Refugee resettlement in Albany, NY through academic-community partnership

Keywords: refugee resettlement; service learning; social justice pedagogy;
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 53

Abstract

This collaborative presentation will share various aspects of academic-community partnerships focusing on refugee resettlement and support in the Albany, NY area. The partnership began in Fall 2017 as a service learning project embedded into one course, and has expanded to include several campus departments and offices, and additional nonprofit partners. We will focus on recent projects including Russell Sage College (RSC) serving as the pilot Community Sponsor team for USCRI-Albany as part of resettling Afghan evacuees; RSC and Siena College collaborating to become chapters of the Every Campus a Refuge (ECAR) consortium; and students developing an Intercultural Cafe English language conversation club on campus.

The paper will discuss institutional arrangements (e.g. course load release for Director of Community Engagement; utilization of Community Work Study funds for paid student involvement), models for developing partnerships (e.g. faculty serving on board of local nonprofit; institution offering in-kind donations such as conference space), and pedagogical techniques (e.g. service learning preparation and reflection; social justice pedagogy).