European transformation of higher education in Ukraine - an opinion translated into action: the case for computational linguistics at Kyiv National Linguistic University

The students report the usefulness of working with the real-life materials that the course brings to them, e.g. with the authentic scholarly papers that they read, with Wikipedia where they are authorized to responsibly shape and curate the open knowledge for Ukraine and the world, and with the tangible instruments for information structuring and mind mapping that they get to know of and learn to use. The students enjoy discussing papers written by their teacher and the University professors as this brings them closer, introducing one to the academic life of the University. They indulge in the challenge to analyze the existing and to give their own translations of professional terminology, contributing to the expansion of the field and also getting the knack of creativity in translation. The poster conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics that as a single seminar closes the course invites creativity and reportedly is a non-trivial academic experience, too. On that, the students develop a respect for intellectual rights, see themselves and the others as responsible subjects exercising these rights, and practice academic integrity while being able to enjoy their academic freedoms.

The people & communication direction of the course. The students evaluate the communication within the course as positively stimulating them towards (self-)knowledge, (self-)respect, (self-)fulfillment, (self-)actualization, and (inter-)action: they develop an awareness of themselves as personalities, raise their self-esteem, and strive to communicate with others. The students like it that the teacher as a practitioner of the profession herself pushes them to start acting as the theories that they learn will necessarily transform when applied to the practical reality of their job. Particularly noted by the students is the teacher's sentiment that one must get their “a job” before eventually getting their “the job”, which had urged a number of students to actually find and start their first jobs that they later did change to their greater satisfaction and reward. The students report their first experiences with work.ua and coursera.org, and their now-habitual use of LinkedIn.

The students state that during the course they feel included into a bigger professional community on a par; they are encouraged by the “colleagues” and the “young colleagues” as the teacher's forms of addressing them, which they pick for themselves and invariably hear as an invitation to the corporate culture of the University and to the linguistic profession where they now feel treated as peers. The International Girls in ICT Day that we traditionally celebrate with the students is reported to promote a professional self-identification in many of the female students, respecting their future work in the information and communication technologies.

The students enjoy expressing themselves in the discussions that follow their presentations, and think highly of their freedom to articulate an opinion and of the dialogue nature in the overall organization of the course. They report that they feel the teacher believes in them, takes joy in their motivation and enthusiasm, and cares for the transformation that they experience throughout the course in terms of their skills, professional orientation, and engagement with the useful and practical things that their linguistic profession grants. The students relate that the learning process is customized to their needs and that they feel the center of it. They feel valued as individuals with their own sense of direction, and are empowered because their opinion and preferences do matter in shaping workflows and the agenda of the course. Based on their beliefs about European education, the students come to define the course as European.

The students report that the course is very carefully designed and well-organized. They always know exactly where they are in their road map, what is now expected from them, and at each step they take a meaningful message home. They say they like the teacher's prudence, goodwill, kindness, and student-friendliness, and find her mild, smooth, relaxed, and self-possessed way of communicating very appealing and restful. The course reportedly contributes to the students' psychological and mental well-being, strengthening their peace of mind and giving them regular moments of repose, which is especially noted now during the war when the students have accumulated substantial amounts of psychological fatigue. They like the teacher's good humor and the creative metaphors she comes up with; she is always ready to give and accept feedback, and prompts them to do so, too. With the overall human-centeredness of the course, the students comprehend the plurality and diversity of the human world in the digital age, and come to appreciate the uniqueness of the human brain, mind, and intelligence, understanding that these need to be nurtured with due care and devotion.

In view of the opinions and evaluations of our course expressed in the surveys, we conclude that educational Bildung has actually been the case throughout the students' learning, directing their professional and personal development within the educational culture constituting our educational space. As culture arranges into a harmonious whole the people and the artifacts that these people create (Markarian, 1998), educational culture certainly is no exception to this. The artifacts that the students have created to date in the framework of our course are the chat-bot they built for the 2023 school leavers applying to the University, the web-site they developed for the students of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation of KNLU, and the digital application for imaginative learning of foreign words using authorial rebuses and puzzles that is now being developed by its creators as a start-up idea. These emerged as the students' initiatives in the in-class projects and teamwork, and are now the ongoing projects that substantiate the students' practical solutions in studying the course, which we believe is a strong message to each of the stakeholders of the University that at KNLU we educate professionals who make differentiated candidates for future employment. The chat-bot is now being integrated into the web-site, which is conceptually and organizationally supported by Prof. Yaroslava Gnezdilova, Dean of the Department and the guarantor of the Program. The projects have thus taken their next level as a fact of the students' self-government in action, and will continue in the academic year to come, this time supported by the senior students.

The students' artifacts emerged only now, in semester II 2022-2023, with the 4 semesters in the record of the course behind, which we believe is indicative of the critical juncture in maturation when the educational culture that we grow in our educational space has eventually matured to bear its fruit. The artifacts were created by the students themselves, which we take as a signal that now they are neither guests nor visitors to this culture but its natives.

Conclusions and further research

The academic course in Computational Linguistics that we showcase in this paper fits within the Strategy for the Development of Kyiv National Linguistic University in 20212025, bearing the priorities that the University sets for education and research.

The course is a realization of the mission of the University to act as a unique multilingual institution of higher education in Ukraine, and of the vision of the University as a competitive leader with a highly-developed corporate culture and robust opportunities for the professional and personal development of all the participants of the educational process. The course is conducive to this development as it results from and promotes professionalism and creativity, academic freedom and academic integrity, collegiality and partnership, delivering the quality of higher education in the face of the grand challenges and in response to the grand changes that are now transforming Ukraine and the world. The course builds upon the traditions and values of the University, contributes to training highly- qualified, differentiated linguists for Ukraine, fostering their integration into the global professional community, and is a potent binder for students and prospective employers as the stakeholders of the University.

The course resonates and synchronizes with the big transformation now programmed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in view of the integration of Ukrainian science and higher education into the European educational space, with industry and education posed as counterparts. The course ensures the quality of higher education according to European standards and contributes to the national value and internationalization of the University, in a harmonious way creating a European educational culture in the educational space of the University.

The prospect of this paper is a discussion of the case that it presents with educators and educational leaders coming from the other Ukrainian universities, as well as with theorists and practitioners of higher education in its transitions generally.

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