International

Garden of Refuge

The Garden of Refuge is a transformative site for teaching, research, and international scholarly exchange hosted between the University of Cincinnati and TU Dortmund campuses, in collaboration with the Academy in Exile. 

UC's Garden of Refuge is situated around the Old Chemistry building. This urban garden, incorporating micro-forest and pollinator garden elements, represents a peaceful place of belonging and wellness for the entire UC community. It includes outdoor classroom space as well as areas for quiet reflection, with accessible pathways.

This space grows out of the long-standing partnership between the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr). As a testament to our shared vision and commitment as universities deeply embedded within our respective communities, the University of Cincinnati and TU Dortmund joined forces with a multidisciplinary approach for the Garden(s) of Refuge project. This initiative dedicates both institutions toward active engagement with and contributions to our communities, while also solidifying the Dortmund-Cincinnati corridor as a bridge connecting our two regions.

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Graduate Student Fellowship

Annually, contributing colleges at UC support a graduate fellowship which sponsors a student to perform research in and about the Garden of Refuge.

Juliet Ellinger (publishes as Juliet Ellinger-Cruz) is a Ph.D. student in English Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Cincinnati. Her research explores how lived experience and cross-cultural perspectives shape communication, knowledge-making, and access. Her current work develops Rhetorical Inheritance as a pedagogical framework that invites students to examine familial archives, material objects, cultural memory, and lived experience as sites of rhetorical knowledge-making.

As the Garden of Refuge Fellow, she is extending this work through Embodied Inherited Rhetorics: Reimagining Familial Archives through Place, Memory, and Writing, a project that brings artifact-based storytelling and multimodal reflection into the Garden of Refuge to explore identity, belonging, and cultural memory. The project reflects her ongoing development as both teacher and scholar, as she uses her pedagogical and research inquiries to reconsider how writing classrooms can cultivate connection and belonging.  

Integrating this framework with the Garden of Refuge deepens the gravity of storytelling and spatial practice. Through this process, the Garden functions not simply as a physical location but as a pedagogical space where place, memory, and relational learning intersect.

Fatemeh Rezaei, born in Iran to Afghan parents, is a documentary photographer and a former fellow of Academy in Exile, TU Dortmund, Germany. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Photography from the Art University of Tehran, Iran. She pursued dual master’s degrees in Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she was also a graduate assistant in the Taft Research Center. Since 2018, she participated in numerous workshops and group exhibitions, including the Two Cities Project, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service and conducted with Iranian and German students, and the Night Lab program hosted by the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) in New York in 2023. Fatemeh’s work with the Garden of Refuge, Rooted In Between, explored themes of migration, women’s rights, and public spaces through visual storytelling.

Symposium

The Garden of Refuge Symposium highlights academic leadership and transatlantic dialogue by featuring students, scholars and community members for interdisciplinary conversations on ecology, well-being, migration, and academic freedom.

April 14, 2026

Schedule and Speakers:

  • Welcome from Deputy Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany Dirk Schulz and Vice Provost Raj Mehta
  • Gardens on University Campuses
    • John Martini, Senior Landscape Architect, University of Cincinnati Office of Planning, Design + Construction
    • Dr. Vanessa Agnew, Professor of Cultural Studies, TU Dortmund
    • moderated by Kate Bonansinga, Director School of Art, and Fellow, Society and Culture, UC International
  • Growing Culture - Planting Seeds from Home
    • R. Alan Wight, Associate Professor, Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences; School and Community Forest Garden Liaison, University of Cincinnati
    • Dominic Bley, Director of Education, Garden of Joy Culinary Academy
    • Victor Kubwimana, Student, LaSalle High School
    • Karen Uwimana, Student, Aiken High School
    • Aaron Parker, Agriculture Career Tech Educator, Farm Manager and FFA Advisor, Aiken High School
  • Climate Change + Resilience
    • Steven Handel, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution Emeritus, Rutgers University
  • Lunch with remarks by Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany, Martin E. Wilhelmy
  • Junior Scholar Panel
    • Fatemeh Rezeai, Garden of Refuge Graduate Fellow, University of Cincinnati
    • Sarah Austgen
    • Andrew Washburn
  • Gardens in Urban Environments Promoting Physical Health
    • Aruni Bhatnagar, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, University of Louisville
  • Rooted in Between Exhibition

The 2026 Garden of Refuge Symposium was generously supported by:

  • The Harry T. Wilks Family Foundation
  • College of Arts & Sciences
  • College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
  • College of Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, and IT
  • University of Cincinnati Action Research Center
  • UC International