Migration and Globalization Course Online Exhibition: “Beyond Boundaries”
On June 17, Migration and Globalization course from International College of Innovation held an online opening ceremony of “Beyond Boundaries” - an online exhibition that gathers final projects of the students from the course. The ceremony was held online through Webex due to the pandemic, with the presence of the students, professor, teaching assistants, honored guests from the school and NGOs as the course’s partners.
The Migration and Globalization course works in tandem with “New Immigrants Entrepreneurship and Education” University Social Responsibility (USR) project. The course was instructed by Prof. Ou Tzu-chi from International College of Innovation, co-instructed by Tim Schütz, visiting researcher in NCCU, with migrant workers and new immigrants as the guest speakers. Students enrolled in the course will visit the community of immigrants in Taiwan and engage in the local issue through social practices. The exhibition “Beyond Boundaries” is the final project of the whole class divided into 12 groups, in collaboration with 1 group from the Political Science Department. The name “Beyond Boundaries” is explained as through this exhibition, the students hope that the distance between us and migrants will no longer be limited by one meter for physical social distance during COVID-19 time.
Although the final exhibition of the course was intended to be offline originally, the pandemic and social distancing could not hinder the students from promoting solutions and messages for a better migrant community in Taiwan. The opening ceremony started with the honored guests’ remarks. To begin with, International College of Innovation Dean, Prof. Tu Wen-ling gave a warm greeting and encouraging remarks on the course and the final project. She said that the course was a wonderful chance for the students to engage in real community and real issues. The final exhibition was the best reward for the students to design and express their ideas on how to build a better community through practical activities. She also thanked Prof. Ou, the guest speakers and the partners for making this course happen so that the students can learn and apply knowledge in real community. Next, Prof. Dai from NCCU USR Office expressed his view on the exhibition as an amazing project, and NCCU USR will continue to build more social projects to help solve the underlying socio-economic problems in the society. To continue, PhD researcher Tim Schütz congratulated the students on the excellent exhibition after learning a range of knowledge about migration. He stated that migration has been rising as a global trend and the journey is very challenging. He summarised the projects and was amazed by all of the groups. Then, the Indonesian migrant shelter thanked the students for sharing time with Indonesian migrant workers and other partners gave thank you remarks hoping that the exhibition will be successful. The students also made thank you cards by Google Jamboard for the teachers, TAs and course’s partners.
The opening remarks was then followed by the groups’ presentations on their projects. Group 1 “Letters to home” , group 2 “Migrant Secret Garden”, group 5 “Behold the dreamers”, group 7 “Collection: Archive of global migration”, group 8 “Mibrary” and group 10 “From Vietnam to Taiwan: Story of a migrant wife” aims at sharing the stories and creating new narratives of how migrants go through their hard times. Meanwhile, group 3 “Migrants in the face of the invisibles - COVID-19”, group 4 “Migrantote”, group 6 “The voices needed to be heard”, group 9 “桃姊妹X NCCU”, group 11 “Migrant workers terms One-O-One”, group 12 ”Migrant Monopoly: Marriage Migration in Taiwan” from Political Science Department and group 13 “Assimilation and Acculturation of Immigrants” focus on theoretical analysis and practical solutions to help migrants such as a communicative icon tote bag or a theater of negotiations.
The online exhibition is a great chance for the students to apply what they learn in class into practical projects to improve the living environment of migrants in Taiwan. Through this exhibition and the USR project, university students can directly engage in real and precious social experiences before they graduate. The students also find the “Migration and Globalization” course from International College of Innovation very open-minded and practical. Don’t forget to pay a visit to our virtual exhibition “Beyond Boundaries” through the link below! This exhibition will surely change your view towards migrant topics, as we step beyond that boundary together!
