Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why translate the law school clinical model to the undergraduate realm?

The Program translates the law school clinical model into the undergraduate space. There are several important reasons to challenge the idea that clinical experiences should be limited to law students alone. Contrary to mainstream perception, the vast majority of human rights work does not require a formal legal education. Thus, although the clinical-legal model has served as a welcome incubator for experiential learning, the capacities most needed in today’s advocacy environment are not legal skills. Instead, they include: development of respectful and effective partnerships with local stakeholders, historical and cultural awareness, fact-finding (interviewing, documentation, site visits, etc.), effective communication and ability to identify relevant target audience, advocacy campaign design, negotiation and conflict resolution, race-, class-, and gender-based analysis, data analysis, further technical skills, and more. The clinical model also offers significant advantages over intern/externships for undergraduates. While these placements can benefit students’ professional development, the clinical model allows for closer integration between theory and practice, a deeper and more rewarding experience for students, and the guarantee that each participant will engage in substantive work. As we design our projects with student participation in mind, we are better able to ensure that all participants can develop a thicker sense of how human rights projects are designed and realized. 

Q: What paths might Minor participants pursue after graduation?

For undergraduates with an interest in human rights, this program will enhance their post-graduate opportunities and enable them to make more informed decisions about how and why their graduate and professional paths intersect with human rights. Students who complete the Program will be able to compete more successfully for positions in the human rights field against candidates from law schools, given the practical skills and professional poise that this experiential education will provide. In addition, the Program will prepare students for graduate study in law, public health, social sciences, the STEM fields, medicine, or public policy. Students will bring a human rights lens to other fields that contribute to human rights critically and productively. The Program will enable students to engage with human rights from their chosen profession in ethical, informed, and creative ways.

Q: Does the Minor have any particular geographic focus?

No. The University Network undertakes human rights projects in the United States and in other countries. To date, our team has pursued projects domestically in Connecticut, Louisiana, and New York, and internationally in Bolivia, India, Mexico, the Northern Triangle, Western Sahara, Yemen and elsewhere. Our team of supervisors have worked on human rights projects in these and two dozen other countries around the world. We expect to place students on projects that involve their areas of interest, though the skills developed through the Program are similar across project assignments.

Human Rights Advocacy Minor Curriculum

The curriculum for the Minor includes seven (7) courses as follows:

• One prerequisite course: Human Rights Standards, covering the basics of human rights institutions, treaties, etc., that students would take prior to their junior year.

• Two core courses offered by UNHR:

  • Human Rights Advocacy (taught by Professor Jim Cavallaro; offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020 and Fall 2021).

    • This is the gateway for the Advocacy Minor. Students admitted to this course will also be admitted to the Minor and will thus participate in the Simulation, the Practicum/Fieldwork and all aspects of the Minor as long as their participation is satisfactory. 

    • Included in this course is the intensive, supervised Simulation Exercise in human rights documentation and advocacy.

  • Advanced Human Rights Advocacy. Taken after the Human Rights Advocacy course, this course involves seminar sessions and practical, supervised work in human rights. The elements of this course are described in greater detail below. This course has been offered in Spring 2020, Spring 2021 and will be offered in Spring 2022.

    • Human Rights Practicum/Fieldwork: the Practicum/Fieldwork is a separate, required component for those students in the Minor. However, because the fieldwork component of the Practicum must be scheduled during a break in the academic calendar, this component might occur immediately prior, during or after a student has taken the Advanced Advocacy Seminar, as described here:

During breaks in the academic year (over January term, spring break, or summer break), UNHR supervisor(s) will travel with a small group (two or three students per supervisor) to a site of rights abuse. There, the team will work with the affected community and other stakeholders to document abuses and gather information. The fieldwork done in these sessions provides much of the basis of the practical, project-based work undertaken by students in the Advanced Human Rights Advocacy course.  All travel expenses would be paid for by the program; students would not be responsible for any costs beyond ordinary tuition and fees.

• One cohort of visiting students would take the Human Rights Advocacy course in the Fall; this cohort would be strongly encouraged to take Advanced Human Rights Advocacy (remotely) in the Spring; Another cohort of visiting students would take Human Rights Advocacy in the Spring; these students would then be encouraged to take Advanced Human Rights Advocacy (remotely) the following Fall semester. In exceptional circumstances (study abroad, for example), students might be allowed to enroll in the Advanced Human Rights Advocacy Seminar in a semester not immediately following the one in which they took the Human Rights Advocacy class.

• One course in Research and Writing for Advocacy

  • Offered each semester. This course would supplement engagement in the Minor/ACTS Program by providing students frequent feedback and mentoring, focusing on research and persuasive writing skills essential for human rights and social justice. Students will learn to summarize and analyze documents and data, to evaluate sources, and to develop their ability to present evidence persuasively. They will engage in this work in conjunction with the courses offered by the UNHR, allowing for research and writing to be integrated into their intensive study of human rights advocacy.

• Three (3) additional courses related to human rights offered by Wesleyan faculty and/or UNHR:

  • Relation to human rights is meant quite broadly; these three courses might include one advanced language class. In general these courses will draw from those already offered by faculty across the university. 

  • Approval from advisor or program supervisor would be required to ensure that the courses chosen cohere sufficiently.

In summary, for Wesleyan students, seven (7) of their courses over the course of their undergraduate careers would count towards the Minor. One course should be taken in either the first or sophomore year. Six of the seven courses would be program classes that students could take in their sophomore, junior or senior years. Of these, three (3) would be in the flexible “human rights-related” category and might well count towards requirements for other majors or Minors. 

This flexibility, and the option for a remote Advanced Advocacy course, means that one-semester study abroad may still be an option.

How the Human rights Advocacy Minor Came to Be

In May 2021, the Faculty voted to create a Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, in parallel with a program that will bring eight students per semester from colleges around the country to participate, jointly with Wesleyan students, in classes and the structured training program outlined below.

This proposal builds on the successful pilot program in human rights advocacy launched by UNHR during the 2019-2020 academic year, as well as the UNHR summer intensive program, which recruits an outstanding, diverse cohort of students with lived experience in social justice and injustice from around the country to engage in supervised training in human rights practice. 

Focus on Inclusion: Given our focus on social justice and human rights advocacy, both the Program and Minor will preference students with lived experience in social injustice and social justice, first generation and low-income students, and BIPOC students. Criteria for selection will also include commitment to social justice and human rights.

Unique Opportunity: The program provides opportunities unique in undergraduate education in the United States and beyond: an intensive, integrated, and supervised program in human rights advocacy. No college in the United States offers a program like the one proposed here. 

Study and Supervision by Recognized Experts: In addition to structured study of human rights at Wesleyan, both Program and Minor involve student engagement in human rights practice under the close supervision of the experienced team of the UNHR. Collectively, UNHR supervisors have directed and worked in human rights clinics at Harvard and Stanford Law Schools; overseen scores of human rights projects in two dozen countries; participated in, and presided over, intergovernmental human rights bodies; presented before domestic and international courts, the US Congress, and national parliaments and oversight commissions around the world; and overseen the training of nearly one thousand students in human rights.

Interaction with Students from Other Leading Universities: Each year, the Program will bring sixteen (16) standout students from leading colleges and universities to Wesleyan for one semester of residence. Each semester, eight (8) of these students would begin the cycle explained below. These visitors would study and work closely with a group of eight (8) Wesleyan students each semester; they would likely also interact with eight (8) additional Wesleyan students participating in the same academic year, but who begin in the program in the prior or subsequent semester.