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Learn about a class that is inspiring Russell Sage College students.
From Memories to a New Understanding
Garrison Decker ’28 has an early memory of watching television with family members as track and field athlete Lopez Lomong carried the American flag in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
A few years later, Decker met Lomong and Lomong’s adopted brothers at a family reunion and learned more of their story, including how they were born in Sudan and moved to the US as teenagers to live with the Deckers’ cousin. Parts of their history, he admits, he didn’t fully grasp.
Fast forward to fall 2024, and Decker is a first-year nursing student at Russell Sage taking Sociology 241: Refugees and Resettlement with Professor Ali Schaeffing. The course explores forced displacement — which affects over 100 million people worldwide — as well as migration and the resettlement process for almost 35 million people who are refugees or asylum-seekers.
First-semester students are automatically registered for classes based on the courses required for their major and RSC’s general education program. Decker knew he would have to take a sociology class, so when Refugees and Resettlement showed up on his fall schedule, he was open-minded but unsure of what to expect.
Early on, he started to make connections between what he was learning and what he remembers his family talking about when he was a boy. Then, home for a long weekend, he found his copy of Lomong’s book Running for My Life: One Lost Boy’s Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games.
“It sparked something in my mind,” Decker said. “This would go perfect with our class.”
He spoke to his aunt and to his mom — nursing alumna Margaret Decker ’95 — and learned more about how in the mid-2000s, his mom’s cousin and her husband adopted Lomong and five other teenagers from Sudan. The teens were among approximately 20,000 children orphaned, kidnapped, or otherwise separated from their parents during Sudan’s second civil war. Decker shared what he knew of his adopted cousins’ stories with the class.
“Together we started to make sense of it,” said Professor Schaeffing. “It was really cool to see him and his classmates work through the situation in the context of what they’d been learning.”
The class ultimately invited Decker’s cousin, Barbara, and one of her adopted sons, Dominic, as guest speakers.
“It was amazing,” said Schaeffing. “The students had great questions and comments, and a few were moved to tears. I think it was incredibly impactful, probably more than the whole semester combined.”
“There is so much power in human connection, especially amidst a challenging political climate,” she continued. “Several students stayed after class to keep discussing what they’d heard from our guests. It was very inspiring and hopeful.”
Decker was proud to have helped facilitate the conversation that left such a meaningful impression on his class, but he also acknowledged the contributions from classmates who were born outside the US, or whose parents arrived in the US as refugees.
To hear their stories and to hear how they were able to relate to Dominic and what he had to say was incredible, too, Decker said.
Service Learning Provides Career Inspiration
Refugees and Resettlement was first offered as an occasional “Special Topics” class. Thanks in part to student feedback, it’s now an annual offering at RSC.
One of students’ favorite parts has been its service learning component; students choose a combination of service projects according to their interests and availability and work directly with organizations and people involved in refugee resettlement.
One of the activities Decker chose was at Unity House, a human service agency near Russell Sage’s campus in Troy, New York. He pitched in on landscaping projects to help the organization maintain a safe and inviting environment for the people it serves, but he loved touring its childcare facilities during his visit.
Learning about the services Unity House provides for children with disabilities and their families inspired him to apply for a patient care associate position in a pediatrics unit at Albany Medical Center while he pursues his nursing degree. He started the position on January 6. (Decker will be the third Russell Sage-educated nurse in his family. In addition to his mom, his sister Aliceon Calta is a 2021 nursing graduate.)
“The engaged learning part of this class really makes me think about my future career choice, possibly as a social worker,” said Decker’s classmate Aimee Rodriguez ’25. “I am a Biology major, and it wasn’t until I took a couple of sociology classes and then decided to minor in it that I was like, ‘This could be the thing for me.’”
Rodriguez completed engaged learning hours with the Albany International Center’s dual language program for elementary students, where she also volunteered in previous semesters.
“I’m someone who comes from a Spanish-speaking background, and it’s a really good opportunity to speak to the kids in Spanish and English and be that role model, and let them know they are not alone in this transition, and that speaking Spanish, being bilingual, is a superpower. I’ve used it in my life, and it’s beneficial.”
Members of the fall 2024 Refugees and Resettlement class including Decker and Rodriguez also volunteered at the Every Campus A Refuge conference, held this year on Russell Sage’s Troy campus.
ECAR is a nonprofit that mobilizes colleges to make campus resources available to a refugee family. Russell Sage became the first ECAR campus in New York state in 2021, and ECAR founder Diya Abdo is the author of American Refuge, one of the class’s assigned readings.
“I was able to take people who came to the gathering to the farmers market and I toured them around Troy for that day, and it was really awesome because as we were walking, we were talking and connecting,” said Decker. “I got to hear about some of the stories that these people have gone through and the work that they do with refugees.”
“I am glad that Russell Sage College is part of this program and was able to host the event this year,” said Rodriguez. “It was a really cool opportunity to meet Diya in person, to have a conversation with her, and hear about her beliefs. I think she is very influential and a trailblazer for this cause.”