With questions of immigration, asylum, refugees, and deportation at the forefront of American politics, Hunter’s Civil Discourse & Intellectual Dialogue series will host a Fordham University expert on migration.
Professor Marciana Popescu of Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service will speak on “Migration Narratives in the United States: Building Community Capacity and Resilience” at Hunter’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute on Monday, April 21, from 5 pm to 6:30 pm.
RSVP for the Event“Professor Popescu will outline an intellectual framework for understanding the refugee experience in the country and how the government and social-service agencies have responded to it,” said Hunter College Provost Manoj Pardasani. “She will take us behind the headlines to understand the human dimension by focusing on activating individual and community assets.”
Popescu, a member of the United Nations-Non-Governmental Organization’s Committee on Migration, has studied forced migration as it relates to violence against women, intimate-partner violence in conservative Christian faith communities in America, and health- and mental-health care services for women asylum seekers in New York City.
She has conducted several studies in Haiti focusing on post-disaster displacement and on the forced migration crisis at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She has developed a rights-based conceptual framework to help low- and middle-income countries assimilate refugees, which piloted in Guatemala.
The discussion aligns with a campaign to foster civil discourse and tolerance across CUNY’s 25 campuses, which was announced by CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez this past August during a visit to Hunter College.
Talks have focused on the Mideast conflict, Palestinian American identity, transgender rights in schools and sports, community healing by incorporating diversity and inclusion, and interfaith cooperation and pluralism.
Coming events in the series include:
“On Compromise: Can A New Approach to Pluralism and Persuasion Heal Divided Communities?”
Speaker: Yehuda Kurtzer, PhD
Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Kurtzer is a leading thinker on the essential questions facing contemporary Jewish life, with a focus on issues of Jewish peoplehood and Zionism, the relationship between history and memory, and questions of leadership and change in the Jewish community. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, the host of the Identity/Crisis podcast, and the author of dozens of articles and essays about contemporary Jewish life.
Date and Location: Monday, April 28, 5 pm at Roosevelt House.
RSVP“Building Bridges, Creating Futures: Community-Led Dialogue & Action’
We are living in a moment of deepening divides, systemic rollbacks, and policies that further marginalize communities most impacted by injustice. This symposium is an invitation to come together, listen and act. This gathering is a space for bold collaboration, transformative storytelling, and deep dialogue—where community leaders, educators, and advocates come together to co-create pathways toward lasting justice and collective liberation.
Date & Location: Wednesday, April 30, 9 am - 3:30 pm, Silberman School of Social Work, 2180 Third Ave.
Open to Everyone
