Partnership with Ukrainian Catholic University recognized with Heiskell Award
In recognition for its support of Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), the University of Notre Dame has been awarded the 2023 Institute of International Education (IIE) Heiskell Award for Strategic Partnerships.
The Heiskell Award is presented annually to a college or university, recognizing innovative partnerships that foster international education and demonstrate strong, sustainable links among higher education institutions, within an institution/organization or among public/private partnerships with government, local community and nongovernmental organizations. IIE created these awards in 2001 to promote and honor the most outstanding initiatives being conducted in international higher education by IIE Network member universities and colleges.
Notre Dame has been deeply engaged with UCU for more than 20 years. However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the University has demonstrated solidarity with Ukraine in a number of significant ways.
At the start of the war, University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., issued an unambiguous statement, which read in part, “We at Notre Dame stand in solidarity with all peace-loving people worldwide in demanding an end to this invasion of a sovereign nation. This unprovoked war is an international abomination and must stop now.”
Notre Dame initiated regular prayer services and liturgies for peace, and created a website dedicated to educating the University community about the war. Building upon years of scholarly exchange, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, along with other academic units across campus, organized panel presentations and conversations between Notre Dame and UCU faculty, administrators and students.
Notre Dame also created a comprehensive and integrated plan to support UCU as it seeks to rebuild itself and help rebuild Ukraine.
“Our integrated plan with UCU was created in response to a crisis,” said Michael Pippenger, Notre Dame vice president and associate provost for internationalization. “It was developed through a process of listening to our colleagues’ needs at a traumatic moment in time. Through that listening over a couple of months, we were able to imagine collectively how best to assist in the survival of their university and to support multilevel collaboration and the sharing of respective institutional expertise to create new ties that will help foster resiliency and deeper collaborations now and when the war is over.
“We are humbled to serve our colleagues at UCU who face the destruction and terror of war on a daily basis, and we will continue to stand in solidarity with them.”
The leadership of both universities brought together a high-level task force to respond to UCU’s needs and concerns regarding academic programming, morale and student and faculty retention during a war. The task force developed a comprehensive strategic partnership with five primary goals:
- Provide a cohort of UCU undergraduate students and graduate students with the opportunity to study at Notre Dame for a semester. To date, 25 undergraduate students and three graduate students have participated.
- Offer UCU postdoctoral scholars the opportunity to apply for a research and/or teaching position at one of Notre Dame’s Global Gateways in Beijing, Dublin, Jerusalem, London and Rome
- Award faculty collaboration grants — 21 have been presented to date
- Host visiting scholars from UCU — one arrived on March 1 and one will be on campus in August
- Offer opportunities for collaboration between administrators from each institution — 12 UCU administrators have visited the Notre Dame campus in the past seven months. During those visits, they held meetings with nearly 100 Notre Dame faculty, staff and administrators.
In addition, the two universities are also working together to better understand the needs of the 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in the United States.
In a boldly visual gesture, the University has lit the iconic “Word of Life” mural on the Hesburgh Library in Ukraine’s national colors of blue and yellow each weekend for more than a year.
Latest International
- Business on the Frontlines continues work with Palestinian artisansThe West Bank city of Jenin is an area plagued by violence and destruction. It is here that the University of Notre Dame’s Meyer Business on the Frontlines Program works with Palestinian women artisans to create economic opportunities for themselves and their families.
- Notre Dame business student spends summer teaching and working at school for disabled in UgandaSophomore Anna Koeberlein spent the summer in Jinja, Uganda, where she taught English to students at Holy Cross Lake View school and volunteered at St. Ursula’s, a boarding school for Ugandan children with disabilities.
- Global works of art from Notre Dame Crucifix Initiative to be displayed at The History MuseumSelected works of art from the Crucifix Initiative will be on display in an exhibit on view starting Thursday (Aug. 10) at The History Museum in South Bend, Indiana. Launched in 2019, the initiative seeks to highlight the globalism of Catholicism — and to represent the diversity and internationalism of the University and its community — by building and displaying a collection of crucifixes from around the world.
- Connor Kaufmann wins Fulbright to attend summer institute in ScotlandConnor Kaufmann was selected for the program based on academic excellence (3.7 minimum GPA), a focused application, extracurricular and community activities, ambassadorial skills and a plan to give back to his home country. “I strongly felt that it would give me the opportunity to foster my creativity in a unique, robust and international way,” he said. “This would, in turn, give me the opportunity to best help my community’s immigration issues in creative and innovative ways.”
- Rome Global Gateway launches Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global PoliticsIn June, the University’s Rome Global Gateway co-hosted the first edition of the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics. The two-week program welcomed 17 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working at the intersection of religious studies and international affairs for a full schedule of writing workshops, graduate seminars and public events.
- The Object of Art: Students explore the galleries and stages of London‘The object of art is to give life a shape.’ — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream It’s a brisk Thursday morning in October, and a group of Notre Dame students is out for a stroll along the River Thames in central London. They move along the South Bank as their guide, adjunct art history professor Lois Oliver, points out spots of historical and cultural significance. She takes note of a mother and child combing the bank near the river’s edge. The Thames is tidal, Oliver explains, and when the water recedes one can often find bits of pottery or other materials, some of which can date back to the medieval period. More than a few students are wide-eyed at this.…
