Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community

Supporting a Pathway to Success for Resettled Refugee Youth in CNY

Monday, August 15, 2022, By Renée Gearhart Levy
Share
College of Arts and Sciences

In 2019, Khadija Mohamed was among the first cohort of Narratio Fellows, participating in a program designed to help resettled refugee teens in Syracuse share their stories through writing and art.

Two years later, Mohamed became an artist-in-residence with the program, and now, the rising Syracuse University junior is a research assistant and co-designer of the curriculum for Write Out, a creative writing program for students across the city.

Students talking

Former Narratio Fellow Khadija Mohamed (center) now serves as one of the program’s mentors. (Photo by Wendy Wang)

While Mohamed’s peer mentorship is largely the result of her own initiative, Brice Nordquist, director of the College of Arts and Sciences’ (A&S’) Engaged Humanities Network (EHN), hopes to turn that participation into the norm.

With an $18,350 grant from the Central New York Community Foundation, EHN wants to interconnect elements of three programs run in collaboration with the North Side Learning Center, both to increase participation and bolster mentorship and support for resettled refugee youth to pursue higher education.

EHN was founded by Nordquist in 2020, an outgrowth of his own community engagement since moving to Syracuse in 2013. It serves as an umbrella organization that seeds, supports and connects teams of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff working on community-based arts and humanities projects with historically marginalized communities in Syracuse and Central New York.

The CNY Community Foundation grant will support the Narratio Fellowship, a yearlong program for resettled high school and early college students; Write Out, an afterschool writing program for elementary and middle schoolers; and North Side Speech and Debate, an afterschool public speaking program for high school students.

Professor and student at laptop

Brice Nordquist (left), director of the Engaged Humanities Network, working with former Narratio Fellow Abshir Habseme. (Photo by Edward Grattan)

“Each of these projects works with different age groups. The grant funding will help us build a structure to interconnect the projects in terms of the curriculum, collection of the student work and the assessment of the programs,” says Nordquist, associate professor of writing and rhetoric and the Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement in A&S. “Our goal is to be able to move students through these enrichment programs from middle school all the way through early college so that they have sustained, coherent humanities and arts projects and experiences.”

The grant supports a strategic planning retreat, which will inform the hiring of an educational consultant for assistance with curricular design to meet defined objectives. There are also funds earmarked for the creation of a digital portfolio to store and showcase student work. Nordquist says many older students have used creative work produced in these programs as the basis for college or scholarship applications. The proposed e-portfolio will store all of a student’s projects from their EHN programs for the duration of their participation—potentially from age 11 until their early 20s.

“The e-portfolio is a way of collecting their work, specifically intended so the student can use it for educational and professional opportunities beyond their time at North Side,” says Nordquist.

There are also funds to support peer mentorship. “That’s a big key to this,” he says. “This structure will create a process for program participants to cycle back as paid leaders, so that over time, these programs are sustained by the community itself, rather than being driven by Syracuse University representatives.”

  • Author

Renée Gearhart Levy

  • Recent
  • Heartfelt Gift Recognizes Accomplished Alumna and Three Generations of Orange
    Thursday, August 21, 2025, By Jessica Youngman
  • Families Offer Words of Wisdom During Welcome Week Move In (Video)
    Thursday, August 21, 2025, By Keith Kobland
  • Chaz Barracks Fuses Art, Scholarship and Community in Summer Residency
    Thursday, August 21, 2025, By News Staff
  • The New York State Fair: Everything You Need to Know
    Wednesday, August 20, 2025, By News Staff
  • Department of Public Safety Celebrates Graduation of 9th Peace Officer Academy
    Tuesday, August 19, 2025, By Kiana Racha

More In Campus & Community

Heartfelt Gift Recognizes Accomplished Alumna and Three Generations of Orange

William Pelton and Mary Jane Massie have created the Barringer Pelton Public Service Graduate Scholarship to honor their niece, Jody Barringer ’95, L’98, G’08 (M.P.A.), and support future public servants. After working for a few years as an attorney focused…

Families Offer Words of Wisdom During Welcome Week Move In (Video)

Nearly 4,300 new undergraduate students arrived on campus this week, many of them with families and cars filled to the brim. As families help their children settle into their home away from home, they’re also sharing advice for the year…

Chaz Barracks Fuses Art, Scholarship and Community in Summer Residency

With a GoPro strapped to his helmet and a microphone clipped to his bike, Chaz Antoine Barracks spent the summer pedaling through Homer, New York, transforming everyday encounters into both scholarship and art. The filmmaker, media scholar and postdoctoral fellow…

The New York State Fair: Everything You Need to Know

Late August in Central New York not only means the return of students to the Syracuse University campus, but also the return of the New York State Fair. The fair is a 13-day festival of entertainment, agricultural exhibitions, cultural performances…

Department of Public Safety Celebrates Graduation of 9th Peace Officer Academy

On Aug. 14, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) welcomed families, friends and colleagues of the 9th Peace Officer Academy recruits to a graduation event. The ceremony, held at Drumlins Country Club, was the perfect culmination of their accomplishments over…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.