Author: euvolia

September 5, EUVOLIA team, impersonated by Stan Cherkasov, Oleksandra Nikolova, Kateryna Vasylyna and Olena Tupakhina, welcomed its new students enrolled for EUVOLIA course for the 1st semester of academic year 2019-20. This time, our course would be taught to the representatives of the Slavonic Studies and Journalism Departments eager to raise their professional profile by getting to know what the European Values are and how do they influence  our everyday practices. 

This is what we’ve learned from the results of a short survey on European Values taken right before the course start: 

20 out of 20 of our students claimed they had heard about European values before.

15 out of 20 stated they understood the concept of European Values thoroughly; 3 out of 20 found it difficult to assess their knowledge in this subject. 

Tolerance, democracy, feminism and individualism were marked as the most important European values by the majority of the group. Surprisingly, the rule of law wasn’t mentioned at all, contrary to the gender equality issues! 

Half of the students think Ukraine has already accepted at least some of the European values. 3 out of 20 students think we would never be able to share the whole set of European values due to national mentality. The rest of the group postpones the process of European values adoption for at least two generations.

12 out of 20 assess their set of values as European or mostly European. 3 students position themselves in the paradigm of traditional Ukrainian values. The rest sticks to 50/50 variant. 

And what’s your vision of European values? Click here to find out! 

Dear EUVOLIA students,

we’re looking forward to meeting you on Thursday, September 5, 8:00 a.m., room 326 (EUVOLIA classroom). Feel free to take your smiles and coffee with you! 

EUVOLIA course schedule for the I semester 19/20: 

Thursday, room 326, odd weeks: 8:00, 9:35; even weeks: 8:00   

After a fabulous Summer, time to take our new students on board! This semester, an exciting time-and-space journey awaits for the Faculties of Slavonic Philology and Journalism. Can’t wait to see you next week! Please check your emails regularly not to miss a letter from Hogwarts 🙂  

It’s hard to be a workaholic in summer, but EUVOLIA team members take the challenge! Under the blazing heat of June, Dr. Oleksandra Nikolova travels to Khortytsa island to meet the participants of the Junior Academy of Sciences Summer School.

The youngest generation of the Ukrainian scholars has its cake and eats it, too: Summer fun is mixed with lectures and trainings delivered by the most outstanding researchers of Zaporizhzhya region. EUVOLIA team member Dr. Oleksandra Nikolova works with the group focused on Humanities. She takes the case of EUVOLIA to explain the challenges and perspectives of Philological studies in Ukraine and how European Union programs, specifically Erasmus+, contribute to their continuous development.  EUVOLIA success story not only proves the importance of cross-cultural communication and shared values for shaping out the new generation of Ukrainians, but also serves as a vivid example of curriculum upgrade with regard to European standards and approaches to teaching humanities.  

Dr. Nikolova’s workshops are a great success among young scholars eager to develop their own projects and to breath new life into school program in Foreign Literature. They are specifically interested in the new interactive methodologies EUVOLIA implements to raise the efficiency of the course: group projects instead of traditional exams, role playing games, mind mapping etc. 

EUVOLIA team wishes our young researchers good luck with their initiatives and looks forward to welcoming them one day as Zaporizhzhya National University students! 

June 07, EUVOLIA team member Olena Tupakhina had an opportunity to deliver a short presentation to the participants of International Forum “Reflecting on the Future of the EU-EaP Relations: Young Scholar’s Voice” supported by Supported by the Erasmus+ Programme – Jean Monnet Project 599865-EPP-1-2018-1-UA-EPPJMO-PROJECT. 

This outstanding event held by Ukrainian APREI in cooperation with the European Community Studies Association of Moldova and the European Union Studies Association of Georgia gathered young European Studies researchers from all the six Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and provided platform for for exchanges between academia, policymakers and civil society. 

Many thanks to all the APREI team and its leader Iryna Sikorska for the perfect event management and their grand contribution to European Studies development in Ukraine!  

Great news right before the Ukrainian Science Day! Three of EUVOLIA team members have made the university’s top 10 scientists’ chart these year, with the project coordinator Stan Cherkasov topping the university list, and Kate Vasylyna holding the top spot on faculty level! Good job, colleagues, we’re so proud of you! 

Apart from that, our project’s contribution to European studies development was marked on municipal level: EUVOLIA team member Olena Tupakhina was awarded a honorary certificate from the mayor of Zaporizhzhya, Volodymyr Buriak. 

Full report available here.

Thanks to our project coordinator Stan Cherkasov, who took a chance to present EUVOLIA to the representatives of over 30 Ukrainian HEIs trooped together for the 19th session of American Studies Institute in Lviv, EUVOLIA has significantly broadened its partnership network. The subject of this year’s session (myths and facts about the U.S. election procedures) proved to be quite relevant to EUVOLIA’s goal set for preparing Ukrainian youngsters for responsible citizenship by cultivating and sharing corresponding values. 

Many thanks to Dr. Daren Donchuk, Mark Dillen and all the participants of the Lviv Education Initiative for their interest in our project. We’re looking forward to meeting you in Zaporizhzhya for EUVOLIA 1st Round Table Debates in October!   

A small step for one person, a huge leap for EUVOLIA project: on May 14, our first graduates, students of the Faculties of History and Foreign Philology, presented their final projects. 

It’s hard to define who felt more excited – students or teachers, for these short (up to 15 minutes) presentations were supposed to reflect the results of all five modules of EUVOLIA course applied to yet uncharted media products. And we proudly confirm that our graduates hit it out of the park! 

To begin with, the very choice of products should be praised. The first research group focused upon the popular Ukrainian comedy “Crazy wedding” debunking many racial prejudices and stereotypes still shared by our society. The second group decided to analyze the ground-breaking series “People’s Servant” dedicated to Ukrainian vision of an ideal leader, our expectations from the government and people vs state relationship. 

Both groups followed the EUVOLIA methodology of axiological analysis in terms of defining positive and negative character building techniques (from the details of appearance and behavior to the messages delivered). type of conflict, driving oppositions (city vs village, nature vs civilization), gender aspects (applying Bechdel test to the product) etc. The conclusions were rather unexpected: sometimes the superficial pro-European messages declared by product directors would contradict the deeper inner codes of the product, and the “ideal leader” would turn into dictator. As one of the EUVOLIA teachers, Oleksandra Nikolova, aptly pointed out, we pay lots of attention to what we eat, but tend to ignore the ingredients of media products we consume. 

All the students unanimously agreed that one of the most important lessons EUVOLIA course delivered was to apply critical and analytical approach to popular culture as a steady public opinion barometer.

Following a heated discussion, the honorable jury presented by Stanislav Cherkasov, Kateryna Vasylyna, Oleksandra Nikolova and Olena Tupakhina, awarded max points to all the projects presented. Apart from that, each student got an international project participant certificate that would definitely come in handy in their further careers, i.e. when applying for Master degree. 

On behalf of EUVOLIA team we sincerely congratulate our first graduates and wish them good luck with further research and academic activities! 

Sooner or later, every journey comes to an end. For almost four months in a row, EUVOLIA students traveled far and wide through the ages, exploring European culture and values through the most important and influential texts. On the final stage of this remarkable route, modules 4 and 5 taught by Olena Tupakhina had brought them closer to the modern times – first, into the turbulent era of Industrial Revolution, so similar to yet so different from our own postindustrial age; and then to tragic and magnificent XX century.

Thanks to the magic of fiction, we

• witnessed the dawn of Marxism, Darwinism, Scientism and other powerful metanarratives of the recent past;
• got to know a set of values shaped by Positivism, Utilitarianism and Evangelism;
• traced the history of the Mad Scientist archetype back to the times of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll;  
• took part in the Condition of England debates; 
• supported Nora’s escape from the Doll House;
• watched the values shattered by the tragedies of the World Wars and restored once again in a new global and multicultural world;
• practiced Camus’s Existentialism to fight totalitarian regimes; 
• voted Back to the Nature together with D.G.Lawrence; 
• and, last but not least, tried to identify ourselves through the set of our own values.  

It’s been a wonderful journey for all the EUVOLIA team.  We thank all our students for their bright imagination, creative ideas, inspiration and enthusiasm they shared with us so eagerly. Looking forward to seeing your projects next Tuesday – for, after all, every end is a new beginning 🙂