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Ukraine scholar bases 4-month
U.S. fellowship visit at LSUS

Tiffany Milne

Svitlana Furda, an international scholar from Ukraine, visited LSUS last fall to increase her management skills to help businesses develop customer relations programs in Ukraine. Her studies and research in the U.S. were funded by the U.S. State Department’s Freedom Support Act Contemporary Issues Fellowship Program, a merit-based competition administered by the International Research and Exchanges (IREX) Board.

During her four-month visit in America, three of which were based at LSUS, Furda studied customer relations and attended a “Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Leadership Summit” in Boston. She also worked with the Chicago Chamber of Commerce before returning to Ukraine in late December.

“It is necessary for me to conduct research in the USA,” Furda said, “because it is clear that CRM systems, policies and development in the industry are going best of all in the United States.”

“The CRM system allows businesses to organize data to find, acquire and retain customers,” she said. “During my research project in the USA I am going to collect materials for the new module of the existing courses or design a new course related to CRM systems and policies.” While at LSUS, Furda’s sponsor and professional advisor was Ron Sereg, assistant professor of communications. Sereg assisted Furda in coordinating research work at LSUS and establishing contacts with organizations and businesses in the area.

Furda interviewed managers at SWEPCO about implementing the CRM system, and visited Allstate Insurance Company and McElroy Metal.

Through her interviews and plant visits, she gained insight as to how U.S. business strategies might aid Ukraine’s young market economy. She said one of her goals is to implement CRM in a Ukrainian company that will open five satellite offices in Ukraine.

Furda has been an instructor of business at the Precarpathian University and the Ivano-Frankivsk Technical School of Commerce in Ukraine. The multilingual Furda - Ukranian, Russian, English, French and Polish – lives in Ivano-Frankivsk, the southwest region of Ukraine, with her husband and 7-year-old son.

IREX is a nonprofit organization specializing in higher education, independent media, Internet development, and civil society programs in the United States, Europe, Eurasia, the Near East and Asia. The FSA Contemporary Issues Fellowship Program has supported qualified leaders from all 12 of the New Independent States to research, interview and lecture in their areas of expertise. The program, funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State under the FSA, provides opportunities for experienced professionals from Eurasia to conduct four months of independent policy-oriented research in the United States with the goal of playing an active role in sustaining the transition to democracy, free markets and civil society in their home countries.