Unidentified masked men entered the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (KMA) on Jan. 27 during elections to name a new rector at the centuries-old educational institution. It was the fifth attempt to hold an election in two years amid the global coronavirus pandemic and other obstacles KMA had faced.
The intruders removed one ballot box and tainted another with green dye in the presence of the national university’s election commission and a monitor from the Education and Science Ministry (MON).
In less than an hour, the missing ballot box was found undamaged and the dyed ballots were still discernable for vote counting. As a result, former Education Minister Serhiy Kvit was declared the winner to lead the academy for a five-year term. He had previously served as rector between 2007 and 2014.
However, Education Minister Serhiy Shkarlet refused to recognize the outcome of the election and six days later called for a rerun. His ministry did not respond to a Kyiv Post media inquiry and Shkarlet cancelled a scheduled in-person interview for this article.
The move to re-start another competitive process to appoint a new KMA rector infuriated the institution’s student body and leadership. They perceived it as an encroachment on academic freedom and the institution’s fierce tradition of autonomy beyond the micro-management clenches of MON.
KMA’s Pro-Ukrainian Reputation
Ever since KMA was resurrected in 1991 amid the Soviet Union’s implosion and Ukraine’s new independence, the institution has earned a reputation for being pro-Ukrainian.
The national language could often be heard in lecture halls and corridors in predominantly Russian-speaking Kyiv. It developed a pedigree for a “no tolerance” policy on bribery at a time when paying money for grades and degrees proliferated throughout the country’s educational system.
This reputation often irked Soviet-era or pro-Russian bureaucrats at MON who were accustomed to manually dictating how the country’s higher educational institutes are run.
Resignation calls
A banner hangs over the main entrance to the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy that reads, “Mohyla will set Shkarlet straight.”
As the academy is a national institution, it is up to the Education Ministry to recognize elections and provide contracts to elected university presidents.
However, KMA’s student body announced a strike and called for Shkarlet’s resignation during a rally on Feb. 4 to protest his ministry order.
The demonstration was held despite Shkarlet’s order having been overruled the previous day.
A conciliatory meeting chaired by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was convened. Also present were parliamentary speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, a KMA alumnus, Shkarelt, and members of parliament, including KMA alumnus Serhiy Babak who heads the legislature’s committee on education, science and innovation.
“We had a 3-hour conversation and, as a result, Shkarlet agreed that only the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy has the right to decide who will be the next president of the university,” KMA president-elect Serhiy Kvit told the Kyiv Post.
Kvit, who currently heads the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (NAQA) and is professor of KMA’s journalism school, still hasn’t received a contract to lead the institution.
MON has 30 days according to legislation to provide a contract to a newly-elected rector.
If it doesn’t produce a contract, Kvit said he will “go to court and protect the choice of our academic community.”
Student protesters, including from other universities, have continued to hold rallies, with the most recent taking place on Feb. 14 at the presidential office building on Bankova Street.
Kvit added that he underwent “an audit” of his credentials by MON as another affront for opposing his election.
“They [MON] don’t like us…for our academic independence and our own views of different things,” he said of Shkarlet and his earlier predecessor Dmytro Tabachnyk.
Former Education Minister Tabachnyk is believed to reside in Israel and was not reachable for comment.
Allegations
When Sharlet was appointed as education minister on Dec. 17, 2020, KMA opposed it.
“Our academic community signed an appeal against it,” Kvit said. “I think he remembers this story.”
In 2020, the NAQA ethics committee ruled that Shkarlet “[had] four instances of plagiarism,” said Mychailo Wynnyckyj who heads the secretariat of NAQA and is an associate professor at KMA. Further details can be read here.
According to the minister’s official biography, he has authored “more than 200 scientific and educational works.”
However, protesters who continue to demand Shkarlet’s resignation often cite plagiarism – accusations he has denied.
Shkarlet is also suspected of trying to install a “puppet” president at KMA “to take over attractive pieces of land” from the academy, such as dormitories and other buildings around the city, Wynnyckyj said.
The minister’s ties to Tabachnyk, who tried closing KMA during the disgraced presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, is also not favored by protesters.
Tabachnyk tried reducing funding for the institution and wanted make changes because of KMA’s historically lower student body size. In particular, institutions with less than 5,000 students would either be closed or merged, according to Wynnyckyj.
As then rector, Kvit was subject to numerous audits and there were attempts “to get rid of him,” added Wynnyckyj.
Shkarlet was elected rector of the Chernihiv Technological University when Tabachnyk was education minister and their mutual associate, Maksym Lutskyi, headed the parliamentary committee on education and science.
Lutskyi was made rector of the National Aviation University “under spurious circumstances” after Shkarlet became education minister, Wynnyckyj said.
KMA’s history and reputation
The KMA was founded in 1615 by Petro Mohyla, a former Orthodox metropolitan. It was created “through a merger of the Kyiv brotherhood school with the school at the Cave of Monastery” and adapted “Jesuit college curriculum to its needs,” Harvard Professor Serhii Plokhy wrote in his book, “The Gates of Europe.”
Philologist Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky became KMA’s first rector following Ukraine’s independence. Until 1991, he had lived and taught in the United States before returning to help lead the academy’s resurrection.
It has enjoyed foreign funding from an eponymous foundation in Chicago but today gets most of its money from the state and dedicated alumni.
Maksym Kostetskyi, who graduated with a master’s degree in law in 2014, told the Kyiv Post that KMA taught him “to think and, most importantly, formed a community of like-minded people for whom such words as freedom, independence and integrity were the principles of life.”
Another alumnus, Ivan Bachynsky, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science in 2011 and said his experience “was challenging.”
He recalled interacting with senior students who said “don’t try to give bribes because you’ll get kicked out”. So, over the next six years, Bachynsky recalls that he never had the idea of giving a bribe.
Asked what a professor would say if he would have tried giving a bribe, Bachynsky added: “they would probably say, ‘I won’t fail you if you apply yourself harder.’”
