Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 Office of Public Information (212) 854-5573
His talk to students, faculty and friends of the school will begin at noon in the Kellogg Center on the 15th floor of the school, 420 W. 118th St. at Amsterdam Avenue. He will be introduced by Dean of International and Public Affairs John Gerard Ruggie, who will also present the school's Distinguished Service Award to President Kuchma following his address.
You are invited to cover. Please call JoAnn Crawford at (212) 854-8598 to reserve space.
President Kuchma was elected to the presidency in July 1994 after a meteoric rise in the political arena. Born in 1938 in rural Ukraine and trained as an engineer, he did not enter politics until 1989 and was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament in 1990. He was named Prime Minister in December 1991 shortly after Ukraine became independent. He has been instrumental in bringing Ukraine, once on the verge of economic collapse, toward a viable modern market structure and integrating it into the global economic system while also steering the newly independent nation through the complex transition from a Soviet Socialist Republic to a free, sovereign and democratic state. Among the early achievements of his economic reform program were the institution of privatization, stabilization of the national currency, liberalization of the taxation system and revision and modernization of trade regulations.
President Kuchma received the Ph.D. in 1960 from the Department of Physics and Technology of Dnipropetrovsk State University and began his engineering career at one of the Soviet Union's largest aerospace and missile production centers, where he played a major role in the design and construction of rockets for the USSR's early unmanned space program. In 1986 he became the center's General Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer and initiated a pilot program to restructure the complex away from military production to the manufacture of public transportation vehicles and farm machinery.
Columbia's Harriman Institute, the country's oldest major university center for graduate study of the former Soviet Union and Soviet successor states, is co-sponsoring the event.
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