This fall, all seven Principal Investigators of the Initiative on Migrants, Migration and Human Dignity attended the conference Refugees and Migrants in Our Common Home: Mobilizing Academic Communities for Action in Rome, Italy. The conference, led by an initiative out of the Mother Cabrini Institute on Immigration at Villanova University, was a direct response to Pope Francis’s 2022 call to Catholic universities to lead teaching, research and advocacy efforts to promote migration justice. Fordham faculty actively participated in working groups focused on teaching, research, service and advocacy.
The team also delivered three lightning talks on their current research.
- Accompaniment as Institutional Practice: A Transdisciplinary Initiative Bridging Fordham University and the US-Mexico Border – Presented by: Alma Rodenas-Ruano, Jim McCartin, Sarah Lockhart, Carey Kasten, Annika Hinze, Leo Guardado and Gregory Donovan
- Urban Accompaniment: Migrant Journeys Beyond the Borderlands – Presented by: Gregory Donovan, Annika Hinze, and Alma Rodenas-Ruano
- Collaborative Research and Advocacy with Migrants across the Mexico-US Border – Presented by: Carey Kasten, Alfredo Zepeda (Radio Huaya), Audrey Hudgins and Amanda Heffernan (Seattle University) and Elena Ayala Gali and Guillermo Yrizar (Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla)
During the conference, Alejandro Olayo-Méndez, SJ from Boston College led an effort to convene colleagues from the 14 Jesuit universities and institutions in attendance, strengthening the network committed to this work.
Attendees also participated in an audience with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, during which the Initiative shared a letter with Pope Leo about our work. To read more about the encounter at the Vatican, see the recent story in Fordham Now.