New Course & New Format
Refugees & Global Public Policy: 
Displaced Persons in New York and the World

SIPA is proud to announce the second course in the innovative Global Immersion format. As part of the enhanced MIA course curriculum, the course Refugees & Global Public Policy: Displaced Persons in New York and the World offers a deep immersion into the processes, challenges, and impacts of designing public policies for refugees and their host communities.

An information session will be held on November 17, at 1:00-2:00 pm in room 409 IAB and online.
 

Course overview

The course begins with an immersion component that takes place over ten days during the winter break (Jan 5-14, 2022). Based in New York City with visits to refugee resettlements in Buffalo, NY, the course offers a mixture of seminar-style discussions, interactions with UN and civil society experts, site visits, a role-play simulation on refugee camps, and refugee-themed cultural activities. In the Spring 2022 term, participants conclude the course by elaborating key policy proposals on refugee programming.

Course content

There are 26 million refugees in the world. Governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society actors and other stakeholders have developed a host of political, public policy, social, and labor market responses to the inflow of refugees. The actions at the global, regional, national, and local levels differ in their nature, scale, and impacts.

Taught by Professor Daniel Naujoks, the global part of the course introduces students to the key notions, norms, and global policy responses in the context of forced migration. Bringing together legal, sociological, policy, and development perspectives, the course advances participants’ understanding of how different actors are involved in the legal and policy regimes with regard to resettlement, healthcare, education, and labor market participation of refugees. The course emphasizes the agency of refugees and gender differences in the experiences and effects. It addresses the role of multilateralism, international relations, as well as international and regional cooperation. Participants will learn about implications of human rights and legal statuses, as well as links to humanitarian and development discourses, including the Sustainable Development Goals.

The local part of the course offers a specific understanding of the refugee law and policy in the US, and specifically in New York. Over the past 30 years, the US has admitted more than two million refugees. Half a million in the last decade alone. Participants will meet with resettlement agencies, United Nations officials, refugee-led organizations, and NGOs promoting economic and social integration in New York City and in Buffalo, NY to obtain first-hand perspectives of the policies and programs, their impacts on refugees’ lives and the limitations of such programs.

For more information, please see the attached draft syllabus (but please note that all meetings are still to be confirmed). 

Registration & cost

Course participation is limited to MIA students. However, should space be available, MPA students will be considered too Thanks to special support from Dean Merit E. Janow, all travel costs will be funded by SIPA (including roundtrip airfare to/from Buffalo).

To apply for one of the limited spots, please apply by December 5, 11:59 pm with a CV and short statement of interest via this link: https://fs23.formsite.com/SIPA/lk4jpgkr0l/index.html. Selected students will be announced on December 9. An information session will be held on November 17, at 1:00-2:00 pm in room 409 and online. 

For more information, please contact Daniel Naujoks (daniel.naujoks@columbia.edu) or Hande Mutlu-Eren (hm2645@sipa.columbia.edu).