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Back in the U.S.We.R: Students from post-Soviet countries study at EMU

By Brenda Ortega, Eastern Michigan University

For Serhiy Kovalchuk and Leyla Safarova, life has not been exactly what they expected since they arrived at EMU. Kovalchuk and Safarova are part of an exchange program that brings undergraduate students from former Soviet republics to the United States to study for one academic year.

Kovalchuk, of Ukraine, envisioned deluxe accommodations. Then he saw the traditional American-style residence hall quarters he would share with a roommate. "I thought, oh my, we're going to spend a whole year in this room?"
Safarova discovered the formal English she had learned in Azerbaijan was not the language spoken by American college students. "My roommate uses two languages. Her English with me is different from the English she uses with other friends," she said.

Despite those small assimilation issues, they have found living and studying at EMU more fulfilling than imagined.

Safarova has changed her course of study since arriving from her home university in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku. She is now more interested in international relations than law. "There is a great change in me," she said. "I was a realist, accepting things as they are. Now, I am a liberalist. I see the chance for great change and for great future."

Kovalchuk, who is studying student government and the U.S. educational system, plans to take the best of what he learns back to Volyn State University in Ukraine. There, he studied applied linguistics, English, German and computer science. He hopes to be an educator someday. "What we have now is the heritage of the Soviet system," he said of his native country. "There are positives, and other things should be changed."

EMU has welcomed students from post-Soviet countries for the past five years as part of the Eurasian Undergraduate Exchange Program, funded through U.S. State Department grants administered by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). The program places Eurasian students at campuses nationwide with the goal of fostering democracy abroad.

Applications from next year's hopefuls are already under review, said Donelle Goerlitz, a senior analyst in Academic Program Review and Analysis with the University's Division of Academic Affairs. In addition, EMU is applying to be part of a sister IREX exchange program next year that brings graduate students from the same countries to study in the United States.

Goerlitz, who mentors the students once they arrive, took Safarova home for Thanksgiving to experience an American celebration with family arriving from all over the country. Independently, Kovalchuk and Safarova plan to travel across the country with other IREX students during school breaks. "These two are making the most of their time here," Goerlitz said.

EMU students also benefit from the exposure to young people from countries they might otherwise never experience, Goerlitz said.

Indeed, Kovalchuk led a Powerpoint presentation about his country at the EMU Student Center during Inter-national Education Week in November. Many EMU students do not remember the fall of Communism in 1991, said Kovalchuk. Instead, they ask about Ukraine's Orange Revolution. From TV news reports in late 2004 and early 2005, they remember the hundreds of thousands of peaceful, orange-clad protesters who succeeded in getting corrupted election results thrown out.

"I tell them people in my country woke up and said, 'No, we want to change our life.' Young Ukrainians are beginning to believe in the future," he said.

Building that belief in the future is what the IREX program is all about

This article was originally published by Eastern Michigan University Exemplar University Magazine