STUDIES IN RESILIENCE

“War ruins all plans for your future,” says Tetiana “Tanya” Gordiienko, a Ukrainian doctoral student whose life, like millions of others, was upended by the Russian invasion of her country.

“We used to have a good life—used to dream about the future for our daughter,” says Ihor Lantukh, professor of psychology, economics, and history at National University of Kharkiv. “Now, we are looking for opportunities to survive.”

For 20 Ukrainian faculty members and researchers, Gordiienko and Lantukh included, those opportunities have come on Purdue University’s campus, where they have found both personal and academic refuge.

The Ukrainian Scholars Initiative is an effort to provide a portion of promise for the academic community in Ukraine during this tumultuous and uncertain time.

The scholars, who arrived in West Lafayette in July, stretch across a diversity of disciplines—from chemistry, library science, psychology, linguistics, sociology, and neuroscience to political science, management, history, and earth and planetary sciences. They will either engage in their own research or support research conducted by Purdue faculty members.

“Our aim is to make at least one small contribution to help the Ukrainian people in this moment of peril,” says Purdue President Mitch Daniels. “Our hope is that we can offer refuge to these scholars and a chance to continue pursuing their work and then see them return to a safe and free Ukraine. But while they are with us, I don’t doubt that they will personify and perhaps share with our students the precious value of freedom and the constant need to defend it from its enemies.”

The initiative is currently intended to last one calendar year, but an extension may be possible depending on the circumstances in Ukraine and available funding.

The program provides each scholar with funds to cover visa expenses and round-trip transportation costs. They also receive monthly stipends; financial assistance for dependents; affordable housing near bus lines; furnishings for their apartments; and access to health insurance. Each was assigned a tenure-track faculty partner in their academic discipline.

“Purdue feels a deep calling to create this opportunity for our Ukrainian academic colleagues on our campus, which already has one of this nation’s most globally diverse faculty,” Daniels says. “If we can make a home here, at least temporarily, for these outstanding talents in academics, that’s what America has always done throughout its history.”

Opportunities are still available to give to the Ukrainian Scholars Initiative. Donors can either support an individual or give in an unrestricted fashion to a general fund.