Scholars at risk in their own countries find a new home at Penn

Bringing in the scholars also benefits Penn faculty and students, he said, giving them a “wider view of the scholarship happening in other countries.”

The scholars don’t necessarily have to be students or professors; they can be public intellectuals, musicians, artists, journalists, politicians, “anyone whose presence would add to the teaching, research and service missions of the university,” Moore said.

Part of a national effort to rescue scholars

The Penn program fits into a larger effort by universities to offer refuge to scholars whose lives or work are endangered in their home countries.

The Institute of International Education,based in New York City, runs the largest program in the nation funded through a $52 million endowment, grants and donors. Started in 2002, it has helped 1,106 scholars from 62 countries find new academic homes at 502 institutions worldwide.

In 2023, the institute received nearly 750 applications and awarded 127 fellowships, said Mark Angelson, the institute’s board chair.

But even before that, the institute on a less formal basis was helping scholars, including those persecuted by the Nazis and targeted by the Bolshevik party in Russia, he said.

“We always had the idea that the crisis would be over, the war would be over,” said Allan E. Goodman, the institute’s chief executive officer. “It really wasn’t until the millennium, we realized this is a permanent state of the world. We better get ready to do this globally and permanently.”

The institute at any given time is supporting about 125 scholars, who most often come with their families. They receive visa and travel support, a stipend and assistance with finding housing and adjusting to their new community. About half return to their countries after the threat passes, Goodman said.

But some stay. Salam Al Kuntara, an archaeologist who advocates for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage sites in her home country of Syria, became an assistant professor of classics at Rutgers after her time as a scholar at Penn.

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