“In the beginning, every air alarm was the big stress. WSU students listen to students from King Danylo University in Ukraine present on cultural and food tourism in Ukraine via Zoom.Ī few weeks later, Nadiia wrote to Jha and said the students had committed and would do the presentation, come what may. “I remember that after the invasion happened, I reached out to Professor Nadia and I said I would completely understand that if you do not, if you’re not able to do that presentation, and her response to me was over email saying that, give me a couple of weeks and I’ll come back to you.” He said it always ends with a final presentation by students about tourism in their home country. WSU Professor Dipra Jha teaches the class. She said all of a sudden, she had a personal connection to the crisis unfolding in the news. “And it made it really real for me about what was happening, because I’ve connected with these people and like Instagram and stuff, and they become my friends.” But then also inspired by how, like, resilient, they were to still come to class,” she said. Natalie Parsons was one of the American students in the class. But soon, many of the Ukrainian students started zooming in again from different locations. Many of the Ukrainian students had been displaced from their homes.
Once the invasion began, students didn’t show up for a couple of weeks. “We actually have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and 24th February when the war started, it was actually the time for having the classes and since five o’clock, our city was bombed – it was rockets on the airport,” said Nadiia. Professor Nadiia Grebeniuk, who serves as the Ukrainian professor for the course, said the timing was all wrong. Students from King Danylo University in Ukraine were scheduled to begin their business tourism class in February.