Mission
An Extramural Evaluation of the CFMDE (May 2024)
Launching a Community-Engaged Global Curriculum on Forced Migration Across Liberal Arts Colleges
Evaluator-Kaiya John
At a time of widespread mobility and displacement, liberal arts institutions are uniquely positioned to address the global challenge of forced migration. The CFMDE engaged this challenge in three main ways: by learning from displaced scholars and students, by collaborating with local organizations to engage newcomers in our communities, and by using transdisciplinary approaches to study migration, both within our classrooms and around the world.
Founded by faculty, students, and staff at four liberal arts colleges, and supported by the Mellon Foundation from 2016–2024, the CFMDE created a cross-campus learning ecosystem. Our consortium stakeholders collaborated to generate scalable social responses to forced migration, alongside and in support of displaced people. Together, we created a groundbreaking curriculum in migration studies totaling 190 courses across four colleges. Our campuses hosted 17 displaced scholars and artists through in-person and virtual fellowships.
CFMDE pedagogy also extended outside of the classroom. Our applied pedagogical environments ranged from legal clinics for asylum seekers in the Hudson Valley to mental health programs for clinicians who care for migrants and refugees in Switzerland. From cosmopolitan Malaysia to Vermont farms, the CFMDE prepared undergraduates for impactful professional trajectories that connect social justice commitments to rigorous research and practice. Simultaneously, it leveraged the distinctive capacities of liberal arts institutions to support displaced scholars, artists, and students.
The CFMDE exemplified how a global liberal arts education persists as a model of excellence for cultivating civic engagement.
Migration In and Beyond the Liberal Arts Classroom
Migration in and Beyond the Liberal Arts Classroom, a podcast episode by Sarah Lawrence student Sydney Walter, features students and faculty who attended the CFMDE’s Migration Teaching Lab in 2023. In the grant’s final year, podcast participants reflected on the CFMDE’s impacts both in their own lives and beyond.