Out of the thousand or so HE leaders milling around Canberra this week, just two can demonstrate first-hand experience in re-establishing a university from scratch without a campus, additional funding, or homes to head to at the end of the day.
Why is that important? The challenges faced by Professor Yana Sychikova, Professor Igor Lyman and colleagues at Berdyansk State Pedagogical University in Ukraine are mostly similar to those faced by Australian universities; albeit of a different dimension, exacerbated by war. Professors Sychikova and Lyman have shared clear insights that are relevant to university sustainability, performance, efficiency and agility.
Friday marks the fourth anniversary of the Russian forces rolling in to occupy Berdyansk, in Southern Ukraine, and Professor Yana Sychikova and Professor Igor Lyman from Berdyansk State Pedagogical University are leaving Australian audiences impressed and deeply moved by their story.
Their personal stories are remarkable – Yana lived three months under occupation and for the last month was hunted by Russian forces, sheltering in safe houses before making a run for the relative safety of Ukrainian territory along a corridor known as the road of life (because of its access to freedom) and the road of death (due to shelling, many checkpoints and war raging on battlefields nearby). Igor, a Professor of history, saw the signs and escaped days before the Russian invasion.
On Monday, they told the Future Campus symposium in Canberra about the challenges, achievements, and also sobering realities of running a university without walls, following the occupation of their campus. Despite incredibly difficult, often life-threatening situations, they have:
- Developed approaches to measure and also attempt to address issues of staff burnout,
- Expanded their student recruitment catchment and changed the way they teach, combining asynchronous online lessons with face-to-face teaching and social activities,
- Re-oriented their research to focus on community need – mental health and improve defence capabilities,
- Increased research funding 13 fold and attracted a range of new grants
- Developed new curriculum in line with community needs.
"The university became an itinerary," Professor Sychikova said, "With Research retreats in the Carpathian mountains, Christmas residencies in Lviv, Concert programs in Zaporizhzhia – we take the university activities to where groups of our students are."
"The university continued wherever we could gather – a living academic organism."
"Inclusion could no longer be measured architecturally, by ramps or physical accessibility. Instead, we encountered new forms of vulnerability; internally displaced scholars, students separated from families, veterans, individuals carrying trauma and communities living under prolonged uncertainty."
The Berdyansk State Pedagogical University had to reconsider why their university existed – and found community service the top priority.
"Our university ceased to be an address – it became a route. If a university can survive the loss of its walls, were its walls ever a defining feature?"
While the university has managed to survive, it was important not to romanticise the success which was achieved in the midst of an ongoing war – with staff burnout and fatigue a major issue as the war drags on.
To watch Professor Sychikova and Lyman's lecture, as well as insightful responses from a host of Australian higher education leaders, click on the button below.