Our History

Students Crossing Boundaries (SCB) was formed in 2007 by responding to a challenge from President Jimmy Carter; he encouraged a group of Brandeis University students to witness the Israeli-Palestinian conflict firsthand in order to further their understanding of the conflict and bring greater depth to the dialogue surrounding it. In February of 2008, SCB organized for eleven students to travel to Israel and the West Bank for approximately eleven days. Despite the success of the trip in allowing us to witness firsthand the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, we felt those eleven days were not enough to fully gauge the complexities of the conflict.

During the 2008-2009 academic year, we developed SCB into a year-long, student-driven fellowship program. We selected Israel-Palestinian Territories and the USA-Mexico border region for the inaugural fellowship programs. The fellowship program included academic preparation, team building, a summer internship, independent study and a project that would engage the campus community about our work in the regions. Our goal was to have students organize internships in disparate fields within a region to bring greater breadth and depth to their exploration of these areas.

Currently, we are looking for students to participate in our second fellowship program for the 2010 calendar year at Brandeis University. To learn more about the program, please visit the Fellowship Programs page.