In a Q&A with Michigan News, Michelle Bellino puts educational inequities into global context

Drawing on her research with displaced communities, Marsal School Associate Professor of Education, Michelle Bellino, explains why universities should care about refugees, asylum-seekers, and displaced communities as part of their mission to prepare students for a more just and egalitarian society.

In a recent Q&A with Michigan News, she notes that currently only 7% of refugees access higher education globally. However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has set an ambitious goal for the global community to increase refugees’ access to higher education to 15% by 2030.

“In July 2023, the U.S. Department of State launched Welcome Corps on Campus, a program that links higher education to resettlement through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, providing a path to legal status,” Bellino tells Michigan News. “University partners commit to supporting refugee students financially, logistically, academically, and socially. The first cohort from Kenya and Jordan will join U.S. campuses this fall.” She urges institutions of higher education—including U-M—to join Welcome Corps on Campus.

In the fall of 2023, Bellino founded the Coalition for Welcoming and Belonging at U-M.

“I now co-lead the coalition with Katie Lopez of the School of Social Work and Marcela Ortiz, a doctoral student at the Marsal Family School of Education. We are a community of faculty, staff and student leaders committed to making our campus a more welcoming and inclusive place for displaced learners and community members. We are raising awareness across campus about the circumstances and needs of displaced populations, as well as ways that our campus policies can better communicate, recognize and meet these needs. We hope U-M can join Welcome Corps on Campus and become one of the first universities to support more equitable educational opportunities for displaced young people.”