A Documentary about the Academic Resilience of Ukrainian Educators Was Presented under the Academies4Ukraine Project
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Rector of Kherson State University Oleksandr Spivakovskiy, together with the Head of the International Initiatives and Project Management Department of Kherson State University Yevheniia Revenko, participate in a meeting of partners under the project "Academies4Ukraine - Strengthening Higher Education Resilience in Ukraine and the European Union", funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ Program.
"We were glad to see Gianluca Vagnarelli, the founder of the company "i-strategies", which is the coordinator of the Academies4Ukraine project, as well as our project partners - representatives of the Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University, Odessa National Technological University, University of Helsinki, Riga Technical University.
Our first face-to-face acquaintance was during the opening project meeting in Offida (Italy) in November 2023. Eventually, the first interviews were recorded, including mine and the first KSU Vice-Rector Serhii Omelchuk, which were included in the documentary film "Stories of Academic Sustainability from Ukraine." Also, this movie consists of interviews with colleagues that Ukrainian partner universities recorded at the beginning of 2024. And today the presentation of the 39-minute film took place.
What can I say? I am impressed! A huge amount of work has been done. Its value is in the documentary recording of the history of the full-scale invasion and transformations that took place both personally and institutionally. The documentary was very emotional. When you listen to the stories of colleagues, the feeling of sadness changes to pride. I realised when I was watching my interview that some details are erased from memory over time because of a property of the psyche to replace negative memories. Hence, the documentary is very important because it fixes the moment and makes you return to the terrible events of the beginning of the war and feel the same emotions... On the other hand, I am proud of the results that Ukrainian educators have achieved despite the extreme conditions. It also relates to our university", the KSU Rector noted.
Oleksandr Spivakovskiy spoke about the challenges that we had to overcome and the opportunities that we see for ourselves and are already implementing during the session "Update on the Situation in Ukrainian Universities and the Academic Renewal Initiative". He made a presentation created, by the way, with the help of the Synthesia artificial intelligence platform.
During the meeting, the interim report on the project and further stages of the implementation of the Academies4Ukraine project connected with renewing the academic environment of Ukrainian universities were also discussed.
Фото Mariia Fursina / Марія Фурсіна
"We are grateful to the project coordinator Gianluca Vagnarelli, the host partner - the University of Helsinki, and the project coordinator from the university Kais Kurne for the greetings and cooperation. The location of our meeting evoked special emotions. That was one of the buildings of the Sveaborg fortress, which we reached by ferry from Helsinki. We met not in the institution in the official building, but in an inspiring historic place. I expressed my gratitude to international partners for their support of Ukraine. Tomorrow, we have another intense working day in Finland", said Oleksandr Spivakovskiy.
Press Center of KSU