VICE-PRESIDENT
Albert Kipa has been a member of St. Sophia Religious Association, USA since 1984, and a Member of the Board of St. Sophia Association in Rome. Dr. Kipa is a Germanist who earned his B.A. at City College of New York and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is Professor Laureate emeritus of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA with more than forty years of pedagogical and scholarly activity. Starting as an instructor of German and Russian studies, he later became Professor of Comparative Literature and head of the Department of Languages, Literature and Cultures. In his research, Kipa concentrated on the development and popularization of Ukrainian literature and culture in the world context, especially the study of Lesya Ukrainka's work in the context of German literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also has authored many scholarly works on comparative issues in Ukrainian, Russian and German literature. From 2004 to 2007, Kipa served as Rector of the Ukrainian Free University (UFU) in Munich. Since 2009 he has been President of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States (UVAN). From 1980 to 1982 he served as a member of a National Advisory Council to the newly created U.S. Department of Education. In 1999 he became a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine and in 2010 then-President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, awarded Dr. Kipa Ukraine’s "Order of Merit" for significant personal contributions to the “preservation and enhancement of the national historico-cultural heritage of Ukraine.”