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In an era where social media connections replace face-to-face interactions and political divisions seem insurmountable, one �������� professor has found an antidote: bringing college students and older adults together through simple, meaningful human connection.

For over 6 years Manacy (Mansi) Pai, Ph.D., a professor in ��������'s Department of Sociology and Criminology, has run —a volunteer initiative that pairs  undergraduate and graduate students with residents in local long-term care communities across Northeast Ohio. Through arts and crafts, storytelling, cultural presentations, music, and one-on-one conversations, students and older adults discover something profound: Despite visible differences in age, they're all hoping for the same things.

"We want to be heard, we want to be seen, we want to know we matter," Pai said. "Direct human interactions, especially with people who are different from us, have gone down. The perceptions we have of our fellow humans emerge out of stories sold to us by third parties—Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Those are not perceptions that happen out of direct conversations."

From Personal Connection to Community Impact 
Pai's passion for aging studies began in India, where her grandparents helped raise her while her parents worked. That personal connection evolved into a professional calling when she came to the United States from India at 18 to pursue sociology.

"I'm always interested in people who are different from me," Pai said. "Talking to someone who is different from you complicates your thinking, and that’s what leads to clarity. It opens up opportunities to new ways of thinking, and as such, new knowledge."

But Pai freely admits her motivation is also simpler: "I just love old people. When I see a 90-year-old, I just want to sit and talk to them. There's a story there—stories that you don't usually associate with older adults. I want to know their love story, the romance of it. If they opened a business. If they were in an interreligious or intercaste relationship back in the 1940s and '50s."

Breaking Down Stereotypes on Both Sides 
Generations Connect welcomes any �������� student willing to volunteer their time. Students choose from various activities across partner facilities in Kent, Stow, Akron, Canton, Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls.

Popular activities include "Culture Talks," where international students give 20-minute presentations about their home countries, followed by lively Q&A sessions. One student from Rwanda was surprised when older residents asked probing questions about gender equity in her country.

"Older people think about gender issues," Pai said. "Students discover that together with the residents."

The program also features arts and crafts, music recitals, Irish dance performances, scrapbooking, puzzle-solving and reading and tech-help sessions for bedbound residents—perfect for introverted students who prefer one-on-one interaction over group activities. 

What Students Are Learning 
For Rebecca LaGuardia, a �������� biology major hoping to work in optometry, Generations Connect opened an unexpected door. She first heard about the program through Pai's introductory sociology course and has since volunteered multiple times—painting, playing board games, decorating a Christmas tree for , and even performing Irish dance with the campus Irish Club.

"It's within the name—Generations Connect," LaGuardia said. "You're not always in situations where you'll meet people who aren't your same age. When you come to places like this, you get to hear their experiences and just learn to work with different types of people. You always end up finding that we have a lot in common, and we don't necessarily know that beforehand."

Sarah Sisson, a �������� sociology major with a minor in child development and family science, has volunteered roughly ten times and plans to pursue a master's in social work focused on older adults. For her, the experience directly supports her academic goals.

"Instead of these people going and sitting in their rooms watching TV, they're doing something enriching and important with their time," Sisson says. "And I can take an hour out of my day and go give back." She also credits the program with challenging her assumptions: "The older adult community has such skewed stereotypes—oh, old people are mean and nasty. That's not true. They love having human interactions. They're not connected to their phones like we are."

Sisson also highlights how the Sociology Department's culture of connection made her involvement possible in the first place. "I had an intro sociology professor, and she was like, 'You're interested in that? Here's Dr. Pai's number.' One professor connected me to another, and it just turned into this whole thing. The professors all just have connections, whether it's with other professors or outside resources."

Ibukunoluwa Odejimi, a �������� Ph.D. student in medical sociology, brings a perspective shaped by growing up in Nigeria with close ties to her own grandparents. For her, Generations Connect reconnects her to something deeply personal.

"Just being around them makes me connect back to home, to the kind of thing I grew up with," Odejimi said. She also sees the program as important for breaking down bias: "Before, there was this idea that people are scared of aging. People have a bias. But when you get to work with them in person, you get to see them as people. It's a stage everybody's going to get into. Understanding how to be with them, how to live with them, I think it's a good experience, just in general."

Adedayo Adeagbo, a �������� Ph.D. candidate in sociology from Nigeria, has been with Generations Connect since its early days. She came to �������� specifically to study aging with Pai and Clare Stacey, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, and her commitment extends far beyond the classroom—She has worked two summers at Danbury Senior Living, serves as an advocating for residents' rights and was a scholar for the .

For Adeagbo, Generations Connect has created ripple effects she hadn't anticipated. "This has created interest in people," she explains, noting how the volunteer experience addresses a critical national need. "There's a large shortage of healthcare workers and caregivers in this country. Some of our volunteers have gone on to work in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Some have joined other organizations that do aging work. Just by exposing them to this, they develop a passion for it that goes beyond what we do on a small scale in Generations Connect."

Adeagbo emphasizes that participation doesn't require specialized skills or research interests. "You do not have to be involved in aging research," she said. "You have something that is valuable to these people—something as little as just reading a book to somebody, or just sitting down for 30 minutes and asking, 'How did your day go?' Because probably that person has not had a meaningful conversation with anybody in a week or two."

She sees the impact as worth the effort: "You just come back feeling refreshed," Adeagbo said. "You've done something, but it is not an assignment. It is not schoolwork. It is not on a deadline. You're just doing something that makes you feel more human."

Read more about Adedayo Adeagbo's passion for advocating for elderly

Lessons That Last a Lifetime
While Generations Connect purposefully avoids formal research—Pai wanted to keep it pure community service—the informal feedback reveals powerful impacts on both sides.

One student shared that she'd been talking with an older woman about roommate problems. "It's funny," the student told Pai. "She had the same roommate problems that I'm having now." The older woman had struggled too, but got through it and her life turned out fine. The student's takeaway? "This too shall pass."

The connection matters for both generations. Research shows that both college students and older adults are among the loneliest segments of the population—just in different spaces.

"Why not connect them?" Pai asks.

Beyond the Classroom

Pai's commitment extends beyond Generations Connect. She also co-teaches a groundbreaking studio class with Professor Jessica Barness from the �������� School of Visual Communication Design, where students conduct weekly conversations with older adults and create visual art—sculptures, paintings, quilts, collages, metalwork—communicating their partners' life stories. The stories and artwork were published in a book produced by the Glyphix Design Research Lab in 2023. The resulting artwork was exhibited publicly, with older partners and their families attending opening receptions.

The class, , has been so successful that residents keep asking when it will happen again. At one exhibit, an Air Force pilot wore his full uniform to stand proudly beside his student partner. Family members of another participant asked to purchase the artwork to display in their home.

A Simple Solution to Complex Problems
At its core, Generations Connect addresses what Pai calls "the lesser minds problem"—the human tendency to give less credit to people who are different from us, to see them as less vital, less intelligent, less deserving.

"Interacting with someone who's different from you gives you the chance to see that they may be struggling just as much as you are," Pai said. "They are just as interesting. When you talk to people who are different, it makes the world seem smaller, more manageable, more relatable. And far less scary."

In a divided America, perhaps that's the wisdom we need most—one conversation at a time.