Around Tappan Square
Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar invites you to join her and faculty members who served on the AAPR (Academic & Administrative Program Review) Steering Committee for an engaging conversation about One Oberlin and the opportunities ahead for Oberlin’s future. To learn more about One Oberlin, please visit go.oberlin.edu/OneOberlin REMAINING DATES: JAN 22, 2020 | Raleigh, NC JAN 23, 2020 | Atlanta, GA FEB 10, 2020 | Santa Fe, NM FEB 11, 2020 | Denver, CO FEB 12, 2020 | Austin, TX FEB 13, 2020 | Houston, TX MAR 12, 2020 | Ann Arbor, MI
PLEASE CALL (440) 775-6785 OR EMAIL DONOR.RELATIONS@ OBERLIN.EDU TO RSVP.
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FACULTY IN THE FIELD
Oberlin Professor, Students Research Crisis in Rohingya BY ERIN ULRICH ’18
when associate professor of Environmental Studies Rumi Shammin began his research on the environmental and social dimensions of the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh, he already had been exploring community-based climate change adaptation initiatives in rural areas of the country for nearly a decade. Through a Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) grant, Shammin visited the Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site in the Cox’s Bazar district in January 2019. It’s the largest refugee camp in the world with a population of more than 700,000. “Once I visited the refugee camps, it opened up a new set of questions and opportunities to do further work,” Shammin says. “It was a transformative experience for me. I felt like I can actually contribute and get involved with work in these areas that will make meaningful differences in people’s lives today, unlike many
of my other projects that have impact and results in the future.” Shammin’s visit to the Kutupalong site came shortly after the third major Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, which was prompted by clashes between a Rohingya rebel group and the Myanmar Army. Since the first Rohingya refugee crisis in 1977, large numbers of Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh. A 1982 citizenship law that left the Rohingya stateless, as well as their exclusion from Myanmar’s first democratic election in 2015, have contributed to the exponential surge of refugees in Bangladesh in recent years. Shammin, whose primary scholarship areas are energy and urban issues, climate change adaptation mitigation, and sustainability and resilience, is now developing a new project on environmental sustainability and resilience in refugee settlements. He is examining the impact of the settlements on the environment, including energy and water usage, and waste and wildlife management, as well as ecological restoration, protection, and rehabilitation. Shammin’s ultimate goal is to develop a resilience framework for refugee response, which would provide guidelines that can be incorporated in refugee response programs
PRE V I O US SPRE A D : TA N YA R O SEN -J ONE S ’ 97; T HIS PAGE : CO UR T E S Y OF RUMI SH A MMIN
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