Scholars in Prison Engagementship (2025W UBC-Based)

This program is part of the Global Experiential Education Program (GEEP) and is informed by ORICE values. GEEP aims to strengthen the bridge between classroom learning (theory) and application (practice) to address pressing global issues, in this community-based praxis initiative. Students who participate in GEEP can participate in experiential education projects designed and led by global community partners.

Details at a Glance

Application Deadline: September 14th, 2025 (11:59PM)

• Program Type: Co-curricular (Not-for-credit)
• Engagementship Type: Advocacy Project with the Scholars at Risk Network
• Engagementship Location: 2025W In-person, UBC-Based
• Duration: 8 months starting in September 2025
• Eligibility: Open to UBC-V Undergraduate with 60+ credits (exceptions outlined below)

Apply Now Here

---

Project Description

Current Project

This co-curricular opportunity is a collaboration between the UBC Human Rights Collective (HRC)—housed within the Office of Regional and International Community Engagement (ORICE)—and the international Scholars at Risk (SAR) Network. Students will engage in research-based and scholarly-informed advocacy as part of SAR’s Scholars in Prison initiative, which supports and advocates for wrongfully imprisoned scholars and students around the world.

This is a two-semester engagementship. Students will focus their efforts on the individual cases of imprisoned scholars, with a focus on scholars identified with SAR International, developing a nuanced understanding of their backgrounds and the political, legal, and human rights issues surrounding their detention. This individual-centered advocacy approach is core to the program, grounding student work in the lived experiences of scholars under threat.  Students will spend time learning about their assigned scholar, with the goal of understanding the political, legal, and social contexts related to their imprisonment. Students will engage in two forms of human rights research and produce two deliverables for SAR. The first will track key advocacy already undertaken by other stakeholders who have also advocated in these cases. Secondly, students will establish media monitoring protocols to aid SAR in their human rights monitoring and reporting. Both of these will be included as updates in the scholars’ file at SAR.  Following the preliminary research and media monitoring, students will engage in a scholarly informed mode of advocacy on behalf of their scholar(s) and complete monitoring and evaluation of their work. Decisions on the mode of advocacy will be made based on analysis of the research and in consultation with SAR, HRC staff, and faculty. Previous examples of advocacy include the submission of reports to the federal government’s subcommittee on International Human Rights, formal petitions to the Canadian government, film screenings and letter-writing events, and awareness-raising webinars. In some cases, students may work with students working on SAR projects at other universities. 

In both semesters, students will spend a fair amount of time reflecting on important critical discussions such as power, positionality, neo-colonialism, and other debates related to ‘Western’ discourses of human rights.

New this year, the program will adopt a stronger Canadian advocacy focus, centring actions on policy engagement and awareness-raising within the Canadian political and civil society landscape. Students will explore how advocacy around academic freedom and wrongful imprisonment can be advanced through Canadian government channels, contributing to the development of a Canada-focused advocacy handbook that may serve as a resource for future efforts.

Students may also be invited to participate in an immersive experience at the Ottawa Civic Space Summit in Spring 2026 (note that this will be during the exam period April 21-23, 2026, and students’ final season may not align well for travel). 

Read about past program participants’ experiences:
– This Interview Blog Post from 2023

Focus areas: academic freedom, arbitrary detention, human rights, prisoners’ rights, diplomacy, international relations, civil society, advocacy, scholar-activism

Deliverables and Outputs: Human rights monitoring, advocacy tracking, media protocols, policy-oriented advocacy, handbook development, reflection on scholar-activism

Organization Details

Scholars at Risk (SAR) Network

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of institutions and individuals whose mission is to protect scholars and promote academic freedom. SAR provides advisory services for scholars and hosts, campaigns for imprisoned or silenced scholars in their home countries, monitors attacks on higher education communities worldwide, and leads in deploying new tools and strategies for promoting academic freedom. SAR also offers safety to scholars facing grave threats by arranging temporary academic positions at member universities and colleges so scholars’ ideas are not lost and they can keep working until conditions improve in their home countries.

The UBC Human Rights Collective (HRC) housed under ORICE has partnered with Scholars at Risk (SAR) for many years on various collaborative projects to support SAR’s learning and advocacy goals, including academic courses, co-curricular research projects, directed studies, and student advocacy seminars. In the Spring of 2022, UBC HRC hosted the first Canadian Student Advocacy Days to bring together students who participated in SAR Student Advocacy Seminars and other SAR-related student-focused learning and advocacy activities.

Program Overview

Between September 2025 to April 2026, the selected team of students will spend 3-5 hours weekly working collaboratively to complete the project. Students will be required to participate in weekly scheduled in-person meetings (on the UBC Vancouver Campus) to ensure collaboration and accountability goals are defined and met. However, the remainder of the allotted time will be self-directed or in small work teams as per agreements with teammates.

More Information

---

Apply Now Here

Application Deadline: September 14th, 2025 (11:59PM)