MUSA: McGill Ukrainian Week 2007

The McGill Ukrainian Students’ Association (MUSA) organized a series of events during their “McGill Ukrainian Week 2007”, a tradition that dates back to 1953 on McGill campus.

A week-long variety of events held from January 18 to 28 included: a lecture by Prof. Yarema Kelebay marking the 75^th Anniversary of the 1932-33 Famine-Genocide in Ukraine entitled “Reflections on the Black Book of Communism”; a panel discussion on human trafficking in Ukraine organized by the Help Us Help the Children Anti Trafficking Initiative, a project of the Children of Chornobyl Fund, coordinated by Halyna Zalucky from Toronto; a talk by Dr. Evhen Kaluzny on “Spiritualism and Capitalism”; a pub night at McGill’s “Gerts” as a fund-raiser for “Help Us Help the Children”; the screening of the internment documentary film Freedom Had A Price and; a “Wine and Cheese” with the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Montreal.

As a result of successful projects organized last year, the revived Ukrainian club was nominated as one of three best active clubs on McGill campus for 2006. In recognition of their hard work and achievements, MUSA was allocated their own office space in the McGill Students’ Union Building and recently, provided with a computer and university server space to host MUSA’s new web site www.ssmu.ca/musa. McGill University now recognizes 6 credit courses in Ukrainian studies for McGill students at the University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, due to the efforts of MUSA’s President.

With the financial support from Montreal’s Ukrainian community,  reflected by individual and business card advertisements, a 20 page “McGill Ukrainian Week 2007” booklet provides information on and photos of past student events and includes an article by Prof. Roman Serbyn on the Famine-Genocide.

Student activities were organized by a dynamic club executive with Artem Luhovy, President; Roxanne Zalucky, Vice-president; Jaroslaw Holowka, Treasurer; as well as members Layla Shbat, Ksenia Yatsenko, Jesse Marynowycz, Nick Saldan, Christina Szuper, Michael Duchnay and George Diete.  The McGill Ukrainian Students’ Association has 125 members with students from Montreal, throughout Canada, the U.S. and Ukraine.  In the words of President Artem Luhovy, “Students with a Ukrainian background come and sign-up at our annual registration table and life-long friendships are eventually forged, through  the events MUSA organizes throughout the year. We are also in contact with the Toronto Ukrainian Students’ Association and with them, hope to revive the Ukrainian Canadian Students’ Union (SUSK), so all existing Ukrainian (student) clubs across Canada could get to know each other, work together and have a presence on various campuses.”

MUSA’s next major event is on March 20, 2007 at the McGill Faculty Club organized with the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa, the McGill Department of Education and the UCPBA of Montreal.  Guest speaker is Jaroslaw Koshiw, British-Ukrainian writer-journalist. Presently at the Keenan Institute, he is writing a book on the famous “Melnychenko Tapes” - the voice recordings of President Kuchma that created a major scandal in Ukraine. For further information, please contact MUSA at (514) 398-4400 ext. 09964.