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Migration Studies

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The Colleges of the Fenway shared minor in Migration Studies addresses an urgent need to prepare undergraduate students for professional and civic lives in a world increasingly marked by diversity.

The minor will enhance your understanding of migration, emigration, and immigration through strong scholarly foundations, interdisciplinary case studies, and engagement with the Boston community. You will grapple with important questions about diversity and what it means to live in a “country of immigrants,” while enhancing your global awareness. 

If you are planning a career in business, education, social work, healthcare, the arts, policy and government, law, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofit administration, you likely will come from, work with, and/or serve immigrant communities. 

Through an interdisciplinary repertoire of courses specifically addressing immigration, you will be well-positioned to succeed in your career. You'll bring a comprehensive understanding of migration and immigration to your professional and civic life.

 

Migration Studies minors will be required to take five (5) courses, as described below.

Required Core Course

All students must take “Introduction to Migration Studies,” an introductory-level course (1000-level at Emmanuel, 100-level at Simmons) familiarizing students with the major issues, methods, and frameworks of migration and immigration studies.

This course is offered annually in Spring, rotating instructors, rotating campuses. When offered at Simmons, will be designated as shown below:

RGS102 Introduction to Migration Studies 4

One Required Experiential Learning Component

We are very much interested in connecting students to the wider Boston community, and all students are required to engage in experiential learning. This could take the shape of a course with a service-learning component (e.g, SOCI 101) or a supervised internship (e.g, HUM 370), and will be worked out in consultation with the student’s Migration Studies home-campus advisor according to guidelines developed by the Migration Studies faculty. Students may “double dip” experiential learning courses taken towards their majors if the service/internship entails significant work with an immigrant community or with an organization primarily focused on issues related to migration, immigration, or immigrant communities.

Three Electives from the List of Approved Courses

Electives are subject to the following requirements:

  • Complete at least one approved course in COF that is not at the student’s home institution.
  • Complete at least one advanced seminar (3000-level at Emmanuel, 300-level at Simmons, etc.), selected from the list of approved courses.
  • Complete one elective not in the student's declared major discipline.
LTWR161 The Making of America: U.S. Literature before 1900 4
LTWR179 Human Rights and Global Literature 4
HIST213 Race and Ethnicity in U.S. History 4
HIST214 African Diaspora 4
HIST217 Caribbean History 4
HIST240 The Atlantic World 1500-1800 4
POLS215 The Politics of Exclusion 4
SOCI330 Global and Transnational Studies 4
WGSS210 Black Women, Gender, and Feminism(s) 4

Our Faculty

Photo of Patrick Sylvain

Patrick Sylvain

Assistant Professor

Abel Djassi Amado photo

Abel Djassi Amado

Associate Professor