Under Threat At Home, Refugee Scholars Find Academic Havens At U.S. Universities

Mohammad Alahmad, a Syrian academic, speaks at a New University in Exile Consortium event last week. Alahmad continued teaching at Raqqa University until ISIS shut down the school. “I decided to stay to help students,” he said, “to continue teaching as much as we can.” He and his family left Syria after the university was … Continued

Ben Ferrari / The New School

Around the globe, more scholars are now threatened and displaced than since World War II began. In response, U.S. universities have sponsored endangered scholars and recently created a consortium that offers a broader academic community to refugee scholars threatened by war and authoritarian governments.

“There is a moral obligation to do something,” said Arien Mack, a psychology professor at New York City’s New School for Social Research, who launched Endangered Scholars Worldwide in 2007 to draw attention to the threats facing academics. She now oversees the New University in Exile Consortium, which will bring exiled scholars together over the next two years for seminars, workshops and conferences. The New School has recruited 10 other universities to the consortium, and is urging more to join.

The consortium aims to build intellectual links among the refugee scholars and their host institutions.