Engaging the Next Generation of Community Leaders

Pathways: Your work has covered a lot of issues: human migration, healthcare inequities, climate change, indigenous communities, and bioethics. Does that broad range of experience influence your approach to teaching, particularly Pathways to General Education?

RH: My undergraduate degree was in Spanish and Portuguese, with a focus on Latin American literature, and my masters and Ph.D. are in politics. I also did a postdoc in Latino studies and then went to work in the medical humanities, teaching at a medical school for five years. Now I teach in Science, Technology, and Society.

As a result, I’ve studied and worked across many of the humanities and social science dis-ciplines and all of that experience is brought to bear in my scholarship. The issues driving both my research and teaching have to do with who lives long flourishing lives, whose lives are cut short because of injury or illness, and how do our policies and social structures influence that divide. Immigration brings this division into stark relief. So does medicine. I suppose that’s why I’ve gravitated to both.

Pathways: You’re working with several colleagues to develop this minor. How did that collaboration happen?

RH: There was a natural affinity between myself, Katrina Powell, Brett Shadle, and Georgeta Pourchot because we were all interested in similar issues. Prior to submitting the Pathway proposal, all of us spent years listening to and working alongside members of the refugee and immigrant communities in Virginia and beyond. Based on all that work, the question became: How do we train the next generation of leaders in immigration and refugee policy so that tangible outcomes result?

The minor is built with the input of community members and puts them in the fore-ground. We hope to bring them into our classrooms and send our students to work along-side them in the community. One of the beauties of the Displacement Studies minor is that it speaks to the mission of a land-grant university; it’s responsive to the needs of Virginia and the rest of the country.

Pathways: Do you have any advice you could share with faculty who are either considering creating a Pathways Minor or who have received a grant and are in the process of develop-ing one?

RH: My advice would be to build your minor in a way that it is responsive to the most pressing global needs, not just the latest job market trends. I know that students will need a job once they leave Virginia Tech, but if we want them to truly live the motto of Ut Prosim, then they should be taught to respond to the needs of humanity and not the market. A Pathways Minor is an excellent way to build a curriculum that does this kind of important pedagogical work.

Pathways: What do you hope students will get out of this minor?

RH: If we do our job well, then they will also understand how they are each connected to displacement. For example, the Tutelo and Mo-nacan people had to be displaced in order for Virginia Tech to be built.The fact is human migration is only going to increase. Climate change, government policies, corporate greed, military conflicts, poverty, and disease are all contributing to a growing number of displaced people around the world. And almost half of them are children. We felt we needed to expand the educational offerings at the Virginia Tech campus about these issues. Hopefully students will also get involved in their own communities. Even if their involvement does not feel directly related to their chosen careers, the fact is we all have some connection to displacement.