News and Events

Around the world, OSUN Network Collaborative Courses are supporting students so they can build new social enterprises to tackle challenging issues in their countries. In addition, OSUN courses are using “experiential learning” to equip students with the media skills needed to create useful content for future OSUN classrooms but also to amplify powerful narratives of worldwide social change.

Social Entrepreneurship, a course led by Alejandro Juárez Crawford in collaboration with instructors across seven OSUN campuses, currently serves over 100 students at Al-Quds Bard College (Palestine), BRAC University (Bangladesh), Bard College Annandale (US), American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), American University of Bulgaria, European Humanities University (Lithuania), and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia). 

Last summer, as part of a digital enhancement project, students and faculty from the Visual Storytelling for Civic Engagement class took hands-on learning to a new level as they created video case stories of the exciting projects developed by students from the Social Entrepreneurship class. Two of the case studies presented particularly promising solutions for some of the most persistent socio-economic problems in Palestine and Bangladesh. 

“Becoming a Changemaker: Social Entrepreneurship in Palestine,” was created by Palestine-based filmmakers Laura Menchaca Ruiz and Khader U. Handal in collaboration with Dalia Najjar, a faculty member at Al-Quds Bard College (AQB). It focuses on two award-winning student-led social impact projects, Investapeer, a digital education platform that enables students to take online courses and share skills, and CleanPalCo, a recycling and manufacturing venture.

As the powerful images and commentary in the video demonstrate, Israeli military occupation and embargoes have created systemic economic and land management problems that negatively impact the lives of Palestinians. The video shows how CleanPalCo works against that trend by recycling discarded tires and dust from stone cutting factories to create needed household products, such as bricks and rubber tiles. 

“As Palestinians, using our products instead of using other countries’ products will solve a lot of problems to have our own control over our economy and to depend on ourselves,” says Ahmad Hijawi, who, with fellow students Mohammed Irzeqat, Elias Amro, and Natalia Handal, worked with international business experts to launch the award-winning company. “Palestine is occupied, so creating new businesses is hard. But the video shows powerful examples of what is possible,” adds faculty advisor Najjar.
 
The video goes on to examine how the tools, skills, and global networks that students accrue through taking OSUN courses such as Social Entrepreneurship not only help them navigate their daily lives but also prepare them to lead promising new civic ventures. It explains how RebelBase, an online project tracking platform that helps students develop and test their ideas while getting input from peers, experts, and resource providers, allowed students at AQB to tackle the twin problems of pollution and supply chain blockage.
 
Social Entrepreneurship co-instructor Eliza Edge says the feedback-based technology and global dynamics of the class allow students to absorb different viewpoints that make their work excel. “Students who might have nothing in common–who would never, ever meet–are now joined together because they share…a passion.. and from there they unlock many other similarities,” she says.  
 
Similarly, the narrator of “Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs of Bangladesh” asks “How can young people who see the opportunity to change systems around them for the better develop an idea and test its validity in the real world?”  The Bangladesh-based video case study, created by BRAC University students Nazia Zafrin and Tanzil Talat Anonto and overseen by BRACU professor Dina Hossain, highlights projects borne out of Social Entrepreneurship and Leading Change for Sustainability, a course that is part of the OSUN Certificate in Social Enterprise + Leading Change. The video points out how student projects address social problems that affect both the early and later stages of life in the country.

The first half of the video features Safety Net, a social enterprise project developed by students Shanila Mehjabin, Shezami Khalil and faculty member Sebastian Groh, that provides accessible retirement funds for aging Bangladeshis. Mehjabin and Khalil explain why, as Bangladesh evolves into a country with middle-income status and increased life expectancy, it is more important than ever to equip Bangladeshis with the knowledge and skills they need to invest in reliable retirement plans.

The video also profiles Roots, a student-led initiative supporting community-based independent daycare hubs that provide education and nourishment to marginalized children in Dhaka. Sakib Ahmed, a BRACU alumni who developed the Roots initiative with fellow alumni Abu Sifat Mahmud, says “We wanted to do something from the roots so that children in the future can contribute more to education, more to society.” 

Edge goes on to explain that the courses are so successful because they enable students to build on common values while encouraging them to share skills as they pursue joint goals. “The experience is absolutely finding similarities with your teammates,” she says, “but then identifying what it is in you that drives you and makes your contribution to the team so important.”

Click here to watch these and other videos from the Visual Storytelling for Civic Engagement course.

OSUN partner institution BRAC University in Mohakhali, Bangladesh, has launched a Social Impact Lab (SIL), the first student-led initiative on the campus. Led by OSUN Global Engagement Fellow Srijan Banik, the platform assists students working together to develop innovative social entrepreneurship projects and is supported by BRAC University’s School of General Education and the Office of Student Life.
 
At a recent inaugural ceremony on the BRACU campus, university administrators and high-level tech entrepreneurs praised the groundbreaking endeavor. Sonia Bashir Kabir, BRAC University Trustee and Founder of SBK Tech Ventures and SBK Foundation, said, “I think with initiatives like the SIL, BRAC University is pioneering in civic engagement and impact projects in Bangladesh to the extent that a revolution has started.”
 
Dave Dowland, BRAC University Registrar, said that the university’s backing also serves to highlight the impacts that student-led social projects have made in Bangladesh. “(SIL) can be a great platform for all the changemakers who started out small…and set an example that can be followed at other campuses in Bangladesh or even across the globe.” 
 
SIL has already executed several innovative events linked to mental health awareness. On October 10th, World Mental Health Day, SIL joined with OSUN Global Engagement Fellows at the AUCA and BRACU campuses to create a “Global Wall of Goodwill,” where students shared their mental health concerns, feelings, and words of support for those who might be facing challenges to their mental welfare.⁠ More than 450 students and faculty from both campuses wrote words of affirmation on designated wallspace and had discussions about supporting those in need.
 “The Wall of Goodwill was like a test case scenario for us to see if we could initiate more cross-campus projects,” says project founder Banik. “That seemed to be a success, so we plan to do the same with other campuses.”
 
SIL has announced an upcoming project called “Letter to a Stranger,” in which individuals experiencing depression, anxiety, or other mental health-related problems can exchange anonymous letters about their feelings, without being stigmatized.

Also during October, SIL helped pilot a demonstration of Inside Global, a software developed by SIL member Farhin Ahmed that provides virtual therapy sessions. With support from an OSUN microgrant, the venture is the product of a collaboration among student software developers, institutes and think tanks from around the world, with assistance from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Over 200 students took part in the highly successful project pilot, leading to an offer to provide exclusive VR therapy services on the BRACU campus.
 Inspired by last summer’s Get Engaged Conference at the AUCA campus in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, SIL and university leadership have consulted with OSUN about establishing a dedicated Civic Engagement Centre at BRACU, which has one of the largest student populations in the network. Samia Huq, OSUN Chief Academic Officer and Dean of the School of General Education, has formed a Civic Engagement Steering Committee at BRAC with hopes of advancing the initiative.
 
“As SIL moves forward with new ideas, we plan to design projects that can be implemented across different campuses across OSUN,” says Banik. “SIL is an innovation hub to convene student impact entrepreneurs and changemakers so they can design and co-create projects to bring about positive change. So we believe in a global collaboration to amplify that impact. OSUN can play a very important role in creating that global impact.”  
 
Follow Social Impact Lab on Instagram

Speaking at a recent Council on Foreign Relations webinar, Rebecca Granato, director of OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, discussed the need for supporting systematized enrollment of refugee students into institutions of higher education. Noting that “primary and secondary education for refugees is most frequently treated as an emergency response,” Granato outlined the impact that a more inclusive educational approach would have for displaced students.

“Between interrupted education and poor-quality opportunities in host countries, even the brightest youth often lack the necessary skills,” she says. "Structures like those offered through the Open Society University Network are necessary to support these students, not only in moments of crisis, but throughout their educational journeys."

“We really need to create pathways and pipelines between different higher education institutions and programs,” Granato says. “We need to include connected opportunities, scholarships in countries of first asylum, and also third-country opportunities so that students can move between degree possibilities, like any of us would, who want to get a higher education.”

Watch the full CFR discussion on YouTube.

The OSUN Global Commons Editorial Team has launched its Fall 2022 issue, featuring 60 multimedia works selected from a varied group of institutions across the network. A fully student-led, digital publication, Global Commons features essays, articles, creative writing, and artwork by students, and was developed by an international student editorial board over the course of the Summer and Fall 2022 semesters. The first issue of the publication was released during Spring of 2022.

“It was rewarding to witness the passion and commitment of the editorial team as we worked hard to carefully select pieces with an eye to the uniqueness of authors as well as the diversity and creativity they bring to their writing, says Managing Editor Hephzibah U. Emereole, a recent graduate of Ashesi University in Ghana. “I feel very fulfilled and excited for the growth in the latest Global Commons issue!”

Global Commons uplifts student voices on important themes that unite OSUN, especially those related to Sustainability and Climate, Inequalities, Human Rights, Global Justice, Global Public Health, Arts and Society, Democratic Practice, and the Liberal Arts and Sciences. By promoting a free and open exchange of student work in these core thematic areas, the editorial team hopes to encourage new ways of thinking and problem-solving in an increasingly globalized society. 

Han Thu Ya of Parami University says that publication of her story, "A Girl in Her Early 20s," is quite important to her as "I now have a chance to inform a diverse range of the Global Commons community of youth struggles in Myanmar at the beginning of the Spring Revolution. I would be happy if this piece could convey a fraction of the information about the people in the small country standing up against the oppressors, which I think is also important for the Global Commons mission." 

Jessica Halsey from Tuskegee University in the US says the publication of her article, "Becoming the Beloved: Bridging the Communities" is an opportunity to help spotlight the historical importance of her institution. "It is extremely important that Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) continue to have a voice in the journalistic sphere," she says. "My article aims to highlight the significance and necessity of connecting communities, and the diversity of the Global Commons illuminates why bringing communities together is beautiful and meaningful."

Anton Periderii from American University of Bulgaria says that his article, "Why Green Energy Might Not Be the Best Option," presents an uncommon perspective that Global Commons readers will benefit from. "I believe that this work will be important for Global Commons, as it will highlight a less popular opinion and will contribute to the diversity of the opinions presented here," he says.

Mina Dahl of Bard College (Annandale), says that publication of her series of poems, "Stories of their Countryside," allowed her to communicate through the arts personal experiences that might resonate for many. “Every poem I write is an echo of my identity and the consequent struggles I have faced. The Global Commons has allowed those poems to be heard beyond borders by new audiences, so that more people may feel united through cosmopolitan art and its experience."
Emereole says for the Fall 2022 issue her team received 110 submissions from 18 OSUN partner colleges and universities, accepting 60 pieces from 50 unique authors across the OSUN themes listed above.  The majority of submissions were in the area of Arts and Society, with 23 unique pieces. Other OSUN themes, including Inequalities, Sustainability and Climate, and Global Justice all had increased submissions since the Spring 2022 issue, which featured 46 pieces with a majority focused on human rights.

OSUN member institutions whose students contributed for the first time include American University of Afghanistan, American University of Beirut, American University of Bulgaria, American University of Central Asia, Arizona State University,  National Sun Yat-Sen University, OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning (in Eastern Africa and Bangladesh), Parami University, Tuskegee University, and Universidad de los Andes.

Published twice a year, Global Commons encourages students to create works in any genre or language while they also develop as leaders and global citizens. The Global Commons editorial team of five is also assisted by an editorial board that provides oversight and is open to faculty and staff from across the network. 

Students interested in submitting their work or joining the editorial team, and faculty/staff interested in joining the advisory board, are encouraged to write to [email protected].
 
OSUN congratulates the Global Commons editorial team for another outstanding issue and applauds all of the students who chose to share their work with a wide international audience. Keep on writing and creating!

The OSUN Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative (TSI) has launched the Afghan Challenge Fund (ACF), a fellowship program designed to place newly arrived scholars and civil society professionals from Afghanistan in positions that harness their talents and train them so they can make positive contributions to their host nations and to a future democratic and pluralistic Afghanistan.

Supported by a $2 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, the ACF seeks to address the precarious conditions often confronting Afghans who have arrived in the West since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, many of whom can only find employment that does not correspond to their skills and expertise. The ACF offers incentives to universities and NGOs in the US, Canada, and the UK to hire newly arrived Afghans and put them on a path to positions that will benefit them, their communities, and channel support to Afghan civil society. 

“While the world’s attention has understandably shifted to the war in Ukraine, we don’t want to lose sight of Afghanistan,” said Thomas Keenan, co-director of TSI and director of the Human Rights Program at Bard College, and OSUN institutional partner. “Since last fall, thousands of brilliant scholars, analysts, advocates, and activists have fled Afghanistan for safe havens elsewhere, and we have not supported them enough as they seek to apply their talents to organizations here or to the future of their country. This new initiative seeks to address this by supporting these outstanding individuals through employment that utilizes their skills and experience and creates opportunities for new visions of a future Afghanistan to emerge.”

The ACF initiative will fund fellowships for scholars in universities, think tanks, and research institutions, and for civil society professionals working in media and journalism, arts and culture, public policy, international development, and women’s and human rights.  Applications must be submitted by host institutions in partnership with the proposed fellow. ACF will partner with host institutions to pay up to half of fellows’ first-year salaries. The goal is to incentivize professional development and longer-term contracts for fellows. 

Potential ACF fellows can apply here.

By Tobias Hess, Bard College ‘22

Is rage essential to call out systemic and ingrained injustice? How can a politics of rage acknowledge rational and expert authority? Must social media contribute to the fracturing of society into raging tribes? These were just a few of the questions explored during “Rage and Reason: Democracy Under the Tyranny of Social Media,” a conference sponsored by OSUN’s Hannah Arendt Humanities Network (HAHN), a project based at Bard College that supports the integration and accessibility of humanities studies across OSUN institutions.

Over the course of two days in October, over 100 scholars, authors, activists, students, tech workers and politicians convened in the Hudson Valley to explore how rage, as filtered by social media algorithms, has become an increasingly powerful force in political discourse across the globe. In addition to the in-person audience, over 2,000 people watched the conference both live online or later as a recording. The conference was also covered in local media, such as Radio Kingston, based in Kingston, New York.

The forum was marked by a curiosity about, rather than a mere dismissal of, rage, whether it resides within populist movements or in the halls of academia. There was also an undeniable recognition that while righteous anger may exist, social media often transforms rage into something unambiguously destructive. As Roger Berkowitz, director of the Hannah Arendt Center, noted, "This conference on rage and reason is born from the worry that our politics today is so consumed with a rage against hypocrisy that  . . . [it] will tear down the last vestiges of our political institutions.”

Speakers explored the theme of rage from a variety of vantage points. During their respective panels, both Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger, and William Davies, author of Nervous States, focused on how modernity has brought humanity both unbridled freedom and deep feelings of instability, paranoia, and fear. Other speakers confronted the question of rage by noting its potential political efficacy. In one of the conference's most exciting and provocative addresses, Myisha Cherry, author of The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle, highlighted the ways in which rage can be a necessary force in the fight for anti-racist policies and practices. 

Focusing on social media's role in instilling a sense of rage in the public, Frances Haugen, the whistleblower behind the infamous Facebook papers and the conference’s keynote speaker, discussed specific governmental and corporate policies that could minimize the perpetuation of violent discourse on social media platforms. Similarly, Colin Megill reflected upon his work with pol.is, a technology platform for large-group conversations that fosters moderation and compromise.

Examining the policies and social mores that surround questions of censorship and power in the digital age, Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, discussed how the public can find a balance between the values of safety and freedom in the online speech debate. During her address, Bard College professor Allison Stanger contextualized this debate by noting that we are living in an era where large corporations essentially own the public square. Finally, writer Thomas Chatterton Williams asked the vexing question, “Can Twitter Be Rational?” and acknowledged the widely felt sense that the specter of a rage-filled digital mob looms over all online conversation.

Watch a recording of “Rage and Reason: Democracy Under the Tyranny of Social Media” and find out more about the Hannah Arendt Humanities Network.

By Selasi Lawrence Coffie Jnr Azumah, Ashesi University ‘23

This October OSUN held its second annual Virtual Student Leadership Conference. Several leadership topics were discussed during the conference, but two sessions particularly stood out for all attendees.

The first of these two sessions, titled "Journey of a Leader," was led by keynote speaker Hephzibah Emereole (OSUN Global Commons Managing Editor, Ashesi University), who described her journey as she grew to be a student leader. Emereole's presentation effectively broke down the concept of leadership, reminding participants that leadership is not limited to roles where people are officially designated as leaders but extends to how emerging leaders relate to their friends and family. 

Emereole explained to participants that a leader is a person who is committed to a purpose and influences others to achieve that exact purpose. This means that anyone can be a leader, regardless of their age, gender, race, or any other incidental factor. She explained that many people sometimes feel they cannot be leaders due to such factors, a sad reality that prevents them from unlocking their full potential. “So be sure to remind yourself and those around you that you can all be leaders,” said Emereole.

Drawing on her evolution from a shy student to an effective leader, Emereole referred to "the Three E's",  or conscious steps one must take to become a better version of herself.  The first “e”stands for expand, which means taking risks, going out of one's comfort zone, and taking proactive measures to overcome shyness. Granted, this may seem challenging, but it is only by going out of one's comfort zone that they can grow as a person and a leader. The second “e” represents explore, which means consciously looking out for opportunities for growth and trying out a range of new things to learn from. The third “e” stands for execute, which builds on the two other e's and requires proving your value by giving your best to every task and achieving superior results.
 
As indicated above, the recurring theme in Emereole’s presentation was the need for a tremendous amount of intentionality. Leadership involves being deliberate about accessing opportunities that facilitate personal growth, building and utilizing networks that shape and direct us, constantly seeking and valuing constructive feedback, and, finally, being intentional about identifying what we are genuinely passionate about –something that can only be discovered by exploring.

The keynote speaker for the conference's second day was Maria José Caicedo, an experienced clinical psychologist working at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. Her talk on self-care provided a much-needed call to attention that many leaders often fail to heed.  Caicedo stressed how important it is for leaders to take care of themselves first, fighting any “superhero syndrome” so they can effectively take care of others. Admittedly, for someone hearing this for the first time, it may sound rather selfish and perhaps contradictory to the tenets of leadership. But it is essential to realize that leaders can only give their best to the people they serve when they are first in the right frame of mind and a strong physical state.  

Caicedo outlined two critical steps for self-care: understanding burnout and recognizing that it can happen to anyone. She shared her experience with burnout and compassion fatigue, which she experienced in her line of work as she constantly prioritized others' well-being over her own. Although leaders may be resilient and strong, they are not immune to burnout, so they must learn to connect with their bodies and emotions --the second step to self-care.

Caicedo pointed out that emotions guard and guide us by giving us important information about how our bodies feel at each point in time. How can you tell if you are reaching your breaking point? You may feel highly irritable, sick, pessimistic, tired, and overwhelmed, or you may struggle to sleep, she said. Perhaps you have sensed your body telling you not to take on an extra task to help someone, and you are battling it out in your mind because you feel it is your duty to do so. But that feeling within your body may be its way of protecting you from breaking down; you simply cannot afford to have more work on your plate, so it is vital to pay attention to what your body communicates to you.

Overall, participants in the OSUN Virtual Student Leadership Conference felt it provided them with essential lessons they will hopefully carry with them for the rest of their lives.  If you missed the conference, many opportunities to participate are still available, as OSUN Civic Engagement strives to impact students and help them reach their full potential. Find more leadership development and civic engagement opportunities here.

OSUN is proud to share its 2021/2022 Annual Report! During the 2021/2022 academic year, OSUN continued to demonstrate that the power of a strong international network lies in its members’ shared values and its highly adaptable and integrated partnership model. 

As Sabina Rashid, Professor and Dean, James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University, an OSUN partner institution, has said, “I think knowledge is multi-directional. It’s from many different actors and academics. Co-developing curriculum sends a very strong message from OSUN that this is not something we learn from but something we’re learning together.”

As the Annual Report shows, these shared qualities allowed OSUN to respond swiftly to urgent crises around the globe, displaying resilience in the face of emergencies in Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. It also enabled OSUN to address global challenges around climate change, public health, economic inequality, and threats to academic freedom.
 
The Annual Report provides updates on the unique higher education ecosystem that OSUN is building, including a growing roster of courses serving 7,000+ students since inception. It shares details on OSUN’s advances in expanding access to higher learning in places such as Kenya, Sudan, Bangladesh, Palestine, Jordan, and Kyrgyzstan, and in college-in-prison programs across the globe. It also details the strong transnational network OSUN is building to foster civically engaged universities among its 45 partner institutions.

Click below and page through the report to learn more about OSUN, its impacts, and its proven ability to accomplish more collectively than member institutions might on their own. The OSUN community takes pride in its progress over the past year and looks forward to a bright future.

By Zoe Katinos, OSUN Civic Engagement Initiative Intern, Bard College ‘25 

On October 15th-16th, over 200 students from across the globe gathered to attend the second annual OSUN Virtual Leadership Conference. A collaboration between the OSUN Civic Engagement Initiative and Student Life Initiatives Project at Bard College, the online event allowed students from OSUN member institutions to participate in workshops, hear keynote speakers, and meet like-minded individuals from many different time zones. One of the keynote speakers was Hephzibah Emereole, a recent graduate of OSUN member institution Ashesi University in Ghana, who kicked off Saturday’s conference by sharing her inspirational story.
 
Emereole began her talk with a statement that surprised most of the online audience: she used to be shy and suffered from low self-esteem. It’s hard to equate that version of Hephzibah Emereole with the person seated before the camera, who is charismatic and well-spoken. She credited her experience at Ashesi University as the catalyst that sparked her to adjust her mindset. By observing her peers perform in leadership roles, she was inspired to follow suit. Emereole explained how immersing herself in the Ashesi University community with volunteer activities helped her to gain the confidence and network ties that led to participation in larger scale international leadership opportunities. 

Emereole went on to divulge how she did face setbacks during this time of personal growth, as the inevitable rejection cropped up while seeking out exciting new opportunities. She recalled this rejection as a surprise that hit her hard. However, setbacks also became pivotal learning moments for her, as they forced her to more closely navigate application processes, compelling her to tell her story “in a more beautiful and powerful way.”
 
As Emereole mentioned the number of impressive positions she has held (ranging from Managing Editor of the OSUN Global Commons Student Publication to a Google Africa Development Scholar and a WomenTech Network Global Ambassador), the comments section flooded with contributions from students picking up on her magnetism. The interest made it clear that her engaging story and honest words of advice would stay with the audience much longer than the forty-five minutes her talk allowed. Follow Hephzibah Emereole at [email protected].

“Troubling Anti-Gender Attacks: Transnational Activist & Academic Perspectives,” a recent virtual roundtable discussion sponsored by OSUN’s Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice Program, the London School of Economics Department of Gender Studies, and the University of Witwatersrand Center for Diversity Studies, explored the transnational dimension of movements currently opposing feminism and LGBTIQ+ rights, known as “anti-gender ideology.” 

The event brought together scholars and activists whose work has been crucial in resisting ongoing attacks on queer, feminist, trans and intersex people, their rights and political projects. Panelists included Stella Nyanzi, Ugandan human rights advocate, poet, medical anthropologist and radical queer African feminist; Mauro Cabral, co-founder of Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE) and coordinator at Global Philanthropy Project (GPP), Argentina); Jules Gill-Peterson, historian and author, US; and Alia Amirali, political worker and academic, Pakistan.
 
Stella Nyazi spoke about anti-gender politics in Uganda and the backlash she received for her creative and political activism aimed at addressing sexual, reproductive, and queer rights. Mauro Cabral discussed the efforts to de-pathologize transgender people, anti-gender groups’ response, and the work of the NGO Global Philanthropy Project in mobilizing funds to support research and advocacy in response to anti-gender movements. Jules Gill-Peterson, author of Histories of the Transgender Child (2018), spoke about the importance of public-facing advocacy as a challenge to corporate media stories that distort the lived experiences of trans people, especially trans children. Alia Amirali spoke of the connection between economic hardships in Pakistan and rising attacks on women and transgender people in the country. She argued that current waves of the anti-gender movement are embedded within global crises of capitalism and liberal democracy, and the concurrent rise of right-wing and nationalistic sentiments.
 
The panelists discussed the possibility of developing a new terminology for the naming and categorization of groups as a way to counter anti-gender movements. Cabral offered that linguistics was not the issue, rather, addressing the common tools that oppositional groups use to counter transgender and intersex rights need to be examined. Cabral stressed finding common denominators oppressed groups share, so they can reduce internal hostility and build aligned political responses.

Participants reflected on the similarity of anti-gender movements in different contexts and how that presented opportunities for developing coordinated strategies to respond. All emphasized the importance of multi-level resistance and diverse actors in creating responses to anti-gender attacks, stressing the need to reclaim queer imaginings of the future, which are constantly being attacked by right-wing groups.

Read a full summary of the discussion here. A transcript will be available as a chapter in a forthcoming volume of Transnationalising Anti-Gender Politics, edited by roundtable organizers Aiko Holvikivi, Billy Holzberg and Tomás Ojeda, and published in the Palgrave book series Thinking Gender in Transnational Times.

By Alexandra Jones for the the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS)

Princeton University’s Global History Lab (GHL) at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) provides an unprecedented opportunity for undergraduates to learn from and build connections with their peers all over the world. The program takes a horizontal, networked approach to teaching the history of globalization, fostering empathy, promoting civic engagement, and changing how higher education approaches historical research and knowledge creation in the process.

Now in its third year of partnership with OSUN, the GHL course uses advanced virtual learning technology to connect students from diverse backgrounds and provide higher education to those with the most significant barriers to access. The curriculum includes lessons and discussions on world history since the 13th century, training in conducting oral history, and the opportunity for students to present research projects to their classmates and on the lab’s Global History Dialogues site. PhD students at OSUN partner institutions, drawn largely from Princeton and Central European University, lead students in small sections, developing their online and connected teaching skills and building collaborative relationships with their fellow scholars.

“The Global History Lab is a learning center for us to think about higher education on the edge—the edge where the growth is, but also the edge in figuring out how to create access for people who are excluded and clamoring to get in,” says Jeremy Adelman, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and the GHL’s founder. “There’s a yearning on the part of so many of our students to learn. They want to be part of this.”

In addition to undergraduates enrolled at more than two dozen partner institutions, including universities in emergency zones like Ukraine and Afghanistan, the GHL collaborates with NGOs like the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative in Uganda and the OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives in Jordan and Kenya to engage learners shut out from higher education. Students may log on to the course from refugee camps or countries under authoritarian rule. They are often limited by low internet bandwidth and view lectures, participate in class discussions, and even write essays on their smartphones. 

“It's about putting together very privileged students with students who do not have the same access and showing them that they can learn from each other,” says Catalina Muñoz, associate professor in social science at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. “Just because you don't have the means or credentials to be part of these big universities doesn't mean you don't have ability, intelligence, creativity.” This reciprocal model means students learn a more nuanced, interconnected history informed by their peers’ unique perspectives.

As the lab’s partnership with OSUN has progressed, instructors have identified ways the program could better serve learners needing support. The GHL, Bard College, and Arizona State University developed the Refugee Higher Education Access Project (RhEAP), a bridge program designed to upskill students in preparation for higher ed, and piloted the program at OSUN’s hub in East Africa in 2021.

“We're trying to set a new standard for access and how students who have been removed from higher education systems might regain that access and be able to feel like they're part of something broader, even though they're not matriculated into a university yet,” says Rebecca Granato, Associate Vice President for Global Initiatives at Bard College and Program Director for the OSUN Hubs. Students on the margins get an orientation to academic norms and a certificate from Princeton, which can be helpful if at some point they pursue higher education at an institution based in higher income countries.

The GHL can also offer meaningful moral support to learners impacted by war, environmental catastrophe, and political strife. After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, institutions like the American University in Afghanistan relocated to nearby nations. Others, like Kardan University and Rana University in Kabul, could not relocate—but teamed up with the GHL to offer the course to students, including women and girls who are now banned from schools. 

“They are living under a lot of tension. Mentally, they are not at peace,” says Wahid Wafa, professional specialist at Princeton’s Program in Journalism and Humanities Council, who leads a cohort of GHL students in Afghanistan. “But here, they found an opportunity.”

For Wafa’s students, connecting with instructors and peers, learning how peoples throughout history have fought oppression, and sharing their own insights and experiences has been a vital lifeline. “It creates a big hope among young students in Kabul that they are in a class which is taught globally in different parts of the world,” he says. “They are proud of this.” 

OSUN’s Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP) marked the first year of its Fellows Program by gathering all 20 members of the current cohort for a series of in-person workshops this summer at Bard College.

The fellowship is a 2-year professional development opportunity for early to mid-career faculty who demonstrate pedagogical leadership. The current group of fellows hails from 15 partner institutions across the network, actively collaborating across disciplines as well as campuses. Fellows immerse themselves in training that helps them to apply student-centered, writing-rich teaching methods crucial to liberal arts and sciences education. The strategies they learn about can then be implemented in their classes and shared with peers, helping to grow a global community of faculty deeply committed to student-centered pedagogical innovation.

While attending the workshops, Romina de Jong, Dean of Academic Affairs at Parami University, an online institution offering Bachelor of Arts degree programs to underserved students from Myanmar, said the first year of the fellowship involved in-depth study of writing-based pedagogies that were helpful in formulating strategies she can use in her own pilot project. 

De Jong’s project focuses on designing fully writing-based courses at Parami University. This means helping students develop a socially inquisitive mindset that can inform their studies. “I really want them to get a feel of how writing and thinking are connected and how to use this during their research,” she says.

She notes that studying liberal arts and sciences is relatively new to Myanmar and countries throughout Southeast Asia, where business or management degrees are usually viewed as more viable paths to career success. Conversely, studying liberal arts majors, such as philosophy, politics and economics, or statistics and data science, can help students develop skills that are applicable in a variety of occupations, she says. “We have no idea whether the jobs we have nowadays will still exist ten years from now, so it’s smarter to develop skill sets that can be used across disciplines and are desirable in different professional fields,” she adds. 

De Jong says she is grateful she joined the fellowship at this time because it gives her tools she can use as the recently licensed Parami University launches its new undergraduate program. She and fellow faculty members can now implement writing-based pedagogies in a coordinated fashion.

The robust international infrastructure that OSUN provides has allowed De Jong to engage in several innovative cross-campus collaborations. She has co-taught an OSUN course with a colleague from BRAC University, bringing together students from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. “Bangladeshi and Burmese people normally do not get in touch with Rohingya, so this was exciting to do. It wouldn’t have happened without OSUN,” she says.

CLASP fellow Juan Carlos Duran Uribe, Adjunct Professor of Contract Law and coordinator of the Judicial Training Program at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, says the first year of training in student-centered, intensive writing teaching has been helpful for both his teaching and faculty work, especially now that the School of Law is undergoing a curricular reform. 

“We want our students to transfer what they learn into other contexts and to be critical and responsible citizens,” says Duran, who has been applying CLASP’s critical and socially engaged strategies to his contract law course.

Duran says one of the most striking things he has learned during the fellowship is that “writing is a way of slowing down your thoughts…Through writing, you are able to organize your thoughts so they are more coherent and reflective of what you are trying to say.” This goes a long way in helping students to “build reflection skills that will help them to live better as citizens.”

Meeting fellows from across the globe, Duran has also benefited from observing on a personal level that “your thoughts, struggles, and worries as a professor are shared by many others all around the world.” He also feels certain that the connections he has made with other fellows will lead to networks of like-minded educators who wish to do the same type of teaching. “It’s a very fertile field to create collaborative work in the future,” he concludes.

As the second year of the fellowship progresses, OSUN and the CLASP leadership look forward to observing the exciting innovations fellows will bring to their teacher research capstone projects, as well as the mentorships they will conduct with the incoming cohort.

Sonita Alizada, international rapper, human rights activist, and Bard College student, recently participated in a European Council-sponsored forum that featured young women survivors, activists, policymakers, and leaders working in conflict and post-conflict regions. Co-hosted by UN Women, Nadia’s Initiative, and the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation, the third annual “Women in Conflicts: Young Voices for Change” event took place in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Alizada opened the event performing her song “Daughters for Sale,” which passionately criticizes the practice of forced child marriage. “Let me whisper some words in your ear/so no one can hear/I’m talking about girls for sale” she rapped, drawing on her own experience of twice escaping forced marriage in Afghanistan and Iran.
In the discussion part of the event, she reflected on the anniversary of the Taliban banning girls from attending secondary school in Afghanistan, describing the situation as an emergency. Alizada also criticized global inaction and called on the humanitarian sector and international leaders to listen to and invest in women and girls who are living in crisis situations. 

“If another generation is born in poverty and illiteracy, the humanitarian crisis, child marriage, sexual abuse, health issues, (will grow) at an even faster rate,” she said, referring to conditions in Afghanistan and Iran. 
Similarly, panelists Nadia Murad, Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist, and Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, discussed inadequate international responses to the plight of women and girls who have survived conflict-related sexual violence in Iraq and Ukraine. 

Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, highlighted the problem of women frequently being characterized as victims of conflict instead of individuals who can play an active role in maintaining peace and security in their communities and countries.

Watch Alizada’s performance at the start of the event video, her comments at 32:18, and her closing performance at 1:10:50.

OSUN welcomes the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) as the newest member of its global partnership of higher educational institutions committed to integrating learning across boundaries while defending the values of academic freedom and open society worldwide.

In the midst of the ongoing crisis sparked by Russia’s violent assault on Ukraine, the KSE partnership underscores OSUN’s alliance with the students, scholars, and educational institutions of Ukraine, who hold that knowledge, critical thinking and global partnerships must be used as tools to counter authoritarianism.

“Despite the brutality and devastation caused by Russia’s war of aggression, unprecedented in Europe since WWII, Ukrainian students and scholars show extraordinary resolve to continue their studies and research and contribute to building a democratic and prosperous future for their country,” says Oleksandr Shtokvych, Head of the OSUN Secretariat at Central European University. “OSUN is proud to welcome the Kyiv School of Economics as a member and will use the resources of our global alliance to support its pursuit of academic excellence in the social and economic sciences towards building a new Ukraine as a global player committed to the values of open society.”  

OSUN’s Sustained Response to a Global Crisis

The strong international ties nurtured by OSUN’s partners enable the network to promote civic engagement that supports democratic societies and expands access to higher education for communities in crisis.

With the new partnership, OSUN supports KSE’s efforts to promote the Ukrainian Global University (UGU), a network founded by prominent Ukrainian and international educational institutions aiming to connect Ukrainian students, teachers, and scholars to educational and research opportunities worldwide. In the long term, UGU also seeks to play a leading role in the rebuilding of the country’s higher education system and developing ideas and best practices for a new Ukraine.
  
At a pivotal moment for the future of Ukraine and Europe, OSUN also tangibly supports the Invisible University for Ukraine (IUFU), an initiative launched by partner Central European University’s Democracy Institute in collaboration with Ukrainian academics and Ukraine experts. This venture centers on free, credit-bearing certificate programs for degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students from Ukraine, many of whom are now displaced and whose studies have been disrupted by the invasion. IUFU’s primary goal is to equip the new generation of Ukrainians  with skills to better understand the war and its aftermath, providing deeper integration with international academia, and broader discussions on the role of Ukraine in shifting European and global contexts. 
 
Through its Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative, OSUN continues to work with partners to provide sponsorship initiatives within their institutions so students from Ukraine can continue their education and scholars their teaching and research, despite disruption.

OSUN and KSE look forward to a productive partnership that will build on the already vibrant set of collaborations the network has undertaken to serve the needs of students and scholars affected by the invasion of Ukraine.

OSUN has launched a new set of user-friendly academic tech guides–short, engaging how-to videos and PDFs that walk students and faculty through core digital learning applications, such as Brightspace, Padlet, Panopto, and Zoom. Co-created by OSUN partners and students during the summer of 2022, the guides provide students with the crucial tips they need to master their online courses and peer connections. Faculty can learn about using these applications to facilitate instruction.

OSUN’s Academic Technology team, based in Berlin and New York, and working in collaboration with Columbia’s Picker Center Digital Education Group, an OSUN partner, shot the 40+ videos at Bard Annandale (New York).  The team designed the 1-3-minute tutorials with the objective of making key academic technology engaging and accessible to anyone across the network. 
 
“It was a new experience being on camera and presenting,” explains junior Sydney Oshuna-Williams, who introduced many of the videos shot on her campus at Bard Annandale. “I have done quite a bit of theater…so I had a sense of what it might take, but actually seeing it all come together was exciting,” she says. 

The guides underscore OSUN’s commitment to providing the technological support necessary to make higher education more interactive and inclusive, facilitating partner schools’ full integration with the network.
 
View the complete collection of videos and how-to guides here.

Food security is an acute global challenge, particularly in countries of both the Global South and North. Rapidly evolving geospatial technologies, such as geographic information systems, satellite imagery, drone remote sensing, and mobile applications, can contribute greatly to improving agricultural productivity, food quality and distribution. Numerous user-friendly tools and data sources are available, accessible for agriculture practitioners not specializing in digital technologies.

Despite the tremendous potential geospatial technologies offer, their application is hindered worldwide by traditional fears among practitioners that prevent their uptake. Furthermore, the technologies are constantly changing, making it even more difficult for practitioners to stay informed.

OSUN’s GeoHub Platform, a joint initiative of partner institutions Central European University (CEU), American University of Central Asia (AUCA), and Bard College, aims to develop the capacity of OSUN members for using the latest geospatial methods and technologies in their core research and teaching disciplines, including food security and rural development. The Platform capitalizes on the individual strengths of its partner institutions, such as CEU’s Syslab ISEPEI project and AUCA’s Tian Shan Policy Center.
 
For one week in late July, GeoHub offered its in-person Summer University course on “Geospatial Technologies in Food Security" at CEU’s Budapest campus. The course included a series of engaging workshops with top-level UN organizations, geospatial technology-based institutions, and renowned universities from around the world. The workshop focused on geospatial technologies in agriculture and digital transformation of rural areas, with discussions on precision agriculture, mobile apps, GPS, drone use, satellite imagery use, and more. Sessions were accessible online as well, allowing participants from remote locations to follow the presentations and actively participate in the discussions.
Approximately 45 experts presented their work on related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), food security, digital agriculture, crop monitoring, and more. Representatives from the UN Development Program (UNDP), UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), UN World Food Programme (WFP), UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), the World Bank, ESRI, Google, Babes-Bolyai University, Center for Research and Application of Satellite Remote Sensing (YUCARS) at Yamaguchi University, Airbus, MAXAR and Planet attended. 
 
The week of sessions provided a vibrant platform for networking and establishing professional connections, in the hopes of creating future collaborations on environmental and food security projects around the world. Trainings focused on bridging the gap between developers and practitioners, allowing participants to hone their skills with tools and technologies that can be applied for data-driven decision-making while monitoring various SDGs targets and indicators. 

“Discussions held between GeoHub members and participating organizations at the workshop led to the negotiation of several memorandums of understanding that granted partner institutions access to satellite imagery for research purposes and internship placements for students,” reported Viktor Lagutov, Director of GeoHub.

During the 2022/23 academic year, GeoHub will conduct a series of related online and onsite trainings and workshops in Vienna, Budapest and Bishkek. The platform is open to any individual at an OSUN partner institution possessing geospatial skills or an interest in developing such expertise. Register here for updates on upcoming GeoHub activities or write to [email protected].

While most universities naturally create a variety of partnerships in a great many ways, Central European University’s OSUN Science Shop initiative focuses solely on collaborations with the not-for-profit and public sectors, advocating for academic work that harmonizes learning objectives with the needs of the civic partner. 

Practitioners believe that this “designed cooperation” approach is not only viable for higher education, but it also involves community-engaged practices that create real-world impacts. Additionally, these practices have been proven to boost student motivation and the development of a range of essential skills and competences that are hard to acquire in traditional teaching.

CEU’s Community Engagement Office recently reported on Science Shop’s first year, in which six courses, eight internships, and one thesis were produced in partnership with European Humanities University (EHU) in Lithuania. 

Science Shop facilitates collaboration between citizens, civil society organizations (CSOs), public entities and CEU by transforming CSO requests for research-based data into course projects, internships, thesis work, or other academic research collaborations. The collaborations serve community partners as well as CEU, with the university offering coordination and support while it stimulates co-creation and mutual learning for all involved.

Producing a Roma Music Festival in a Hungarian Village

One project involved a Civic Engagement course co-created with Jelenlet Jesuit Roma Mission in Arlo, Northeast Hungary and Teach for Austria, educating students on civic and social responsibility by allowing them to co-design a project that actually functions in the real world. The goal was to design an event that brought together people and cultures that would not have met otherwise, shedding light on the positive values of Roma culture and showing the importance of music and dance in intercultural communication and positive identity-building.

During spring of 2022, a student team organized a two-day musical festival in Arlo and documented it on video. “Seeing the smiles of the 400 people who eventually turned out at the festival and hearing that after the festival, dozens of local children approached Jelenlet so they could learn music within their subproject, Szimfonia; and seeing locals dancing to live Roma music with people from outside the continent – all of these made us feel that this was indeed meaningful, something that is worth working for,” says one of the students. “Importantly, this project helped us put our studies into context and explain why it’s worth studying what we study.” 

Sharing Cultural Heritage through the Arts in Vienna

The Cultural Heritage and Event Management Project with Teach for Austria and Mittelschule Absberggasse introduced the basic elements of managing cultural identity initiatives. Students developed a heritage interpretation project within the Cultural Heritage Studies Program, supported by CEU Culture Hub, and working with the community partner Teach for Austria (TfA), an NGO that advances education equality. With the help of TfA, students worked with a school in the Favoriten district to engage children in dialogue about their cultural heritage through art. The goal was to learn together in a way that is empowering and different from elitist or monocultural ideas about what heritage is – and express this through the arts.

Students organized workshops in which schoolchildren shared their ideas about objects and intangible mediums linked to heritage: photos, stories, songs, clothing, food, jewelry, religious iconography, and decorative items. Students and children also shared with each other objects and photos from their heritages and then assembled collages. This activity was followed by a discussion on stereotyping, nationalism, and mass media. Collages were then exhibited in a ground-floor “Glassroom” of the CEU campus, visible to passersby on the street, giving the class a chance to share their cultural identity with the Favoriten community.

OSUN Science Shop Manager Andras Martoni says the initiative’s purposes are two-fold: making higher education resources accessible to a wider public while bringing the complexity and relevance of contemporary civil society cases to CEU’s courses and student projects. “We think of community engagement as a third mission of the university alongside education and research,” he says. The collaborations are motivated by a desire for the university and civil society organizations to learn from each other, he adds, pointing out that co-created knowledge is unique and made possible by the diverse experiences and perspectives of those involved. In Science Shop collaborations, academic knowledge and the experience of field practitioners are treated as equally valuable.

Faculty may embed a research question from the partnering civil society organization into course work. The student output then doubles, serving not only as coursework but also as applicable data and proposals going back to the civil society organizations. Martoni acknowledges that while course planning with an external partner may entail more initial work, the learning becomes richer by integrating the experiences of local practitioners.

“Universities can sometimes extract information from communities, using sources via interviews and focus groups for research purposes alone. After working together it’s common for the researcher to take away the findings and never come back,” Martoni points out. “Shifting the paradigm, Science Shop is very much connected to responsible research and innovation, providing a mutual benefit relationship.”
 

Although he hasn’t yet received his degree, Daniel Amoshie, an engineering student at OSUN partner Ashesi University in Ghana, has already designed a fully-functional machine for splitting cocoa shells, potentially helping solve the problem of two million child laborers in West Africa who do such dangerous work by hand.

Presenting his work at OSUN’s Ninth Annual Get Engaged Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference, held from June 23-30 at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Amoshie was one of 55 undergraduates gathered there from around the world to discuss their civic engagement projects. All of the students’ presentations demonstrated an impressive commitment to working both independently and in collaboration, often challenging the social status quo so they can assist underserved communities. Below are some of their stories.

Daniel: Designing solutions to child labor in West Africa
 
Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa is produced in West African nations such as Ghana by untrained workers aged 12-18, explains Amoshie. Hunched over cocoa pods for extended periods, the child workers use machetes to break open the shells so they can extract the beans used to manufacture chocolate. The work is not only dangerous and unhealthy but also inefficient, as it requires long hours and pays low wages. 

Amoshie used his own savings to realize his vision, steering his project through ideation, research, and engineering design. An OSUN coordinator on his campus was helpful in obtaining a small stipend from Ashesi University and Amoshie partnered with an agritech fabricator to produce the fully functional prototype.

While he awaits design certification from the Ghanaian government, Amoshie hopes that contacts he made at Get Engaged might help him find the funding he needs to manufacture more splitting machines. He plans to sell the machines cheaply to farmers so they can harvest cocoa more efficiently, giving their children more time to build skills suitable for higher paying jobs. 

“Farming families are beginning to identify that they are not getting the right solutions to help themselves,” says Amoshie. “I believe with more work and effort I can support more people with the knowledge I’m gaining.”

Symonne: Creating a community safe space on campus in the US

Similarly, Symonne Reid believes the relationships she established at Get Engaged will help her to share what she has learned during the two years she directed Gilson Place, a community space for students of color at OSUN partner Bard Annandale in the US.

“Talking to other people about the issues they go through in their home countries, that’s what I want to bring back to Gilson so our community can be supportive of other communities and we can learn from other communities,” says Reid, an electronic music major at Bard.

Reid says she has focused on building sustainable systems for Gilson, so it might endure as a cultural and ethnic safe space at Bard, where 31% of the student population is people of color and 9% is Black. During her tenure, she successfully secured funding to update and furnish the aging building that houses Gilson, making it an inviting place for students to attend events and just exist outside of the predominantly white spaces at Bard. 

“It’s really a home. A hub and a home,” says Reid, who also worked diligently to foster a culture of mutual support among the space’s twelve staff members. “If we want to create family for the community, it has to come from the people who are leading the space,” she says. Something seems to have worked, as each semester the space now averages around twenty student visitors per day.

Joodi: Filling a health gap for the medically underserved in Lebanon

Assisting marginalized communities is also a key mission of MedWork, an initiative led by Joodi Mourhli, a nursing student at OSUN partner the American University of Beirut. MedWork collaborates with HEAL (Health Empowerment Advocacy Learning), a student-run clinic on the AUB campus, to provide free primary health care services to medically underserved individuals, such as immigrant workers, LGBTQ+ people, underprivileged women, people with special needs, and Syrian refugees. 

“Healthcare services have become a luxury to many individuals in Lebanon,” says Mourhli, who explains that ongoing political and economic instability in the country, in addition to the Syrian refugee crisis, has left many individuals unable to cover their medical expenses. MedWork seeks to fill the gap by working with non-medical NGOs to refer individuals in need of care to the free clinic, which is staffed by medical and nursing students who volunteer their services.

“We are proud of the diversity of patients that we have so far served and the opportunity we have provided medical and nursing students to practice and enhance their theoretical and hands-on skills,” she says.

Following a successful pilot program, MedWork now seeks wider international exposure so it can encourage NGOs to provide funding for additional HEAL clinics throughout Lebanon. Like Amoshie and Reid, Mourhli hopes that connecting with the network will facilitate that.

Halima: Winning an alienated community’s trust in Bangladesh

Paper Cranes of Venus, led by Halima Hasin Tofa, an English major at BRAC University in Bangladesh, also serves a stigmatized and alienated community—the Bihari, an Urdu-speaking ethnic minority group confined to camps in Bangladesh where they endure horrific living conditions.

Since Bihari women bear the heaviest burden of insitutionalized discrimination, Paper Cranes focuses primarily on them. With the benefit of a seed fund from UN Women Bangladesh, ten BRAC students designed and implemented modules, workshops, and training sessions for 15 volunteers, who in turn instructed 30 community women on issues such as gender inequity, SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights), menstrual health, and consent. The women have also been trained in skills such as digital literacy and tie dying.

Informal sessions for women to talk freely about their experiences were groundbreaking for everyone involved, says Tofa. “The greatest challenge was getting people from the Bihari community to trust us, and to see some worth in this initiative,” says Tofa. “However, everything fell into place the moment we started having conversations openly and we realized how much we all had to say and to listen,” she says.

Nurmukhamad: Changing minds and addressing social problems in rural Kyrgyzstan

Education and employment, ethnic tensions and gender inequality are also key issues informing Nurmukhamad Turkbaev’s project on Central Asian Nomad Youth (CANY). Turkbaev, who recently received a BA in business administration from AUCA, has worked for several years advancing the debate skills and education levels of high school students living in the impoverished and embattled rural areas of southern Kyrgyzstan that border Tajikistan.

“The issue of ethnic clashes relates to 100% of the youth living here because it is a problem of the whole southern region,” says Turbaev, who explains that tensions between Kyrgyz and Tajik youths are worsened by the high rates of migration driving many parents to Russia, where they seek employment. Increased migration has also led to rising rates of poverty and domestic violence.

CANY seeks to advance higher quality education and sustainable employment as it also works to address ethnic conflict and gender inequality. It does all this by fostering community involvement through inter-regional debate tournaments, youth camps, motivational workshops, and webinars. Each year CANY helps students to come to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek to study English and some students win scholarships to study at AUCA or are shortlisted to attend prestigious universities in Kyrgyzstan and Russia. 

Despite these admirable outcomes, Turkbaev found that confronting social norms was the most challenging part of his work. “Initially, it was very difficult to convince parents to send their children to the capital because the value of education is not very high,” says Turbaev. “But by showing the success stories of other students, we are rapidly changing the mindset of parents too.”

With seed money he won from participating in a local business competition, Turkbaev plans to launch a dried-fruit exportation business that would provide jobs and hopefully decrease the need to migrate from the area. As with many of his colleagues at the conference, Turkbaev hopes that the global exposure his project received at Get Engaged might generate the additional funding needed to execute the venture. Judging by all of the Get Engaged students’ extraordinary commitment to hard work and collaboration to make their projects impactful and sustainable, they will no doubt meet with success. 

In the journal Internationalisation of Higher Education: Policy and Practice, Jonathan Becker, Vice Chancellor of OSUN and Executive Vice President of Bard College and Liviu Matei, Head of Education, Communication & Society at King’s College London, discuss “Internationalization through Integration,” a new global trend in which international and global networks of higher education institutions strive to coalesce to become a single transnational institution. The article identifies an important new form of internationalization, integration, which is exemplified by OSUN's strategy. The analysis contributes to a larger body of existing scholarship in the area of global higher education research.

Read the full article in PDF format here.

The authors compare and contrast the merits of OSUN, a foundation-supported global network of over forty educational institutions integrating learning and knowledge across geographic and demographic boundaries, with those of the European Universities Initiative (EUI), an EU-funded transnational endeavor spanning over forty alliances across 280 European universities. 

Becker and Matei argue that “alliances need a joint long-term strategy for education with links to research and innovation to drive sustainable impact at all levels of their institutions.” They characterize OSUN as a “vibrant network” where curricula are integrated, faculty from across the globe jointly develop courses and share virtual lectures, and classes support the sharing of insights from leading teachers and researchers, including those outside the academy. 

Deep partnerships and multiple projects

The strategy supported by OSUN is one distinguished by “deep partnerships” with collaborators, based on reciprocity, mutual respect, and shared values, the authors write. This contrasts with “traditional internationalization efforts,” which often translate into a single dominant institution that maintains subsidiary campuses or research centers abroad. 

While traditional university partnership activities are often restricted to faculty and student exchanges that are “transactional and limited in scope and ambition,” OSUN is committed to multiple projects that engage faculty, staff, and students from partner institutions and involve teaching, shared curricula, research, and co-curricular activities. By providing a diverse range of opportunities for faculty, students and staff to cooperate, OSUN’s “ecosystem of engagement” actively supports enhanced innovation in numerous overlapping project areas. 

Institutional diversity with a global scope

The writers assert that OSUN actively seeks to realize the value implicit in institutional diversity: when institutions of very different scales, strengths, and geographies cooperate, these efforts can provide access to qualified students who have been historically excluded due to poverty, discrimination, political tyranny, and economic underdevelopment. Becker and Matei claim that such collaborations also counter the increasingly market-oriented and hyper-specialized education offered in many universities.

Becker and Matei assert that OSUN actively strives to build a truly integrated, values-driven university network with a scope that is genuinely global as opposed to one that is Eurocentric. While OSUN is a non-governmental institution supported by Open Society Foundations, EUI is a top-down European project, funded and steered by the EU, with political aspirations. OSUN’s basis in academic and civil society values, including open society, academic freedom, and liberal education, contrasts with the “neo-liberal and instrumentalist tone in the EUI discourse,” which sees European universities as a means of boosting the quality of higher education, research, and innovation with the goal of influencing economic development.

The OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College (CHRA) has appointed Sabine El Chamaa and Lara Fresko Madra as its 2022–23 resident research and teaching fellows. This year’s applicant pool was competitive and diverse, featuring over fifty candidates from sixteen countries, demonstrating the richness of the contemporary landscape of research on and practice in human rights and the arts. 
 
The goal of the fellowship program is to support outstanding engagement in human rights and the arts by scholars, artists, and activists. Fellows are appointed for a one-year period to pursue their own research, contribute to the curriculum of the MA program in Human Rights and the Arts, and actively participate in the public life of CHRA.

“Sabine and Lara are talented young researchers with daring intellectual, political, and aesthetic practices. They will explore with our students a range of investigative and documentary strategies, theoretical frameworks, and case studies that will bring the frontlines of the struggle for rights into our classrooms,” said MA program director, Ziad M. Abu-Rish. “They are an essential part of our MA teaching team, intersecting with yet expanding the theoretical, methodological, topical, and geographic repertoires that anchor our graduate coursework.” 

Lara Fresko Madra holds a PhD in Art History from Cornell University and has an interdisciplinary background with an MA in Comparative Literature from Istanbul Bilgi University and a BA in Cultural Studies from Sabancı University. Her research focuses on contemporary artistic practices that challenge official history and offer alternative ways of relating to the past. Her dissertation investigates the role of spectrality, speculative fiction, discursivity, photography, and the archive in the artistic practices of four female artists working in Turkey. Fresko's current research tackles the potentials of water as a formal metaphor and an elemental vessel to imagine non-linear and anti-hegemonic forms of historiography. She has worked as a researcher, curator, and writer.

Sabine El Chamaa is a filmmaker who holds a PhD in Communications, Media, and Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MFA, Cinematic Arts in Film Production from University of Southern California.. From Lebanon, she has worked as an editor on independent film projects in Europe and the United States before moving back to Beirut. Her diverse projects include fiction and non-fiction films, multidisciplinary installations, photography and podcasts. El Chamaa's current interests center on the ongoing reconstruction of collective and personal memory in relation to one’s embodied experiences and personal archives such as photos, diaries, or dream recollections.

El Chamaa and Fresko will each design and teach two seminars over the course of the academic year, as well as organize and contribute to public programs that engage students, faculty, and staff across OSUN. CHRA researches, inspires, and extends the intersection of art and human rights. The fellows' presence across OSUN will further CHRA’s mission of supporting multidisciplinary and collaborative knowledge production on the intersection of human rights and the arts.

Learn more about the Residential Fellows and CHRA here.

The Ninth Annual Get Engaged Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference, organized by the OSUN Civic Engagement Initiative at Bard College in partnership with the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), was a rousing success. Held from June 23-30, and hosted by AUCA on their beautiful campus in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the conference brought together 55 undergraduate student leaders and 33 mentors from 17 OSUN universities and 28 countries.  ⁠

For the first time in two years, students, faculty, and staff met in person to discuss the civic engagement projects students have been developing and implementing in their respective countries. Students learned new skills, honed leadership styles, and networked with likeminded innovators who are collaborating with community partners across the globe to develop solutions to pressing local and global challenges.

On the first day of the conference, students broke into groups for a “hackathon” to develop ideas for new civic engagement projects focused on gender equity, access to education, digital civic networking, mental health awareness, and print journalism. The results were pitched before a panel of reviewers who considered them for further development by OSUN.

Throughout the duration of the conference, students shared presentations about their civic engagement projects they are implementing in their communities, with many focused on expanding access to education and professional skills in marginalized communities; ecological innovation; mental health interventions; political action; oral history and more. Participants offered critical feedback on the projects, drawing on parallel experiences in different locations to provide helpful guidance and support.

Stimulating workshops were conducted by faculty and staff mentors on visual storytelling, project development, cultural fluency, self-care, fundraising, and leadership training, among others. Informative panel discussions, project demonstrations, and networking sessions rounded out the professional aspect of the week-long conference, while rousing icebreakers, social gatherings, and participatory events, such as traditional Kyrgyz nomadic games and museum outings, contributed to the equally important cultural and community-building aspects of the conference. Access the conference program to see the full week of events. Kyrgyz national television covered the conference, giving a glimpse of its spirited and thought-provoking nature.

OSUN, its indispensable partners and outstanding students are already looking forward to meeting again next year, to continue strengthening and building our global network of bold, groundbreaking young leaders. Stay tuned for more stories and videos from the conference.

In Times Higher Education, Rebecca Granato, Director of the OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, recently wrote that there are four basic ways that universities can collaborate to support displaced youth seeking higher education opportunities. Granato notes that educators and administrators have a critical role to play in reaching the UNHCR’s goal to enroll in higher education by 2030 15% of the current 100 million refugees displaced throughout the globe.

Universities can use their sustained partnerships to share best practices and develop new approaches for admitting and supporting refugee students, leveraging collective strengths and resources to advocate with governments for safe and durable solutions.

Granato points out that universities can collaborate on bridging programs that help students prepare for higher education enrollment. For example, OSUN connects 40 institutions across multiple continents, working with partners in the US, Germany, Bangladesh and Kyrgyzstan, who combine their respective strengths to fulfill students’ transitioning needs.
 
Universities can collaborate on third-country education pathways, which open access to students to move from their country of first asylum to a new country for the purposes of education and a more permanent solution. Institutions can offer spaces and advocate with government authorities to create new visa categories and residency solutions separate from the official asylum process, writes Granato.

Universities can collaborate on promoting student engagement so students can galvanize support for displaced youth–as in Canada where student-driven levies have raised enough money to fund scholarships and support for refugees on about 70 campuses. Universities can also collaborate on staff and faculty training so they can adequately support displaced learners upon arrival. 

Read the full story here.

Fresh off completing their final exams and wrapping up a busy semester, fifty students from around the world gathered at Bard College’s campus in New York June 6-10, 2022 for the inaugural OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative’s Summer Workshop in Public Finance and Economic Policy.

Hailing from twenty countries and five continents, the students joined a distinguished  group of international faculty for an intensive week of seminars, lectures, and interactive sessions to study new approaches for tackling some of today’s most urgent challenges, including inequality, unemployment, and poverty.

Over the course of the workshop, students developed an understanding of public finance by examining country-specific financial arrangements, monetary regimes, the spectrum of monetary sovereignty, and the crucial role of food and energy security in achieving core public policy objectives. Watch interviews with participating students and faculty.

Students also worked in groups to apply the concrete analytical tools they learned at the workshop to understanding the role of fiscal policy, the available policy space, and the barriers and opportunities for more widespread economic prosperity. Students examined the cases of Australia, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Spain, and Turkey, to name a few, and presented their findings to the group. They considered how different countries can mobilize their financial and real resources to meet these goals, using the theoretical approaches and practical tools they learned earlier in the workshop. The intensive curriculum was supplemented with live music performances, a barbeque dinner, and a trip to the nearby home and library of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

OSUN institutions were heavily represented. Students from Al-Quds Bard, American University of Central Asia, Ashesi University, Bard College Berlin, Central European University, and SOAS all traveled to Bard College for the inaugural OSUN-EDI Summer Workshop. The diversity of backgrounds and perspectives present among workshop attendees made for a singular event and deepened the learning process for all involved.

Of the seven students who attended from Al Quds Bard, one of them, Nihal Almasri, remarked that the workshop "allowed us to think about the role of different governments when the country faces crises and challenges, such as COVID and climate change, and what policies should be considered to remedy these crises, taking into account the actual or financial constraints these governments face. The other topics discussed, such as monetary sovereignty, sectoral balances, government spending and taxes, full employment, and job security, allowed us to develop a new framework for thinking about economic stabilization, full employment, and poverty alleviation."

The OSUN Economic Democracy Initiative is already planning the 2023 Summer Workshop. Information and application information will be available soon on the Economic Democracy Initiative’s website. We hope to see you there!

The "Get Engaged: Student Action & Youth Leadership" conference is an annual leadership program organized by OSUN and Bard College that brings together undergraduate students to strengthen a global network of leaders and innovators who are working with community partners to develop solutions to local and global challenges. The conference exposes students to a wide range of ideas and experiences to help them lead community-based projects more effectively. The Get Engaged conference is a venue for sharing experiences, learning new skills, honing leadership styles, and networking with international peers.

 This year, the American University of Central Asia is hosting the conference for the first time, welcoming the largest cohort of students and coordinators from around the world. The conference will feature workshops, leadership training, and project presentations from students across the international network including Al Quds Bard, Ashesi University, American University of Beirut, American University of Bulgaria, American University of Central Asia, Bard College, Bard College Berlin, Brac University, Central European University, HUBS Refugee Education, European Humanities University, Fulbright University of Vietnam, Haitian Education and Leadership Program, National Sun Yat-Sen, Tuskegee University, Universidad de Los Andes, University of the Witwatersrand.

Get Engaged 2022 takes place June 23 – June 30 and is organized by the Centers for Civic Engagement at AUCA (@auca_cce) and Bard (@bardcce).

In an article recently published in the digital, open-access academic journal Early College Folio, Jennifer Browdy, OSUN professor of comparative literature in the Early College Research Institute at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, writes that virtual learning, when carefully managed with the right tools, not only enables discussion and interaction among students in early college humanities courses but can actually improve it.

Browdy, who has been teaching OSUN Online Courses for two years during the pandemic, explains how she used applied technology, scaffolded assignments, and signature pedagogies to significantly enhance digital discussions, interactions, and collaborations for high school-age students across continents and time zones.

Technology and pedagogy to strengthen global engagement

In the article, Browdy gives the example of her Fall 2021 course "Women Write the World," which was offered synchronously on Zoom with students enrolled from multiple OSUN member institutions in Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kenya, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Brazil, Berlin, and various locales in the U.S.

Browdy explains how certain tools were key in facilitating collaborative learning in the class. Padlet, a platform that supports digital "bulletin boards," Google Classroom, with functions for a discussion board and for streaming student-to-student communication outside of class, and Zoom's breakout rooms and audio features all contributed to more vigorous and engaged discussions. 

For the course's semester-long research assignment, additional technological and pedagogical innovations proved to be instrumental in engaging students across campuses. “Scaffolded” tasks broken down into smaller steps across shared digital spaces advanced collaborative learning while response journals and process writing provided opportunities for students to engage critically with each other's thoughts. The frequent incorporation of multimedia (music, video clips, images, guest speakers, and "field trips" on Google Maps) ensured that students stayed engaged throughout the duration of the course, while benefiting from perspectives and feedback from their peers around the world. 

One student in the U.S. wrote in a response survey that choosing her own topics to research and collaborate on over the course of the semester was “invigorating.”  “It truly felt as though I was in charge of my own learning, though that came with some challenges . . . This inquiry log has allowed me to make my, and many other women’s, voices heard…”

Collecting and disseminating early college research

The OSUN-supported Early College Folio is a digital, open-access academic journal produced by Early College that publishes research focused on the theory, pedagogy, and application of early college models. The “Digital by Necessity” issue, which includes Browdy’s article, explores the shift to virtual content delivery and how it has impacted learning, teaching, and research for early college faculty.

John B. Weinstein, provost and vice president of Bard College at Simons’ Rock, says that “an unprecedented number of students are taking early college, dual enrollment, and other related types of courses around the U.S. and the world. The journal is a vital way to communicate what we do in Early College, why we do it, and how it can impact education more broadly.”

“Early College is about disseminating as well as collecting,” says Weinstein, who explains that the institution aims to build collections of early college research, such as Browdy’s, while also working with scholar-educators to extend the impact of such research, helping them to share their findings as they create new knowledge. Efforts seem to be paying off, as Folio issues are now being downloaded by the hundreds by educators in more than forty countries.

Access the full article and issue here.