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“The global displacement crisis is really at historic levels. People have been forced out of their homes at a rate that hasn’t happened since World War II. But I don’t want to start with the numbers, because I think the numbers can numb you. What I’d like to do... is start with the stories of people to whom this has happened.”

The man is 60 years old when the state police show up at his door. He came to the U.K. in 1984 and lived there nearly 30 years, working first as a journalist and then as a plumber. He was invited here to work, his daughter was born in the country, and for a half a lifetime, this was the place where he made his home.

We know him only as “John.” She cannot tell us his real name, nor his country of origin. As she tells John’s story of torture and imprisonment, she uses her finger to draw a line in the air every time his country is mentioned. John’s tale was one of attempted escapes, repeated imprisonment, and torture so brutal that he did not want it published; he didn’t want his children to know the worst details of what he had gone through.

Grant Kiefaber ’19, is spending most of his summer researching how Muslim refugees have integrated into the city of Utica, N.Y., near College Hill. So far finding people to interview has been a challenge, albeit a tasty one.

Edgar B. Graves Professor of History Alfred Kelly was an invited commentator at a faculty seminar in Berlin on "Germany, Europe, and the Refugee Crisis." The seminar was sponsored by Studienforum Berlin and included 20 American professors specializing on Germany.

Associate Professor of German and Russian Languages and Literatures John Bartle made two presentations about the Digital Humanities Initiative’s (DHi) Refugee Project at Smith College on March 23.

Professors Erol Balkan and John Bartle and Britt Hysell, director of the English for Speakers of Other Languages Program, presented “Refugees Welcome Here" at a conference at Vassar College on Feb. 25.

New York Times quoted Professor of Economics Paul Hagstrom and referenced his research focused on refugees in a Feb. 22 article in the Times titled “A Surprising Salve for New York’s Beleaguered Cities: Refugees.”

Hamilton was well-represented at a Refugee Solidarity Rally in Utica on Feb. 10. The rally was organized as a way to stand in solidarity with the refugee population in Utica, and with those around the world affected by recent national events.

A New York 6 (NY6) consortium faculty group has been planning a conference at Hamilton for April 7-9 that has become acutely relevant in recent days.