Blog Issue 10: A Champion for Community Building Toward Systemic Change
By Molly McSweeney (she/her)
"While addressing systemic issues in complex systems like education requires patience, collaboration, and a long-term commitment to change, my experiences with ARYSE have shown me how meaningful impact happens every day."
The thoughtful, inspiring, fun ARYSE team has come to know that I am a champion of their work and that they’ll never get rid of me. So, when they invited me to write a blog for them, of course I said, “I’m in!” I am a super fan of them as human beings, their work, and the youth and families they support, and I have learned so much from them and through volunteering with similar organizations in Pittsburgh and my “original hometown,” outside Richmond, Virginia. When you add up each of these experiences, they have shaped who I am as a global educator-global learner and as an individual who has been lucky enough to have studied and lived in different places, domestically and internationally, while remaining “rooted like a rhizome."
From left to right: Molly, Cody, and ARYSE alum, Bahishta, celebrating the end of the Community Engaged Scholarship Project Development Cohort with bubble tea in Oakland.
As I have bounced around from Virginia and ultimately wound up moving to Pittsburgh in August 2020, I have carried with me family sayings like, “Be nice to the new kids,” and “There’s no one on this planet you can’t learn something from.” I am incredibly grateful to have grown up in a situation where I could voluntarily make multiple moves and have a place and support system always waiting for me back in Virginia. At the same time, I am dumbstruck by instances where I have been driving in or near my hometowns and found myself in areas I never knew existed. The psychology major in me wants to know more about the people who live there, while the global educator and policy nut in me has an itch to understand what kinds of opportunities there are for young people to dream of a future where they can reach their full potential and see the world beyond their bubble.
As I moved to Pittsburgh and continued volunteering virtually as an ESL tutor through ReEstablish Richmond, I sought out opportunities to understand community-based global connections in my new hometown. I came to know ARYSE in September 2020, when Pitt’s Honors College hosted a virtual community session with the Youth Steering Committee. That session was organized by Holly Hickling, then Community Engagement Advisor in Pitt’s Honors College, former ARYSE board member, and now Executive Director at The Global Switchboard; she was one of those Yinzers kind enough to help me “learn Pittsburgh.”
Molly and Holly Hickling at the PRYSE Academy Final Showcase in August 2025.
When I later began working at the University of Pittsburgh and was eventually asked in 2022 to help find space for ARYSE’s summer program, the former international admissions counselor in me saw an opportunity for these youth to access Pitt and its resources to reach their full potential, and the connector in me was excited to meaningfully collaborate with Admissions to support ARYSE youth in accessing pathways to Pitt through their engagement at PRYSE Academy. Ultimately, for reasons that are well documentedby other institutions, I realized that this required systemic-change work that would need to happen over time. Inspired by my experiences supporting forcibly displaced students in Virginia and now Pittsburgh, in 2024 I started an EdD program in Education Policy and Social Change, to expand my knowledge and play a role in policy change.
While supporting PRYSE Academy through Pitt is now officially in the hands of my wonderful Pitt Global colleagues, there are a variety of ways I still stay connected with ARYSE. For instance, during the 2024-2025 Academic Year, Cody, my EdD advisor, and ARYSE alumna Bahishta (who is also a Pitt undergraduate double majoring in Finance and Marketing and now working with me as a Global Hub Student Ambassador) completed the Community Engaged Scholarship Project Development Cohort, through Pitt’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs. That experience provided an opportunity for us to think deeply about how Pitt’s partnership with ARYSE could shift from transactional to relational, mutually beneficial, and to identify more equitable pathways for forcibly displaced students to pursue higher education.
Beyond the PRYSE Academy team, I’ve had opportunities to collaborate with other program managers at ARYSE who are also working to address systemic obstacles to students’ achieving their goals. Learning more about Dakota’s work as Post-Secondary Support Program Manager, Erica’s leadership in Counter-Storytelling Librarianship, and Meg’s education advocacy efforts has deepened my understanding of gaps that exist within our education system and the broader ecosystem of support needed for students from forcibly displaced backgrounds. It has also strengthened my desire to identify and address these systemic barriers.
Over the past few months, I’ve traveled with Erica to Virginia Tech to present on learning ecosystems that center refugee voices. I’ve seen Meg and Sophie connecting with education experts across Pitt’s campus, and I’ve learned SO MUCH from the incredible network and knowledge base that Dakota has built. Through her work supporting youth, families, and colleagues, she has helped me better understand the complexities of college admissions particularly for first-generation, refugee students in Pittsburgh.
Molly and Erica at the Virginia Tech Working Symposium with ARYSE alum, Rukiya (left), and Susan Ngbabare (right) from Pitt’s Center for African Studies.
Beyond my relationship to ARYSE, I’ve come to understand that Pennsylvania – and especially the Pittsburgh area – has an important story to tell about the potential for equitable education systems that strengthen communities and prepare globally-engaged citizens. As Pennsylvania has experienced a moderate influx of refugees over the past decade, compared to other parts of the U.S., there are now four Welcoming Cities in PA: Erie, Lancaster, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. In the Pittsburgh area alone, ARYSE is one among a coalition of non-profits working to support our newest neighbors in becoming self-sufficient, and to strengthen our communities more broadly. In this post-industrial, eds and meds city, the ecosystem expands as we factor in the dozens of higher education institutions with community engagement efforts of their own. In a Commonwealth that ranked 48th for affordability and 49th for state investment in higher education, as of 2024, there is an abundance of opportunity for our newest neighbors to be active participants in shaping their own futures and for us to learn together.
On account of my own local and global experiences, I’ve come to be inspired by my neighbors here in Pittsburgh as much as by partners and young people across the world. Each of these experiences has helped me better understand where I come from, the world we share, and my place in it.
In my work, I try to instill in young people the idea that, while each of us is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle, we can leave an important legacy for future generations. Doing so requires approaching both the present and the past with curiosity and cultural humility.
Molly and Bahishta during Pitt’s Eid Celebration.
ARYSE, the people and the organization, embodies these values. Through their energy, intentionality, care, joy, and love, they continually remind me what it means to build community. While addressing systemic issues in complex systems like education requires patience, collaboration, and a long-term commitment to change, my experiences with ARYSE have shown me how meaningful impact happens every day. Their programs support youth in accessing skills and resources to pursue their goals, while celebrating the ways their talents, knowledge, and lived experiences strengthen our communities and help build a better world.
Meanwhile, ARYSE has reminded me that being nice to the new kid in Posvar Hall might just mean that you’re lucky enough to pick up a few YB Dance moves or be schooled by a student who’s fallen in love with finance…which, frankly, makes my social science brain ache with pride.