TEMERTY FAMILY FOUNDATION DONATES $5 MILLION TO SUPPORT THE UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
The Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation (UCEF) is honoured to announce a $5 million gift from the Temerty Family Foundation in support of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, Ukraine. This extraordinary gift will enable the University to build a state of the art Library on its new Stryiskyi Park campus in central Lviv and will provide a $1 million Endowment for the ongoing support of the Library. It brings the total support of the Temerty Family Foundation for programs funded by UCEF at UCU to $6.2 million.
The gift was announced by UCU President, Bishop Borys Gudziak on November 1 in Toronto, at a Gala to launch the public phase of UCU’s Comprehensive Campaign. Jim and Louise Temerty served as Honorary Chairs of this milestone event – the first of a series of worldwide events to be held also in New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Montreal, Calgary, Kyiv, London, and Paris.
The new UCU library will find its home in the Sheptytsky Building. Named after one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and in Ukrainian history of the 20th Century, it will be the finest contemporary research facility in Ukraine. Designed by internationally renowned Behnisch Architekten from Stuttgart (designers of the new Alston Campus at Harvard University), the Sheptytsky Building will be a socially innovative and eco-friendly facility providing stimulating opportunities for learning, collaboration, and research. The modern design combines a clear awareness of Ukrainian cultural tradition with the striking natural surroundings of Stryiskyi Park and will welcome students, faculty, guests, and members of the community at large of all ages. At the request of James Temerty, the library also be named in honour of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky (1865-1944), inter-ethnic and inter-confessional reconciler and founder of the Lviv Theological Academy, the precursor of the Ukrainian Catholic University.
“We are very grateful for this extraordinary gift,” said Alexander Kuzma, Chief Development Officer of the Toronto-based Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation. “It is very appropriate that Mr. Temerty’s name should be forever associated with a library named after Metropolitan Sheptytsky. No one has done more than Mr. Temerty to raise global awareness of Sheptytsky’s humanitarian legacy. Mr. Temerty was instrumental in persuading the Canadian Parliament to pass a unanimous resolution honoring Sheptytsky for his heroism in personally sheltering Jews from the Holocaust.”
Today, UCU has the largest theological library collection in Ukraine and unique foreign languages holdings in humanities and social sciences. The 120,000 volumes in the electronic directory are supplemented by 8-10,000 positions annually. The library collection also includes 2,418 periodicals in Ukrainian and foreign languages. In the past three years, UCU has received donations of more than 30,000 books, many of which are valuable and rare. The $1M Temerty Family Endowment will guarantee the ongoing maintenance of the Library and its administration and will provide funds to continue updating the library collection with quality scholarly books and periodicals.
“Many generations of students and scholars, children and parents will be beholden to the Temerty Family Foundation for its generosity in creating this special facility of learning and social encounter”, stated UCU President, Bishop Borys Gudziak. “The Temerty name is associated not only with outstanding business success and creative civic engagement in Canada but also with far-reaching international work in inter-ethnic reconciliation. The Temertys have sponsored deeply probing and socially relevant research and intellectual discussion, of which the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter is a singular example. On October 25 in Lviv, James Temerty received the Blessed Omelian Kovch award for his achievements in promoting Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue.”
About The Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU):
The only Catholic university on the territory of the former Soviet Union, UCU trains students to serve Church and society in post-Soviet Ukraine and beyond. UCU’s history dates back to 1928 when its cornerstone the Lviv Theological Academy (LTA) was established. In 1939 the Soviet authorities forcibly closed the LTA. In 1963 the LTA’s exiled rector Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj created the prototype of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome. In 1994 the LTA was revived in Lviv and in 2002 it was transformed into the Ukrainian Catholic University. Today, UCU offers bachelor’s degrees in psychology, bachelor’s and graduate degrees in theology, history, and social pedagogy, and graduate degrees in journalism, media studies, and business administration with some 1600 full- and part-time students. New programs are being added annually. The Ukrainian Catholic University initiated the first phase of its Comprehensive Campaign in 2010 with a goal to raise $65.5 million by 2016. To date the Campaign has raised over 75% of its targeted amount, or over $50 million.
About The Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation (UCEF):
Thanks to the generosity of its donors, UCEF supports many projects at UCU, such as scholarships, professorships, student exchanges, and courses, through its various programs and endowments. UCEF is a registered Canadian charity (#82224 5098 RR0001).
For more information visit www.ucef.ca, or contact UCEF by phone (416) 239-2495 or e-mail ucef@ucef.ca
