This article originally appeared in the December 2020 edition of Revista de Educación Superior en América Latina (ESAL), a biannual publication focused on higher education in Latin America. The Spanish-language version of the article is available here.
This article highlights IIE’s decades-long partnership with Vanderbilt University in support of threatened and displaced scholars from around the world. Vanderbilt is among just 45 higher education institutions that have worked with IIE through both IIE’s Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, which from 1933-1945 offered temporary academic homes at U.S. colleges and universities to more than 300 European scholars facing Nazi persecution, and the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund, which has built upon the legacy of the Emergency Committee and other IIE programs to support nearly 900 scholars from 60 countries in partnership with over 400 host institutions in 47 countries.
The article also features Dr. Issam Eido (pictured; photo credit: Vanderbilt University), an expert on Islam and Muslim intellectual history who undertook IIE-SRF fellowships at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Dr. Eido now holds a permanent position in Vanderbilt’s Department of Religious Studies.
Read more about Dr. Eido and IIE’s valued partnership with Vanderbilt in our new publication, A Beacon of Hope: IIE’s First 100 Years of Scholar Rescue.
More Essential Than Ever: The Case for International Education, the fall 2020 issue of the IIE Networker magazine, includes an article authored by IIE’s President & CEO Allan E. Goodman and IIE-SRF Director James Robin King. “The Rescue of Scholarship and Learning for the New Century” is a reflection on IIE’s long history of supporting threatened scholars, what is different in scholar rescue today, and why innovative ways to do so are urgently needed.
As we monitor the impact of COVID-19 and its effects on communities and higher education worldwide, IIE-SRF is continuing to closely work with and provide support to our fellows and partners. We remain committed to continuing to provide life-saving support and academic opportunities to threatened and displaced scholars.
IIE is monitoring information and following guidance in real time from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and local governments. At this time, IIE is operating and open globally, and IIE-SRF team members are working virtually. IIE-SRF fellows and partners may contact their IIE-SRF program officer or program representative with any questions or concerns.
The Finnish National Agency for Education and (EDUFI) and IIE-SRF would like to congratulate Dr. Fathiah Zakham, who has been named a winner of the 2020 OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award for Early-Career Women Scientists in the Developing World! Dr. Zakham, a microbiologist from Hodeidah University in Yemen, was honored with the award for her work using biotechnology and bioengineering to develop rapid, accurate and cheap tools for the diagnosis and management of tuberculosis and other emerging infectious diseases. Dr. Zakham is an IIE-SRF fellow and EDUFI scholarship holder who is currently undertaking an appointment at the University of Helsinki.
Read about application and selection processes, the fellowship experience, and how to partner with IIE-SRF.
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