Border Studies Program

The Border Studies Program provides students with an opportunity to observe and analyze the rich culture and complex challenges faced by migrants and communities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, an area that includes Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, and Matamoros and Reynosa, Mexico. Conversations with a wide variety of stakeholders help students understand the different emotional perspectives, political debates, and policy challenges of forced displacement.

Our research and seminar topics include: 

• border management policies
• migrant and community health 
• art and activism
• migrant access to information and resources and
• historical and current policies and their impact on migrants and local communities.

Through this program, our students experience interdisciplinary collaboration, engagement with diverse communities that may be politically, socially, economically, and otherwise different from their own, peer-to-peer learning, and discussions with practitioners and service providers in Texas. We encourage students to think practically, compassionately, and imaginatively about the complex challenge of migration and forced displacement.   

In order to participate in this program, all students must take HUB194, a semester long class run by CFD where they engage with readings, discussions, and conversations with academics and practitioners which will prepare them to participate in the Border Studies Program in Texas.  

To learn more about our partners and the program schedule, follow the links below for each year.