Daryna Kolmyk and Anna Syvkova
On June 13, the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) held its bachelor’s and master’s graduation ceremonies, welcoming 641 new graduates into its alumni community. In keeping with a long-standing global academic tradition, the ceremonies featured addresses from two honorary speakers: the salutatorian, representing the bachelor’s degree recipients, and the valedictorian, representing the master’s degree recipients.
This year’s salutatorian was Anna Syvkova, a 2026 graduate of the UCU IT and Business Analytics program. The valedictorian was Daryna Kolmyk, a graduate of the UCU Business School’s Master’s program in Marketing Management, who serves as a project curator and communications manager.
Below, we present the texts of their respective speeches.
Anna Syvkova is a native of Mariupol and a graduate of the Ukrainian Leadership Academy. She currently works as an analyst at the international consulting firm Civitta and as a partnership manager at the 1991 Charitable Foundation. During her tenure with the foundation in 2025, she helped raise over 165 million UAH to purchase equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Additionally, she is an active mentor and facilitator for youth leadership and volunteer programs.
Her academic and professional background includes an exchange program at the University of Tartu (Estonia), internships at the Hansen Leadership Institute (USA) and Mitacs Globalink (Canada), and participation in six short-term Erasmus+ programs across Portugal, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Norway.
Anna Syvkova
Speech by Anna Syvkova, Salutatorian of the UCU Class of 2026:
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Dear graduates, parents, and faculty,
I am honored to welcome you all on this wonderful summer day—a moment many of us have been working toward for four years. My name is Anna Syvkova. I have the honor of speaking on behalf of our entire graduating class, and I want to highlight a singular truth: we are the first class to have completed our entire education during a full-scale war. Because of that, today I want to talk to you about choice.
Every one of us is currently facing a choice. Where do we move forward? How do we proceed? Do we stay here to build Ukraine, or do we seek our future elsewhere? I know this dilemma from the inside.
I was born and raised in Mariupol. That city is my home—it was then, and it remains so today. I often reflect on the decisions that brought me to this podium. My presence here is no accident; it is the result of the values we have chosen and continue to choose.
Anna Syvkova
Young Anya could never have imagined that she would one day graduate from the Ukrainian Catholic University. Both “Ukrainian” and “Catholic” were identities I had to discover within myself.
First, consider the language. In the world where I grew up, Ukrainian was spoken only by tourists. After 2022, most of my classmates ended up either abroad or in Russia. Yet, I stand before you today, honored to speak in Ukrainian. This language was not given to me by default; it was acquired, cultivated, and consciously chosen.
Then, there is faith. Where I come from, the church was not a part of daily life. This university gave me the opportunity to reclaim for myself, and for my family, traditions of which we were once deprived. I know that each of you has your own story—your own path to this moment. But the most important choice we made together was to stay and build this country. When I first enrolled, everyone told me to go abroad, claiming that everything Ukrainian was inherently inferior. That was the voice of an inferiority complex—a distrust of myself and my country. I chose not to believe it. And I am grateful that UCU never once let me regret that decision.
We all knew this path would be thorny. We remember the exams in IT-Space without electricity. We remember October 10, 2022, when the power failed for the first time, and the dining room staff moved outside to cook food while we panicked to reach the nearest store on the corner of Stryjska and Sakharova Streets. I remember the nights in the shelter with friends from the Collegium, and the sleepless mornings when we had to rise after a night of air-raid sirens and carry on.
I also remember the day our choice to stay cost us the most: September 4, 2024. That was the day we stood together clearing the rubble. That day, Russia took four of our own—Yarynka, her mother Yevgenia, and her sisters Darynka and Emilia. I knew Yarynka well; I regret that I never had the chance to meet Darynka.
For the past four years, I have been haunted by the thought that Russia is taking away not only our past and our memories but also our future. We were supposed to meet these people, and we will never know how they might have shaped our lives.
Despite all this, we chose to stay. Because this university and this country have given us so much. UCU became our home—it gave me a home to replace the one Russia took from me in Mariupol. It gave us values: we may not all become the world’s best business analysts or political scientists, but each of us now knows exactly who we are and, just as importantly, who we are not. It gave us people who have become our family.
Now, our choice is what we do with this foundation. We must stay and build: work in Ukrainian companies, speak Ukrainian, help the army, and support those who have experienced loss. We must remember those we have lost—we must honor their names and ensure their stories are told.
I have no right to speak of choice without mentioning those who paid the highest price. Those who defend us from the enemy, and who defended my home in Mariupol to the last. Some of these heroes are among us today; others are no longer here, though they certainly should be. Serhiy Molchanov, Dmytro Pashchuk, Artem Dymyd, Kostya Yuzvyuk, Iryna Tsybukh—and all those whose names I do not have time to list, but whom we have no right to forget.
I believe we will ensure that the country for which they gave their lives comes to fruition. Glory to Jesus Christ!
Daryna Kolmyk
Biography: Daryna Kolmyk
Daryna Kolmyk is a graduate of the UCU Business School’s Master’s program in Marketing Management, a project curator, and a communications professional. She previously earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the Ukrainian Catholic University (2023). During her undergraduate studies, she served in the Student Government, sang in the choir, led the student podcast organization “Podcatch,” and actively contributed to campus community life. She also served as a project and program manager in the UCU Development Department, notably working with the “Donatsia” scholarship fund.
Currently, Daryna curates the “Believe in Yourself Space” in Podil (Kyiv, Ukraine), an intellectual and cultural initiative of the “Believe in Yourself” Foundation, where she focuses on reading culture, community building, and social responsibility. Concurrently, she works on projects at the Institute of Religion and Society, contributing to the promotion of Crimean Tatar heritage in Ukraine and analyzing the role of religious factors in the ongoing war.
Graduation Speech by Daryna Kolmyk, Valedictorian:
Your Eminence, Most Reverend Fathers, Respected Representatives of the Senate, Honorable Rector, Faculty, dear fellow graduates, parents, and friends—Glory to Jesus Christ!
As someone who, for the next few minutes, is taking a break from being a marketer, I should perhaps begin by thanking the university and listing its achievements. However, since you have already entered the UCU “funnel” and become its most dedicated audience, there is no need to “sell” the university to you—you already know its value. Today, I propose we talk not only about what UCU has given us, but about what each of us can now offer to the world.
Life is fast and fluid, and we all yearn to leave a mark. I recently read a book on the history of world art, which noted that one of the earliest testimonies of the human desire to create is the palm prints left in African caves—living proof that the need to leave something behind is an authentic human necessity.
Over these years at UCU, each of us has left our own traces: in exam responses and seminar papers, in volunteer projects and events, in the support of friends, and in service to others. Today, the world around us will not change globally in an instant, but our role within it will. From now on, those traces must be deeper and more significant, even in places where we may not be welcome.
It is no coincidence that Pavlo Kazarin noted last year that there are far fewer adults than we might think. This leaves a vacancy that I believe every student here can fill: the responsibility to become an “adult” for the world and continue leaving traces of change.
Initially, we may be underestimated—seen as the “youngest” in the room, newcomers who have yet to prove ourselves. We have all experienced that feeling of inadequacy—the desire to grasp everything immediately to avoid seeming less capable. But my supervisor once told me, “Sometimes you really want to feel small, because that state awakens the curiosity, research, and ideas that usually hide when we are behind the shell of an expert.”
This is our “UCU advantage”: the university has served as a safe simulator where we could strengthen our research muscles, overcome our sense of inferiority, and reframe our achievements and knowledge. We have debated, learned, created, stumbled, and corrected our course. Now, it is time to carry that forward, embracing the role of an eternal marathon runner.
A successful Ukrainian entrepreneur once remarked that the foundation of his actions is one word: “sharing.” The very word “university” implies “everything” or wholeness. If, over these years, we have diligently collected our “everything,” it is now time to share it—by leaving traces, thinking critically, making difficult decisions, and launching new projects. You cannot leave a footprint while standing still.
The moment we receive our diplomas and toss our tassels today, our education does not conclude. Acquiring knowledge is only half the battle; the hardest part begins now: convincing others of the value of that knowledge and inviting them to join us. Individual footprints are barely noticeable, but when we walk together, we pave roads.
It will be difficult. We will miss each other, and we will long to return to our Sofia—to contemplate the mosaics or listen to the choir. In moments when things do not work out, or when we are rejected or unheard, let us hold fast to our place of strength: the community that became an alma mater for each of us and will always accept us as we are.
The world is vast, unpredictable, wild, and sometimes treacherous. Yet, we have been well-armed with knowledge here. We have discovered our talents, found our peers, and some have even found their faith. We have everything we need to make the world a place worth living in.
Look around: these are your greatest allies. They will celebrate your successes and stand by you in times of sadness, wherever you may be. Our greatest value now is the ability to share. We hold so much in our hands; we need only take that first step forward, and the road will appear beneath our feet.
Onwards with God! We will succeed!
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