Refugee students join ASU through new Welcome Corps on Campus program
Arizona State University is one of 17 higher education institutions nationwide to join the new Welcome Corps on Campus program. Photo of the ASU Tempe campus by FJ Gaylor
Among the thousands of undergraduates who are new to Arizona State University this semester are two young women who are in the first cohort of Welcome Corps on Campus, a program that empowers U.S. higher education institutions to resettle refugees.
Nasro Hassan Aweys, 23, and Rukia Abdikarin Khamis, 22, landed at Sky Harbor International Airport two days before classes started, after a 30-hour journey. Both women are from Somalia, but have spent the last 12 years living with their families at the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya.
They are among 33 refugee students enrolled at 17 universities and colleges across the country through Welcome Corps on Campus. Northern Arizona University also has two students.
The program allows U.S. higher education institutions to privately sponsor and resettle academically eligible students who are over 20 through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. These students have not previously had a pathway to pursue higher education in the U.S.
The universities provide tuition support and then gather other resources in the community, according to Pamela DeLargy, executive director of Education for Humanity at ASU.
“For instance, we have mobilized support thus far from the Welcome to America Project, the Islamic Council of North America office here, various individuals — including those in the Somali community — and the Mayo Family Foundation, which provided them with phones,” she said.
All the students in the Welcome Corps on Campus program have completed secondary school and have studied English. The two ASU students graduated from secondary school in Kenya, which teaches in both English and Swahili, although they are solidifying their English with classes in Global Launch.
“We know English, but the accent here is quite different,” Aweys said.
Both women want to major in nursing, and eventually return to help their communities, but are in exploratory majors now while they adjust to their new environment.
They expressed gratitude for the chance to be at ASU.
“We are happy to get this opportunity to study, but leaving the country and our families was sad,” Khamis said.
Troy Campbell, the new director of outreach for refugee and displaced students at ASU, deals with the day-to-day life of students who have experienced forced migration. For Khamis and Aweys, that means adjusting to high-rise buildings and busy crosswalks. They have joined a mosque and visited a Somali market. Both women said that they are not yet used to American food and are cooking for themselves.
Campbell helps refugee students, many of whom have very limited financial resources, learn how to navigate campus, find student organizations and apply for health insurance. And he answers a lot of questions, all day long.
“There’s a challenge in finding the balance between doing something for them or leading them to where they can find it for themselves. They need to build those skills to find things out for themselves,” he said.
Campbell said that refugee students want to be treated like any other students.
“They will share their stories, their experience of becoming a refugee and what that was like for them, as they feel comfortable,” he said.
He has spent much of the past two and a half years working with the group of 69 women who arrived in December 2021, after fleeing Afghanistan. Some of those students will be graduating this year.
While the arrival of the Afghan women was very dramatic, refugee students come to ASU in a variety of ways, DeLargy said.
“The biggest number are those who are already resettled in the U.S. under the government program, some of whom attended high schools here,” she said.
“Arizona has hosted a significant number of refugees over the years, starting long ago with refugees from the Soviet Union, Bosnia, Congo — every place there were conflicts.”
In the early 2000s, Arizona accepted more than 500 young men who were fleeing civil war, called “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” and several of them have graduated from ASU.
“Sometimes refugees come as international students and something happens in their home country while they’re here and they can’t go home, like Ukraine,” she said.
Others have been forced to move multiple times. Thirteen Afghan students transferred to ASU from the American University in Beirut when they had to leave Lebanon.
Pinpointing students with a refugee background can be difficult.
“Because there’s no place on the application or admission information that says whether one is a refugee, you have to kind of deduce that by triangulating other data, like birth country or type of visa,” she said, estimating that there are currently 300 to 400 students with refugee backgrounds on campus now.
ASU is one of the few U.S. universities with staff dedicated to supporting refugees, plus English immersion on campus and trauma-informed care.
DeLargy said that the global refugee picture is getting more complicated.
“People who really look at forced migration have always looked at all the different reasons that somebody might have to flee their home — politics, war, epidemics, natural disaster, and now climate change has been added,” she said.
“If there’s less rain and less land for animals to graze on, it creates conflict between people who herd animals and people who farm. That’s what happened in Darfur in Sudan.”
ASU President Michael Crow said that refugees forced to leave their homes suffer a myriad of losses and should not also lose access to higher education.
“It is proven through history that refugees are innovators. Giving them pathways to further education not only lets them develop their individual potential but also benefits their communities, their host countries and the world," he said. “ASU is proud to play a part in refugee education globally and locally.”
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