CARA / Scholars at Risk UK Universities Network Updates
New Network Members
· The University of Northampton
Events
· CARA’s innovative workshop to help promote and facilitate academic freedom a success. Students from Africa, South America, Europe and the Middle East all participated in CARA’s innovative workshop, Football, Universities and Students: formulating an action plan for academic freedom. The aim of the workshop was to educate the students on the notions of academic freedom and create a space for discussion on how can best be facilitated and promoted through the mediums of football and sport, universities and academic institutions, and students.
The discussions were productive and encouraging and gave the students the tools to become agents in the defence of academic freedom in their home country. The workshop intends to produce a collaborative report on the outcomes of the issues discussed at the workshop to be published by CARA.
· New book, ‘In Defence of Learning The Plight, Persecution, and Placement of Academic Refugees, 1933-1980s’. Written to celebrate 75th anniversary of CARA (originally Society for the Protection of Science and Learning) and essays to celebrate influential twentieth-century scholars.
Established in the 1930s to rescue scientists and scholars from Nazi Europe, the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL, founded in 1933 as the Academic Assistance Council and now known as the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics) has had an illustrious career. No fewer than eighteen of its early grantees became Nobel Laureates and 120 were elected Fellows of the British Academy and Royal Society in the UK. While a good deal has been written on the SPSL in the 1930s and 1940s, and especially on the achievements of the outstanding scientists rescued, much less attention has been devoted to the scholars who contributed to the social sciences and humanities, and there has been virtually no research on the Society after the Second World War. The archive-based essays in this volume, written to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the organisation, are the first to attempt to fill this gap. The essays include revisionist accounts of the founder of the SPSL and some of its early grantees. For the first time, the story examines its relationship with associates and allies, the experiences of women academics and those of the post- war academic refugees from Communist Europe, apartheid South Africa and Pinochet's Chile. In addition to scholarly contributions, the volume includes moving essays by the children of early grantees. At a time of increasing international concern with refugees and immigration, it is a timely reminder of the enormous contribution generations of academic refugees have made - and continue to make - to learning the world over.
Exclusive 20% discount from Oxford University Press. More details here
If you wish to host a CARA event or talk at your university, please contact adi.cara@lsbu.ac.uk
Scholars At Risk Global Network Updates
New hosts
· VU University in the Netherlands offered a twelve-month research position to an Iranian scholar. This position was organized in cooperation with SAR’s partner in the Netherlands, the Foundation for Refugee Students/University Assistance Fund.
· University of Cape Town, South Africa issued six-month visitorship invitations to three scholars from Ethiopia, Iraq and the Philippines.
· A Sri Lankan scholar began a one-year fellowship at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This position was organized in cooperation with SAR’s partner in the Netherlands, the Foundation for Refugee Students/University Assistance Fund.
· An Iranian scholar arrived at New York University for a six-month visitorship.
(One of the above scholars is in receipt of a fellowship from the Prins Foundation, and three of the above scholars are in receipt of fellowships from the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund.)
Upcoming events
For more information on the following events, please email scholarsatrisk@nyu.edu.
Save the date! October 3-4: Scholars at Risk will mark our 10th anniversary by celebrating the extraordinary people and institutions that have done so much to help so many endangered scholars worldwide. Please join us. Visit http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/campaigns.php for program, registration and travel information.
New alerts
Scholars at Risk has recently issued calls for letters on behalf of the following scholars who are in prison or face a sentence against them. To view SAR’s alerts, to download model letters of appeal or to view SAR’s letters on behalf of the following scholar, please visit: http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Education-Advocacy/Alerts-Scholars-in-Pris...
• Omid Kokabee of Iran (Physics)
• Pham Minh Hoang of Vietnam (Mathematics)
