“Our commitment to helping with your re-settlement in our state is a tangible statement of our mission,” the letter states.
Green Mountain College President Bob Allen took up his post in July, two months after Rutland Mayor Chris Louras announced that the city had been proposed as a site for refugee resettlement.
The small liberal arts college in Poultney is about 20 miles southwest of Rutland. Allen said the college considers itself “part of the greater Rutland community.”
In late September the news came that the State Department had approved Rutland for up to 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
Nguyen, a psychiatry major from Vietnam, took an interest in refugee resettlement over the summer as she observed the backlash to the mayor’s proposal. Critics of the program attacked what they described as a plan hatched in secrecy and argued that the city did not have the resources to support refugees.
“I thought and the student involved thought it would be an incredible gesture to commit to offer a couple of scholarships,” Allen said.
Nguyen, who has an interest in mental health research, said she was moved by the plight of refugees and what they endured. She decided to make the debate over resettlement the centerpiece of her senior project in the hope that Green Mountain College could “play a role in facilitating constructive conversation.”
She has organized film screenings and next week will host a forum exploring some of the core arguments voiced by opponents of refugee resettlement: that there’s an implicit link between Islam and violence and that refugees will be a burden for the state.
Nearby Castleton University’s president said his institution also hopes to welcome Syrian students.
President Dave Wolk has been an outspoken supporter of refugee resettlement. In a letter to the State Department in July, he wrote, “We are more than excited to introduce our new neighbors to job possibilities as well as higher education opportunities at Castleton and throughout our region.”
According to Wolk it was a natural extension of the university’s mission to attract more international students. In the last several years, Wolk said, the number of countries represented in the student population has expanded substantially. Next term the college will welcome two more from Honduras and Japan.
“We are hoping to educate Syrian refugees, along with others in our expanding international family, and where possible to offer employment to interested and qualified new Americans from Syria,” Wolk said. Castleton won’t be offering scholarships to Syrian refugees, but all refugees living in Vermont will qualify for in-state tuition, Wolk said. The cost for residents is $10,248 a year, versus $25,656 for nonresidents.
Green Mountain College’s Allen said more than 90 percent of students enrolled at the college receive financial aid. Full-year tuition plus room and board is $47,282.
Globally, the number of Syrian refugees seeking scholarships far outpaces supply. According to Al-Fanar Media, a London-based website that covers higher education in the Arab world, there were 18,000 applicants for a scholarship program in the Netherlands in 2016 and only 4,000 spots. The program, SPARK, helps young Syrians enroll in universities and technical colleges in the surrounding countries of Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The director of SPARK told Al-Fanar that even though several thousand new scholarships were made available in the past year, that was “simply not enough.”
In the United States the Institute of International Education has developed a partnership program with U.S. colleges and universities — the Syria Consortium for Higher Education in Crisis — to provide scholarships or tuition waivers to qualified Syrian students. Since 2011 the institute has provided more than 300 students with scholarships.
Although Green Mountain College is prepared to offer full or partial scholarships to two Syrian refugees, Allen acknowledged there’s no way of knowing if interested students will arrive in the near future.
Meanwhile, he said the college is preparing a symposium in March, organized by Mark Dailey, a professor of anthropology, on challenges refugees face in any new setting. Castleton has also staged exhibits of Syrian art; a screening of the documentary film “Salam Neighbor,” followed by a discussion with former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford; and is conducting a class for educators and social service providers who may work with newly relocated refugees.
Instructor Emily Gleason said the course filled up immediately and the college plans to offer it again in the spring. “The local educator response has been really impressive,” she said.
