{"id":124270,"date":"2022-04-25T11:41:29","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T15:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/?p=124270"},"modified":"2022-04-25T11:41:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T15:41:29","slug":"campus-shows-support-for-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/2022\/04\/25\/campus-shows-support-for-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus Shows Support for Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students, faculty, staff and families gathered at the campus Amphitheater last week to show their solidarity with the Ukrainian people and to protest Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The rally was the idea of Associate Professor Jefferson Gatrall, coordinator of the Russian program. He invited members of the campus community who have ties to Ukraine to share their views. The rally concluded with the speakers taking turns speaking the names of Ukrainian cities that have been attacked or occupied by Russian forces since the invasion began, followed by a moment of silence.<\/p>\n

Gatrall also taught the crowd to say \u201cNo to War\u201d in Russian: \u201cNiet Voine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Russia, those two words are banned in public,\u201d he told the protesters. \u201cIf you say them or show them on a sign, you can be arrested and fined, fired from your job, expelled from university and even imprisoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said of the Russian program: \u201cWe understand our mission not only as the teaching of the Russian language. We also study all the peoples in the post-Soviet sphere. That includes all the peoples that Russia has conquered, annexed, colonized, or mass deported over the past 400 years, as well as the history of the East Slavs dating to Kyivan Rus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speakers included: Montclair alumna Lyudmyla (Milla) Yakubov, born and raised in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and\u00a0 director of the Ben Samuels Children\u2019s Center; Halyna Hotsko, associate director of Capital Procurement, who is originally from Lviv, Ukraine; Viktor Turchyn, manager of the Computing Lab; student Liz Chernyshova, a psychology major and Russian minor; Ali Boak, director of the Global Center on Human Trafficking; and Olena Nesteruk, associate professor in the Department of the Family Science and Human Development.<\/p>\n

Olena Nesteruk<\/span>, who helped organize the rally, spoke to the crowd about her immediate and extended family in Ukraine \u2013 some of whom have fled and some of whom have stayed to fight in the Ukrainian army.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive members of my immediate family are among the internally displaced Ukrainians, including my brother and elderly parents who finally evacuated from Kyiv after weeks of daily shelling on the apartment buildings,\u201d she said. \u201cDuring those weeks, saying good-bye to my parents every day, not knowing if we would speak again, was terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the hardships, \u201cThey are lucky, compared to what we have recently learned happened to the Ukrainians who were under Russian occupation,\u201d Nesteruk said, adding descriptions of scenes of destruction, mass graves and murdered civilians that have been shown on television and social media. \u201cThe world has seen images we wish to un-see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courageous resistance and bravery of Ukrainian military and civilians against the invaders deserve more support \u2013 humanitarian and military support. If Russia stops fighting, there will be no more war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\nRead Dr. Olena Nesteruk’s Full Speech<\/a><\/span>\n

Photo Gallery<\/h2>\n
\"Man
Computing Lab Services Manager Victor Turchyn (wearing the Ukrainian flag), hands out flags at the rally and was also a speaker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Man
Associate Professor Jefferson Gatrall, coordinator of the Russian program, who brought the idea for a protest to Olena Nesteruk, was inspired by conversations with his students. He taught the crowd to say \u201cNiet Voine\u201d in Russian, which means \u201cNo to War.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Woman
Halyna Hotsko, associate director of Capital Procurement, speaks at the rally. She is originally from Lviv, Ukraine, and her mother-in-law just recently arrived here, after fleeing the country.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"attendees
(Left to right): Lyudmyla Yakubov, director of the Ben Samuels Children\u2019s Center, Olena Nesteruk, Nesteruk\u2019s daughter, Laura, and Yakubov\u2019s daughter, Camellia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"woman
Nicole Yakubov holds the Ukrainian flag at the rally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Four
Caption: (Left to right): Jefferson Gatrall, Halyna Hotsko, Olena Nesteruk, Lyudmyla Yakubov, lead the rally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Woman
Olena Nesteruk, associate professor of Family Science and Human Development, speaks at the rally about her family who have fled Ukraine and those who\u2019ve stayed behind.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"Woman
Sophomore Zofia Przedworska, an Applied Mathematics and Statistics major, holds a sign written in Polish to show solidarity with Poland\u2019s Ukrainian neighbors.(\u201cPolish community: Solidarity with our neighbors\u201d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Woman
Liz Chernyshova, a Psychology major and Russian minor, speaks to the crowd.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"Woman
Lyudmyla Yakubov, the director of the Ben Samuels Children\u2019s Center, who was born and raised in Ukraine, speaks at the the rally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Woman
Ali Boak, director of the Global Center on Human Trafficking, has decades of expereince helping survivors of human trafficiking worldwide including Eastern Europe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Group
(Left to right, back row) Victor Turchyn, Jefferson Gatrall, Polina Chelnitsky, Olena Nesteruk, Nicole Yakubov. (left to right, front row): Halyna Hotsko, Laura Nesteruk, Camellia Yakubov, Lyudmyla Yakubov, Liz Chernyshova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Photos by University Photographer\u00a0Mike Peters<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rally brings together faculty, staff, students and family members united behind the people of Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":124271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-23_college-news-and-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/ceel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}