Threatened and Exiled Universities

With Bard College as its academic home and GHEA21 as its global network, the Collaborative channels the belief that we can do things together that we cannot do alone.

The Freedom to Learn: Student Stories of Challenge, Aspiration, and Accomplishment

Every year, students threatened or displaced by political repression, conflict, or crisis take more than 2,000 regular, credit-bearing courses offered by GHEA21. This collection of student work is a small selection of the perspectives on the freedom to learn that have emerged from these courses. It presents a range of work—academic papers, articles written for public audiences, and creative writing—from several countries. GHEA21 compiled this collection as an initiative of its Collaborative for Threatened and Exiled Universities.

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Photo courtesy of American University of Afghanistan.

The Work of the Collaborative

Sharing resources and best practices across member institutions.
Organizing public engagement programs and talks on academic freedom, the emerging role of universities, and the situations of endangered students and organizations.
Developing faculty and student support programs and fellowships.
Mobilizing joint research and assessment activities to measure impact.

Core Members

The collaborative is led by threatened scholars and the leaders of threatened institutions.

AltLiberalArts

AltLiberalArts is a nonprofit education initiative offering alternative and online learning platforms to fill the gaps created by bans, censorship, and threats that result in self-censorship in college and early college studies in the United States.
American University of Afghanistan

AUAF is the country’s leading private, nonprofit university. Established in 2006, AUAF offers internationally supported degree programs in business, information technology, political science, and law.
European Humanities University

Founded to serve students from Belarus and the broader Eastern European region, EHU brings together a diverse and engaged academic community.
Invisible University of Ukraine

Invisible University for Ukraine (IUFU) is a certificate program for Ukrainian undergraduate and graduate students, whether residing in Ukraine or in refuge, whose studies have been affected by the war.
Parami University

Since its humble beginnings in 2017 as a liberal arts education institution in Burma (Myanmar), Parami University has committed itself to empowering youth to cultivate leadership in the service of humanity, civic engagement to communities, and relationship to the natural world.