Ian Cook Co-edits Volume on University Programs for Refugees

A volume co-edited by Céline Cantat, CMDS Fellow Ian M. Cook, and Prem Kumar Rajaram on university access for students who have experienced displacement has been published by Berghahn.

Entitled Opening Up the University: Teaching and Learning with Refugees, the volume offers contributions from educators, administrators, practitioners, and students. It addresses “what the varied responses of higher education to displaced learners can teach us about the boundaries of academic institutions, and how struggles over access for these students may lead to new openings.”

The editors aim “to reflect collectively on our experiences as teachers and administrators in education programs for displaced people in a hostile national, and at times institutional environment,” they write in the Introduction.

Cook and his co-editors have been involved in establishing and running the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, which focuses on opening access to higher education for refugees and asylum seekers.

Cook also contributed “a short and angry chapter” to the volume, arguing against prestige, “the great limiter in academia."

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