The Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education hosted a series of events on the Vassar campus this fall focusing on the impact of barriers, both physical and psychological, on people coping with forced migration and family separation.

Fourteen first-year students got a jump on their college careers this summer as members of the Summer Immersion in the Liberal Arts program sponsored by Vassar’s Engaged Pluralism Initiative (EPI). The young men and women, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college, spent four weeks on campus taking specially designed, credit-bearing courses, learning about resources the college offers, and taking part in service-based learning in the Poughkeepsie area.

Vassar debuted an inaugural program in China this summer, partnering with a secondary school for gifted students in Beijing who took courses taught by Vassar faculty grounded in the college’s liberal arts model.

Vassar College has forged a partnership with Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health that will enable Vassar students to earn a master’s degree in public health a year after they graduate from Vassar.

During Vassar’s Fall Convocation ceremony, Lisa Collins, Professor of Art on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair and Professor of American and Africana Studies, gave the Convocation Address, and the Alumnae/i Association of Vassar College bestowed awards upon six distinguished alumnae/i.

Learning that setbacks are an integral part of research, about 60 Vassar students took part in projects this summer on the auspices of the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) and Ford Scholars programs.

Vassar College has named Micah Kenfield, formerly Sustainability Programs Manager at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as its Director of Sustainability. Kenfield will start his new job July 22.

There are other challenges that are quite specific to Posse student-veterans. Registrar Colleen Mallet, who has taken on an entire array of extra tasks over the years to help the group, believes “Posse veterans are more accepted now on campus by the other students, who have become more sensitive.”