Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage

Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage. The Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage (PCUH) was established in 1999 as an academic unit of Saint Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It supports both course offerings as well as programs and projects that promote a wider understanding and appreciation of the Ukrainian experience in Canada and abroad. The PCUH has assumed a central role in developing, encouraging, and supporting a ‘Study Abroad in Ukraine’ program; sponsored Ukrainian-language instruction for university credit; and assisted in the development of a Ukrainian Studies degree through a mix of interdisciplinary course offerings.

Over the years, the PCUH has been engaged in a variety of academic and community-outreach programs and projects. These include, among others, the annual Mohyla Lecture Series, an Oral History Program, Policy Forum Series, Windows to the East Lecture Series, and the Ukrainian Artists Invitational. It has also organized a number of highly successful conferences, exhibits, and symposia and undertook the Eaton Internment Historic Site Project, a special local initiative to honor the memory of East Europeans interned during the First World War by the Canadian government in a town near Saskatoon. The Heritage Press serves as the publishing arm of the PCUH, The center’s operations and programming are entirely supported by endowment and other funds raised from within the larger Ukrainian-Canadian community. Directors of the PCUH have been Dr. Bohdan Kordan (founding director, 1998–2004 and again since 2007); Rev. Dr. Myroslav Tataryn (interim director, 2004–5); and Dr. Natalia Khanenko-Friesen (née Shostak, 2005–7). Web site: <http://www.stmcollege.ca/pcuh.html>.

[This article was written in 2009.]