Acknowledgements

As editors of this volume and co-principal investigators of this multi-media project, Cortney and Sheena would like to acknowledge the tremendous work of our student research assistants, Jay Jungmin Lee and Ashley Carolina Scrivner whose indelible mark on this text is embedded in the analysis of student feedback in the co-design of this book and the co-hosting questions and reflections you hear on our podcast. We also thank Caleb “Cal” Chrisley who served as a student research assistant during early phases of this project and Kayla McManus for support during final phases. We are also grateful to our copy editor, Adriana G., for ensuring that this text is a seamless as possible for readers.

We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of faculty and staff from George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University who served as early peer reviewers and spaces for feedback: Andrew Yanqing Lee, Aaron McCollough, and Sarah E. Raskin. This work could also not have been done without the tremendous support and savvy of Katharine Rupp, Office Manager for the Center for Social Science Research and Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University and of course, the financial support and encouragement of the VIVA Course Redesign Grant Committee. We extend special thanks to Stephanie Wescott in particular for aiding us in the transfer of the book across sites. VIVA is Virginia’s academic library consortium and supports academic institutions across the state in providing inclusive access to high quality resources such as open educational texts. Open Educational Resources like this text can be found in their library and while the consortium includes over 70 libraries and multitudes of public and independent colleges and universities in the state of Virginia, this and other materials are accessible online by students and lifelong learners across the country and world.

We would like to thank contributors of photography featured at the beginning of each chapter; all photos are credited to each individual within the caption and we are grateful for everyone who shared their work as part of this project. Additionally, we would like to acknowledge Rafael de Nadai, the creator of the image featured on our book cover; this image and others from Rafael can be found on Unsplash, 

The authors and collaborators would also like to extend our deepest appreciation for all of the scholars and practitioners that participated as podcast guests and profile interviewees. We are forever grateful for all of the contributions named above—and for so many more—especially as the majority of this content was developed from 2020-2022 at a time when we were all juggling more than usual and the heavier loads of navigating work and life during a pandemic.