish – and serves as a model to support scholars in other conflict-ridden parts of the world.

“Today, it’s helping scholars in Ukraine,” she said. “Tomorrow, hopefully, it can help scholars elsewhere in the world, and allow us to help our students increase their understanding of the sources and dynamics of these problems, and better respond to them.”