Dispatches from Lviv: Ukrainian students taking classes through DePaul shed light on life during Russian invasion
After the Russian attack upended the daily lives of millions of Ukrainians, including college students, DePaul University partnered with Ukrainian Catholic University and other higher education institutions in the region to enroll more than 100 Ukrainian college students in the Chicago university’s online courses this spring quarter.
Here, they share what life is like continuing their studies amid the conflict.
Ukrainian students studying online with DePaul take shelter as air raid sirens wail. ‘It is safer behind two walls.’
April 29: College student Marta Haiduchok was grateful for the silence Thursday afternoon as she walked from her apartment in Lviv, Ukraine, to meet up with classmates at the Ukrainian Catholic University library.
“It gave me so much joy. … I was super scared to go there, because I had anxiety based on the idea that the air siren will catch me while I would be on my way,” said Haiduchok, one of 100 Ukrainian students enrolled in DePaul University’s virtual classrooms this month.
“But the university has shelters so everything was fine and I came back home before the siren,” Haiduchok said via text messages to the Chicago Tribune.
But Haiduchok’s reprieve from the Russian invasion and devastating war was fleeting, and by 8 p.m. Thursday Ukrainian time, the air raid sirens in Lviv were wailing and Haiduchok was behind a laptop in a corridor of her family’s apartment in western Ukraine, about 40 miles from Poland.
“It is safer behind two walls,” Haiduchok said, adding: “I’m in the class right now, and don’t want to miss it.”
Sofiia Kekukh, 18, a student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, who is also enrolled in online classes at DePaul, said via text messages with the Tribune that last weekend was her “first Easter without my parents.”
“I strongly believe in my nation, in our people. This brings me hope and a little bit of peace,” said Kekukh, who is studying from temporary housing at an apartment in Lviv, where she arrived recently after she and her parents abruptly left their home in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, in February.
“It’s difficult to talk about joy right now. My parents, grandparents, relatives, boyfriend and friends are alive and safe. It’s (what is) most important for me,” Kekukh said. “My flat isn’t damaged and destroyed. I’m glad about it. We celebrated Easter a little. It was dangerous to go by transport to another region because of possible provocations and danger.”
Dmytro Sherengovsky, Ukrainian Catholic University’s vice-rector for academic affairs and internationalization, said Thursday via a FaceTime interview with the Tribune that following nearly two years of online instruction, the winter quarter at the university began in person, but was upended by the Russian invasion in February.
“We lost about a week, but we quickly decided to take a service learning approach, teaching our students how to do practical things while serving the community,” Sherengovsky said.
“In our case, we asked, ‘what can we do to help?’ So our students are doing volunteer work, like providing psychological help, sheltering and helping people with disabilities,” Sherengovsky said, describing a few of the hands-on student projects taking place across Lviv.
While the university’s 2,100 students were also able to continue their programs through online courses at the university, Sherengovsky said the service learning projects are likely to provide students with experiences that will prove more valuable than traditional lessons learned in the classroom.
And then, suddenly, the FaceTime chat with Sherengovsky was halted by a keening sound bursting from his smartphone.
“The alarms are going off, I need to go to shelter,” Sherengovsky said, before adding: “It means they’ve sighted missiles, but I can still probably talk for eight more minutes.”
“I’m not scared, but I was scared during the first days,” Sherengovsky said. “Then your psychology adjusts a little bit, and while it’s definitely not typical, after a number of them, it is a routine.”
Ukrainian college students upended by war enroll in online classes at DePaul: ‘My studies are helping me do my best to forget everything that’s going on’
April 14: When the air raid sirens began wailing at 4 a.m. on a recent day in Lviv, Ukraine, college student Marta Haiduchok began her day seeking shelter in the basement of her apartment building.
More than 12 hours later, Haiduchok, 20, was Zooming in to her online classes at DePaul University, where she is one of 100 Ukrainian students learning alongside their American classmates in the Chicago university’s virtual classrooms.
“When the war first started I was super anxious all of the time, and it was hard to concentrate. But in my case, I’m putting so much into my education, my studies are helping me do my best to forget everything that’s going on,” Haiduchok said via a FaceTime interview with the Tribune from her home in Lviv, located in western Ukraine about 40 miles from Poland.
After learning many Ukrainian students and their families were displaced from their homes, and universities across the country were operating at reduced capacity, DePaul reached out to professors who were scheduled to teach online courses for the spring quarter, asking for volunteers interested in welcoming Ukrainian students to Zoom in to their virtual classrooms.
Given the eight-hour time difference with Chicago, Ukrainian students were invited to enroll in online courses offered early in the day to allow for synchronized instruction as much as possible, Besana said.
“War is no longer an abstract concept for our DePaul students, because now, they know classmates like Marta and Sofiia, which is really powerful,” Besana said.
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