Peter Kule Celebrates Centennial Milestone
6 January 2021
Peter Kule. 2002.
Peter Kule Celebrates Centennial Milestone
CIUS’s Peter and Doris Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre extends heartfelt best wishes to Peter Kule on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday on 6 January! Peter, an accountant by profession, and his late wife Doris, a former teacher who passed away in March 2020 at the age of 99, are among Canada’s leading educational philanthropists. In total they have donated some $17 million toward post-secondary institutions across the country, including the University of Alberta, MacEwan University, the University of Ottawa, and the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, recently relocated from Ottawa to St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto. Their far-sighted support of Ukrainian studies in particular has had a major and lasting impact on scholarship in this field by providing stable sources of funds for a variety of research and educational initiatives. Thanks to their generosity, the Ukrainian Canadian Program at CIUS was put on a solid financial foundation, for which it was renamed the Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre (KUCSC) in their honour. Not only is the KUCSC, under the direction of Jars Balan, at the forefront of Ukrainian Canadian research and publication, it also is engaged in the study of Ukrainians around the world through its Ukrainian Diaspora Studies Initiative, headed by Dr. Serge Cipko. These activities are underwritten by Kule endowments established in 2006–7.
A native of the village of Stratyn in the Rohatyn district of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Peter emigrated to Canada in December 1938 with his mother and two brothers to join his father, Petro Kuleba, in Two Hills, Alberta. Bright, ambitious, and with strong mathematical skills, he first learned to be a bookkeeper and later became a chartered accountant, eventually establishing his own highly successful accounting firm while astutely investing in real estate and other businesses. Peter married Doris Radesh, an Alberta-born daughter of immigrants from Bukovyna, in 1943, and together they determined to share their fortune with a host of Canadian universities for the advancement of scholarship, research, and innovation. May Peter enjoy good health and happiness in his 101st year, knowing that he has many friends and admirers who care deeply for him!