Course Information
Dates:Thursday, June 18, 8:30am-10:30am EDT
Friday, June 19, 9am-11am EDT
Location: Online
Title: Refugees and Migrants in Higher Education
Who should enroll?
This online course has been designed as a professional development opportunity for those working in higher education who wish to learn more about various ways in which migration (forced and otherwise) affects contemporary higher education. Although the course will address the impacts of migration on U.S. higher education, the course is intentionally international in its focus, so practitioners, policy makers, faculty and graduate students from outside the U.S. are positively encouraged to join the class.
Course Description
Forced displacement, as calculated by UNHCR, has now exceeded 68 million people worldwide. The resulting influx of refugees to temporary and semi-permanent “host” countries has prompted higher education institutions and policy actors to innovate pathways to tertiary education. Concurrently, both “old” and “new” immigrant-receiving contexts are called to facilitate the tertiary access and attainment of students from a migrant background. This population may include students of the so-called first, second, or third generations. In this online course, we probe questions of access and experience among migrant and refugee populations as related to higher education institutions globally. We focus this conversation on the post-1945 period, beginning our discussions with a brief overview of global migration trends. We then consider various approaches to the support of migrant students in key world regions, highlighting comparative data, before turning to refugee student support in both “brick and mortar” as well as online settings. The final portion of the course allows for an integrative discussion of educational equity and policy innovation supporting immigrant and refugee students alike.
Certification of completion
Please note that all participants from outside Boston College will not receive academic credit nor a transcript documenting their participation in this course. However, all participants will be awarded a certificate of completion to share with their employers.
Any questions about this course can be directed to internationalhighered@bc.edu.
