“We hope to stand out as this premiere institution that students can engage in human rights work at all levels, whether it's being a research assistant for the Political Terror Scale or the Societal Violence Scale, or being a part of a human rights journal, or taking our human rights minor, that's something that's really unique to UNC Asheville,” Morrison said.
As a student in the human rights minor at UNC Asheville, Morrison has seen firsthand how interdisciplinary the study can be.
“Students might be taking courses in sociology and political science, but you also might be taking a literature course,” Morrison said. “You're taking courses across campus.”
Morrison also sees STEM connections to human rights work through climate science, technology, or simply access to information. “STEM is definitely a field that does human rights work that people might not realize that that they're doing it,” Morrison said. Participating in the human rights minor can help students see those connections, and see how their own studies might contribute to human rights work.
“I think to study human rights is essentially to do work that promotes the political and legal recognition of dignity, and that's essentially why that is our title,” Morrison said. “But to do that work is really just to understand, and to have the tool set, and the knowledge set, to be able to protect others and their fight for rights—to amplify voices and their fights for rights. That looks like sociology research, or whether that's in public education, or public health, it's really just recognizing that there are things that are inalienable to all of us, simply because we exist. And the promotion of that is in itself doing human rights work.”
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