Albany – Leading higher education officials from the Ukraine will
meet with State University of New York faculty and administrators Monday, March 26, 2007
at Hudson Valley Community
College. Monday marks the first day in
a week-long series of meetings on 11 SUNY campuses.
The Ukrainian delegation of
11 people will be led by Dr. Mikhail Stepko, deputy minister of education and science
for the Republic of Ukraine, and consists of rectors and other prominent figures
in higher education from across the Ukraine. Representatives from the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
will also attend the meeting.
SUNY and Ukrainian higher
education officials will discuss the possibility of extending SUNY’s
award-winning dual-diploma program to include, for the first time, SUNY
community colleges and higher education institutions in the Ukraine.
Chancellor Ryan said, “SUNY
welcomes Deputy Minister Stepko and the Ukrainian delegation to New York. Collaboration
between SUNY and the Ukraine will lead to new academic opportunities for our
students and faculty, a greater understanding of our cultures and, we hope, expansion
of our award-winning dual-diploma program to include the Ukraine.”
Dr. Stepko said, “The main
goal of our work here is not just to attract students and to develop faculty and
student exchange programs. Our goal is to build a bridge between the Ukraine and
the state of New York and to include in this building process people from
both sides. In the future, we hope people from the Ukraine and
from America will use this bridge.”
“Hudson Valley Community College
is proud to host today’s meeting," President Andrew J. Matonak said.
"We – and SUNY’s 29 other community colleges – have so much to offer and
our students have so much to gain through collaborations such as those we will
be discussing today. At Hudson Valley, diversity is one of our college’s greatest
strengths. We are proud to support any initiative that fosters greater
understanding and presents broader opportunities for our students, faculty and
staff.”
In addition to Hudson Valley Community College,
representatives from Corning Community
College and Tompkins Cortland Community College
are participating in the week-long series and will host meetings. Deputy
Minister Stepko has indicated his strong interest in the structure and
functions of SUNY’s community colleges.
Articulation agreements
between SUNY community colleges and Ukrainian institutions of higher education
and the utilization of distance-learning instructional technology to accomplish
educational goals are also important topics of the discussions.
Among SUNY’s doctoral and
baccalaureate granting institutions, the University at Albany, Stony Brook University, the
SUNY
Colleges at Brockport, Cortland, Oswego and Potsdam, and the Colleges of Technology at Canton and Delhi, are
also on the Ukrainian delegation’s itinerary.
Ukrainian educators and their
counterparts on SUNY’s four-year campuses will discuss the development of
dual-diploma programs and academic partnerships in a number of academic areas
including business, psychology, special education and the environment.
The Ukrainian visit is a
follow-up to an initial meeting held in Yalta, Ukraine, in fall 2005, at which more than 20 SUNY faculty and
administrators, including Chancellor Ryan, met with Deputy Minister Stepko and
20 rectors of Ukrainian universities to discuss collaboration between Ukrainian
universities and SUNY campuses.
SUNY’s dual-diploma program
model with Turkey was selected to receive the prestigious Andrew Heiskell
Award for International Exchange Partnerships for 2006-2007, by the Institute of International Education.
The IIE administers the U.S.
Department of State Fulbright Program, and the Heiskell awards are named for
the former Chairman of Time Inc., Andrew Heiskell, who served on the IIE Board
of Directors.
In addition to Turkey, SUNY
has dual-diploma programs with Russia, Mexico and Poland.
The State University of New
York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States,
educating more than 417,500 students in 7,669 degree and certificate programs
on 64 campuses.
