Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the University of Notre Dame has expanded its academic, religious, and cultural partnerships with the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv. Twelve Notre Dame MBA students and four UCU counterparts traveled to Wroclaw, Poland, to advise UCU on how to set up a cultural center for Ukrainian refugees there.
This trip was offered as part of the Mendoza College of Business interterm week. In this intensive mid-semester course, teams of students work with companies or nonprofits on a specific challenge. For the first time, the spring 2023 interterm projects expanded to include projects in Mexico City, Dublin, London, and this one in Poland.
The College’s Meyer Business on the Frontlines Program offers unique experiential learning courses where students utilize the dynamic skills of business to address issues including post-conflict rehabilitation, poverty, illicit economies, isolation, and prejudice. The trip served as an opportunity to explore projects for future Frontlines teams who conduct more in-depth research as part of their innovative approach to problem-solving in post-conflict countries and regions.
Wroclaw in southwestern Poland, the third-largest city in the country, already has a large population of Ukrainian refugees. The city’s 1,000-year history speaks to the fluidity of borders in the region; it’s been part of Prussia, Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany before returning to Poland in 1945.
Since the war started, Wroclaw’s refugee population has doubled to more than 200,000. A large majority are college-educated women and their children because the men were required to stay behind in Ukraine to fight. In a city of about 700,000 residents, the impact has been substantial.
O’Hara Society members invest in the next generation of Notre Dame business leaders, impacting a mission-driven business education that contributes to human flourishing across the globe. Read more about what Notre Dame business students are doing to help Poland and Ukrainian refugees ›