On this episode of The Open Mind, we're delighted to welcome Arien Mack and Kian Tajbakhsh.  Mack is a professor of psychology at the New School. She founded the New University in Exile Consortium, described as an expanding group of universities and colleges publicly committed to the belief that academic community has both the responsibility and capacity to assist persecuted and endangered scholars everywhere and to protect the intellectual capital that is jeopardized when universities and scholars are under assault.

One of those scholars in exile is Kian Tajbakhsh, professor of urban planning at Columbia University. He has taught at both American and Iranian institutions. Tajbakhsh’s academic research spans theoretical and policy projects related to the culture of urbanism as well as the governance of cities and metropolitan regions. In 2007 he was one of more than 100 people charged with fomenting the post-June 12 election unrest in a mass show trial before a revolutionary court in Tehran. He was convicted, up to 15 years. He served nearly five years and was released on the implementation day of the Iranian Nuclear Accord.