John Olienyk Celebrates Ten Years as Mentor for Young Professors in Former Communist Countries  

The creation of the FEP follow was prompted by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.  Policy makers in the US saw this program as an opportunity to help the former communist countries adapt to the market system and thus become more economically and politically stable.  The FEP operates with funds provided by the US State Department under the Freedom Support Act of 1992 and is administered by the USDA.

Through this program, carefully selected, mostly young business and economics faculty members from agricultural universities in former communist bloc countries are invited to spend a semester at a host campus in the US.  In addition to attending classes, they also visit a number of businesses and government agencies.  They thus become familiar with the US higher education system and western teaching methods while also experiencing firsthand how the market economy works, how western legal and financial institutions operate and the role that government plays in our economy. 

The participants in this program become change agents when they return to their home campuses.  They initiate the development of market-oriented curricula and work with their colleagues to help them develop more effective teaching methods.   Students at their universities thus become better prepared upon graduation to contribute to the integration of their local economy into the globalized world market. 

To help reinforce the role of these young professors as change agents, their US mentors follow up with visits to the participants’ home campuses.  These visits typically occur a few months after the participant has returned home.  During the follow-up visit, the US mentor conducts seminars and workshops on a variety of topics and meets with government officials, university administrators, faculty members and students.  The mentor’s visit reinforces the role of the young professors as change agents and lends credibility to the changes in curriculum and teaching methods being proposed by the young professors.

Colorado State has served as a host university since the inception of this program in the mid-1990s.  To date, over 300 foreign faculty members have participated in the FEP and CSU has been host to about 60 participants.  During fall semester of 2008, CSU hosted four visiting faculty members in this program, two from Ukraine and two from Uzbekistan.  Dr. Olienyk followed up by travelling to Kharkiv, Ukraine in April to visit the home universities of the two Ukrainian participants and in November he will visit Samarkand Agricultural Institute in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.  During his participation in the program Dr. Olienyk has visited 16 universities in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Serbia. 

Involvement in the USDA Faculty Exchange Program has helped Dr. Olienyk broaden his own perspectives and build professional relationships with administrators and faculty members in foreign countries.  It has also resulted in business students at CSU being directly exposed to different ways of thinking.  With the visiting professors attending and participating in on-campus classes, CSU students have had the opportunity to be exposed to Eastern European and Central Asian perspectives. Dr. Olienyk’s continuing participation in this program is thus very much in line with globalization as an ongoing strategic priority for the College of Business.