'I came here to do a Fulbright, and an international disaster happened. ... So I just started showing up'

What still haunts Jessica Hirshorn, principal lecturer in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (CISA) at Arizona State University, is a feeling that she let down one young Ukrainian woman who approached her for help at the Warsaw Central Train Station.

The young woman had gone to the housing booth, desperate to find a place to stay, but hadn’t been called back yet, so she approached Hirshorn, who was wearing a yellow volunteer jacket.

“I gave her Facebook groups and said to post that you need a place to stay. I kept checking back in with her, and eventually she got a place to stay for that night, but people weren’t picking her ... for another (night),” Hirshorn explained.

“I knew that my cousins already had people staying at their house, but I didn’t know that they actually had space for a third person. Had I known that, I would have said to go there. I feel like I just left her, you know? The next morning, I woke up in a panic, like, 'Oh my God, she was kind of my responsibility.' I know she had a place for that one night, but what happens the next night?”

Hirshorn has grown her capacities as a volunteer since she began assisting in efforts to help Ukrainian refugees arriving in Warsaw, but she still carries thoughts of the many heartbreaking stories she has encountered. Hirshorn, who teaches interdisciplinary studies and organizational leadership courses in CISA’s faculty of leadership and integrative studies, is a Fulbright Faculty Core Scholar at the University of Warsaw in Poland this spring. She arrived on Feb. 13; less than two weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Hirshorn learned about the volunteer opportunity from a fellow Fulbright, and on her first day of volunteering she went down there with two other Fulbright scholars.

“It was very crowded and at first, I was just answering questions, but it was hard because I didn't have the language skills. I don't know Ukrainian. I don't know Russian. I don’t know Polish,” Hirshorn said, describing the early, chaotic arrivals of Ukrainian refugees. “I was just using Google Translate, but then, with the help of friends, I actually came up with a question-answer guide for all the types of questions I was getting — in English, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian.”

Hirshorn described the variety of needs Ukrainian refugees have had, many of whom didn’t have proper suitcases or luggage. She said it looked like they threw what they could carry into backpacks and bags and fled.

“They don’t know where to go, don’t know how to take a train. These are people that just fled their country,” Hirshorn said. “Maybe their backpack broke, or they're carrying a little baby and they didn't have a stroller.”

Hirshorn has noticed a difference between early refugees, who seemed to have means and more language skills, compared with later arrivals, who maybe don’t have the experience or the means for international travel.

“This one woman, in her 80s, had a clubfoot and was on crutches. She wasn’t carrying a normal suitcase. She had a metal grocery cart,” Hirshorn said. “She came up to me and said, ‘I need help finding a diaper.’ I was able to find her an adult diaper, so I felt proud of myself that I was able to help with my limited skills.

“But afterwards, I was really choked up because here is this lady who’s never left her rural village in Ukraine in her entire life, and probably never planned on leaving her village. I just lost it. This has uprooted their lives. This one was particularly very hard on me, just emotionally.”

Hirshorn has been volunteering at the station every Monday and Friday.

“I came here to do a Fulbright, and an international disaster happened. I just felt a moral and ethical call to help,” Hirshorn said. “I felt a need, especially with my background. So I just started showing up at the train station.”

Hirshorn’s background is in international education. She has experience as a Peace Corps volunteer and was involved in launching CISA’s Peace Corps Prep certificate. She’d always been aware of Fulbright opportunities, but her family’s Polish and Jewish heritage had inspired a family reunion in Poland in 2011, and that experience planted the idea to do a fellowship there.

In 2019 she worked with the University of Warsaw to develop a proposal for an applied research class on diversity, and it was announced she got the Fulbright in 2020. Her fellowship was delayed a year due to COVID-19, and she was finally able to go in spring 2022.

Hirshorn is teaching a class to third-year students called Preparation and Realization of Social Research: A Focus on Diversity in Polish Schools, for the Institute of Applied Social Sciences. The class meets on Wednesdays in person through June 13.

“When I first proposed the class, people were like, 'Oh, there's not much diversity in Polish schools,'” Hirshorn said. “It's not dealt with and recognized like it is in the United States, but now they have a lot of diversity coming in with all the Ukrainian students, and so this is something they really haven't had to deal with in a long time.”

For her class, she split up her students into three groups, with each group tackling an aspect of diversity in Polish schools that the students had brainstormed: how Polish schools are acclimating to the influx of Ukrainian students; a qualitative emerging study looking at teacher preparation to address diversity; and how socioeconomics impact how schools are able to address diversity.

“I feel like the project that I'm working on with my students is very timely,” Hirshorn said.