The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to announce that Gayle Christensen has agreed to serve as interim Vice Provost for Global Affairs beginning July 1, 2023, stepping in for Jeff Riedinger who is retiring from the UW next summer. The next UW Provost will conduct a search and select a new Vice Provost for Global Affairs.
As Associate Vice Provost for Global Affairs since 2016, Dr. Christensen manages global engagement and business operations and directs strategic priorities, working collaboratively with colleges, schools and centers across the UW to further their global efforts. She is also an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the College of Education and has taught graduate courses in leadership and globalization of higher education.
Prior to joining the UW in 2014, Dr. Christensen spent a decade working in international education. At the University of Pennsylvania, she served as the inaugural Executive Director for Penn Global. There, she developed a range of initiatives aimed at strengthening Penn’s global engagement.
As an expert in comparative education, Dr. Christensen has served as a consultant and researcher in the U.S. and abroad for organizations including the World Bank, Urban Institute and the Bertelsmann Foundation. Her recent research has focused on the study abroad as a high impact practice. Previously, her research focused on the global reach of Massive Open Online Courses and has appeared in such publications as Nature andThe Atlanticand online at Slate. Her research has been featured across major media outlets including Harvard Business Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a master’s and doctoral degree from Stanford University.
The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Dr. Dan Zhu for our October 2022 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series is a new initiative to highlight the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.
Dr. Dan Zhu began working as the International Engagement Specialist at the VP’s Office of Student Life Division at the UW in November 2015. This position afforded Dan the opportunity to build Unite UW, an on-campus cultural exchange program that has connected 1,800 domestic and international students since its launch.
In September 2019, Dan became Assistant Director of CIRCLE (Center for International Relations and Cultural Leadership Exchange), a new center that serves as a resource hub and a home away from home for 8,000+ international students at UW. One of her accomplishments includes creating Regional Connection Groups, a summer program that connects and onboards international undergraduates before they arrive on campus.
Born and raised in a small village in South China, I learned how to make the best out of the little that I had. After graduating from Beijing Normal University in 2005 as a first gen, I became a middle school English teacher in Beijing. My parents were disappointed because by becoming a teacher, I destroyed their only hope to bring fortune and fame to the family. However, I was more disappointed at China’s testing-oriented education which, in my opinion, squelched kids’ motivations to learn.
Three years later, after I won an “important” teaching competition, the school in Beijing sent me to Edinburgh as a reward to teach Chinese language and culture. During that year, while I got to show a more authentic China through the lived experience of my friends and family to the 400+ Scottish pupils and teachers in my hosting school, my eyes were also opened to many exciting ways to teach and to inspire. Besides whisky and Ceilidh dance, I learned so many wonderful things from my Scottish friends and mentors, including new perspectives of life and of the world.
Holding onto those new learnings, I believed the world would become bigger if I allowed myself to see more. That’s how I came to the U.S. in 2009, specifically to the University of Washington in Seattle, to pursue graduate school in Education (M.Ed.), in TESOL (M.A.), and later in English Composition (Ph.D.). Much more than the degrees themselves, I tutored students from Japan and South Korea, volunteered to teach seniors from minority backgrounds to pass their citizenship interviews, taught after school Chinese immersion classes with small children, and substitute taught with many other instructors’ lesson plans. I also learned about discrimination in Education first hand: imagine me teaching ESL to students who only want to learn from native English speakers; or imagine a Chinese lady teaching American college students how to write in English.
A better question to ask is, who inspired me to launch Unite UW? The answer is that students inspired me. When I was teaching first-year composition at the UW from 2012 to 2016, students shared many of their struggles at my office hours. It seemed that the UW they were experiencing was siloed and disconnected. Many struggled to fit in or to find belonging. I also observed many UW classes as part of my dissertation. Often times, I would see a very diverse class with students from different backgrounds, but deep down (e.g. during peer reviews), there was always this barrier keeping them from truly connecting with one another, let alone appreciating each other. This invisible barrier made a lot of international students feel like guests on this campus rather than that they belonged.
Meanwhile, I interviewed the very first group of the Husky Presidential Ambassadors who just returned from Beijing for a mission to connect with incoming Chinese international students. From them, I found a strong desire to connect with international students and to gain cultural competency. It turns out, the Husky Presidential Ambassadors students were also desperate for a platform to encourage deep cultural exchange. As a matter of fact, they became the pioneers for this program and named it Unite UW.
From there, Unite UW has evolved into today’s equal partnership program to provide a mutually-enriching global experience in a local setting. Through cultural exchange and bonding activities, domestic students gain different worldviews and enhance cultural competencies on one hand, while on the other hand, international students are introduced to American culture and feel valued and empowered to truly take ownership of their academic and social life here at the UW.
Unite UW offers a variety of workshops and events that encourage cultural exchange, leadership building, resource sharing, and bonding. For example, as a tradition, Unite UW alumni make dumplings together to celebrate Lunar New Year. During the second week of the quarter, we take the entire cohort of 90 students (half domestic and half international) to UW’s Pack Forest Conference Center for a two-night weekend retreat. Besides various bonding activities, students spend Saturday engaged in Roundtable, a sharing circle where each student shares their personal stories and experiences that have shaped who they are.
According to student reflections, Roundtable has created “magic” moments when everyone is able to let their guard down and open up to each other. Roundtable creates a judgement-free space that blurs the divide between domestic and international students, as one student stated: “When we had that sharing circle at the weekend retreat I realized that despite our cultural differences, we were all united and similar in some way.”
My advice is to be vulnerable and to really listen! Having listened to more than 20 quarters or hundreds of roundtable stories, I have learned that vulnerability is strength, not weakness.
Our students have translated this for us beautifully: At the Unite UW retreat, they often spend the entire Friday night learning everyone’s names. We are talking about 90+ students who were strangers a week prior. It can be very uncomfortable to forget or mispronounce some names, especially names from different cultures, let alone building connections with one another. But they keep on trying and learning throughout the retreat: listening to others’ stories, asking questions about their cultures and families, or sharing comments or connecting moments on sticky notes.
I am most proud of the good values that Unite UW has passed onto students: to listen, to understand, to include, to embrace, to support, and to love.
Having experienced Unite UW, students have seen the possibility of building strong bonds over differences. In other words, they don’t have to hide their true identities or alter themselves in order to fit in! Good friends or good partners embrace their differences and appreciate who they are. They have also become ambassadors of cultural diversity and inclusion, so wherever they go, they have a sense of responsibility to create a more connected and inclusive world.
Lastly, they have all learned about the importance of taking care of themselves and of looking out for others, by building a support system for themselves wherever they go and by making efforts to become part of others’ support system.
For the next few years, I will continue focusing on building a support system for UW’s international students. I did not feel that I had one when I was an international graduate student at the UW many years ago, so I made a promise to myself: I would build one if I ever had the opportunity. CIRCLE afforded me that opportunity, so I am very grateful. I am really looking forward to the day when this support system takes a good shape.
The Office of Global Affairs has created a new award to honor one faculty or staff member (in alternate years) for their global engagement. The Excellence in Global Engagement Award is unique in honoring a member of our community who is advancing the UW’s mission of global impact. The award focuses on teaching, research, and/or community building activities that connect UW students, faculty, and staff to global communities locally, nationally, and internationally. This year’s inaugural award will honor a UW faculty member.
Apply now! The 2023 UW Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellows program will be, for the first time, a tri-campus program open to faculty who teach full-time at UW Bothell, UW Tacoma, or UW Seattle.
COIL -also known as international virtual exchange – is a virtual exchange pedagogy that fosters global competence through development of a multicultural learning environment, linking university classes in different countries. Using both synchronous and asynchronous technologies, students from different countries complete shared assignments and projects, with instructors from each country co-teaching and managing coursework.
The 2023 COIL Fellows program will span two years:
Winter-Spring 2023 will focus on course development
Summer 2023-Summer 2024 and beyond will focus on implementation
The application deadline has been extended until Wednesday, November 30, 2022.
The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Dr. Anu Taranath for our September 2022 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series is a new initiative to highlight the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.
Dr. Anu Taranath, teaching professor with a joint appointment in UW’s Departments of English and the Comparative History of Ideas, shares her experience advancing conversations on diversity, racial equity, social justice, and global consciousness.
Over the past 25 years, Dr. Anu Taranath has taught more than 6,000 students, consulted with over 300 clients, and facilitated 1,000+ workshops across private, nonprofit, education, and public sectors.
When I first came to the UW back in 2000, I floundered. I wasn’t sure how I could be myself in the classroom. I didn’t see many BIPOC faculty, and didn’t quite know how to invite myself in fully. A few years down the line, I began to craft classes, programs, and experiences based upon my own curiosities. This approach of teaching what I wanted to learn resulted in a more engaged pedagogy and curriculum for both my students and I that felt fresh and relevant. Over the years students have shared how they’ve appreciated me openly wonder and grapple with topics alongside them. Modeling wonder and curiosity feels really different than how I had been educated. I am eternally grateful that my first few years at UW taught me to explore new pathways toward warmth and wonder, to reimagine what it means to belong, and to be collegial and create community with my students.
Back in 2003, I stopped by the Comparative History of Ideas Department on a whim and said, “I’m curious about leading study abroad programs. Can you tell me more?” I wanted to explore international education opportunities in the Global South to further my post-colonial feminist scholarship, and introduce students to change-makers from communities and countries they might never meet. I’ve found that being a program director isn’t, of course, just about balancing budgets or planning logistics. This work, actually, is all about cultivating relationships, building trust, sharing stories, and being accountable to one another across identities and vast global power differentials. How do I, as a woman of color faculty member from a powerful US institution, create reciprocal relationships with my global partners that move from transactional and extractive to collaborative and reciprocal? My relationships with partners in India, Mexico, Ghana, and several other countries are some of the richest and most belonging-worthy spaces that I have experienced in my career.
My book grew out of my own experiences and conversations I had been having with students for years. Students who I knew and students who I did not know would line up during office hours to talk with me about their global experiences. They were eager to talk about race, power, identity, how to think through their privileges traveling abroad and what they should do when they come back home. I started wondering why is it that those deeper but fundamental conversations feel really absent from the mainstream conversation on study abroad, travel, and the politics of connecting across difference? I took to heart Toni Morrison’s quote, “If there’s a book you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Navigating an unequal world both close to home and far away can feel confusing when we consider issues of justice, power, identity, who we are and who we are not. We can easily fall into social and ethical quagmires without always knowing how to extricate ourselves. My book supports readers through these moments.
I’ve also written this book in an accessible and story-centered way to invite people in and keep them in the conversation. That’s how we develop our stamina, resilience, and empathy toward ourselves and others. As I worked on this book, I learned that accessible writing requires some seriously sophisticated thinking! While I’ve appreciated my previous academic training in theory and specialized jargon, I’ve also appreciated the challenge to write about complex topics in more simple language and move from abstract concepts to relatable stories. Many of us, of course, feel nervous to talk to people unlike us. We may feel scared, hurt or misunderstood. Sharing stories is key to inviting people to a table and helping them stay there. It takes invitations, connections, and trust-building in small and meaningful ways.
I’ve heard from readers that if they had read this book 6 months, 2 years or 30 years ago– when they were first grappling with topics of identity, race, difference and justice– they wouldn’t have felt as lost or confused. With more tools and space to share their feelings, they wouldn’t have displaced that confusion onto those they were traveling with or on to local people in the communities they were visiting. I’d rather we learn how to navigate our complex feelings so we can have more honest and healing interactions with one another.
“Let’s be more real with one another and step into our vulnerability with strength.”
The ability to name something as uncomfortable is an important action step that we can take. Let’s also understand why we experience discomfort and how that might affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. That’s how we begin to create new patterns for ourselves. Try though we may, we simply cannot sidestep the hard stuff. We have to figure out how to move through uncomfortable conversations with more grace, compassion and elasticity so that we can rebuild ourselves along the way and continue on our journeys. Instead of pretending not to feel our difficult feelings, why not say out loud that we all feel them? Let’s relieve ourselves of the pressure of holding it all in. Let’s be more real with one another and step into our vulnerability with strength. How else are we going to come together to actually make life more livable not only for the most marginalized, but for you or I who may enjoy more privileges as well?
I have found over the years that we have to grapple with some of these seemingly more personal and hard to pin down topics before we jump into conversations about policy and procedures. We need to understand how we came to be who we are, how inequity and opportunity lands on us differently, and what that means for all of us as we live our lives. These discussions have everything to do with creating policy, promoting justice, and cultivating a more inclusive, democratic and vibrant space. Acknowledging the fear, hurt and discomfort that we all experience because of our different lived experiences is a huge part of the process.
“I use welcoming and non-shaming language, make space for big emotions, and if possible, create gatherings over snacks and a good cup of chai.”
As an educator and facilitator, I strive to approach conversations about power and privilege with humility. I use welcoming and non-shaming language, make space for big emotions, and if possible, create gatherings over snacks and a good cup of chai. These to me are the key ingredients we need to talk and act better together. All of us deserve to feel a deep sense of belonging and worthiness. My work helps us talk, share, and hold space together to connect more authentically and create more equitable changes in society.
These days, sharing our stories across different kinds of differences may feel risky. We may feel as if we’ve given too much of ourselves away, or that our story hasn’t been respected or held with care. No wonder we tend to retreat into circles that feel more familiar and that we think of as safe.
There’s definitely something gratifying about not having to explain ourselves to others, especially due to the harm and hate of the last several years. That’s why “safe spaces” matter. An important thing to note, however, is that communities that are like us are not always safe, and that crossing boundaries and connecting with others from different communities is not always unsafe. We live in complex times. So many of us crave more honest and productive conversations about all these complicated issues.
What if we had more incentive to talk with each other openly, vulnerably, with curiosity and wonder? How might we incentivize that? What might that look and feel like? I have seen and experienced how beautiful it can be to share parts of ourself and receive someone else’s sharing. Those small, lovely moments in our lives stay with us. When we stitch such moments together, I think we create a more meaningful life.
My book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, has opened up new and exciting associations with people in multiple sectors. People who are looking to deepen their analysis and activism around diversity, equity, and inclusion, racial equity, anti-racism, intersectionality and difference within the U.S. often find me and my book. Since I also focus on how colonial dynamics in the Global North and Global South impact the politics of international help and aid, I am working more with people in global health, international NGOs, the development industry, and the travel industry. My career feels incredibly rich because I have been able to interact with people across sectors. It’s made me stretch in new and surprising ways.
Though these partnerships, I’ve come to realize how crucial it is to pause, consider, and step away from the day-to-day busyness to reflect with colleagues and ourselves. These are the moments where we grow and learn. Much of the consultancy work that I do with groups and organizations is to give them permission to learn in new ways. I affirm how important it is to carve out structured time to pause, reflect, reconsider, and come back together. In our urgent, competitive, product-oriented professional culture, being able to slow down to value the process of collective story-sharing and collaborative learning is nothing less than revolutionary.
That’s an easy question: I am most proud of my collaborations and I am most looking forward to new collaborations! My understanding of collaboration is quite expansive. I mean the undergraduate students with whom I have learned alongside, the people in the community whose grief and joy I have been able to stand beside and hold in different moments, the collaborators in different parts of the world where we have built trust and connection, and the partnerships across various industries. All this synergy feels magical to me, and has enlivened my life and work immeasurably. My career is certainly my story, but my story is also connected to many other people’s stories. People who have come before me, people who have enriched my life, and people I hope I am able to continue collaborating with in small and big ways.
The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to announce that the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies has received $10.6 million in federal funding from the prestigious Title VI federal program in the U.S. Department of Education.
The funding is for five global and area studies centers and programs over the next four years (2022-2026) to support the teaching and study of world regions and foreign languages.
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) in collaboration with the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is offering a workshop for UW faculty.
The goal for the workshop is to encourage and support globally-engaged, inclusive, and culturally-responsive teaching for UW faculty. We will share best practices and explore effective teaching methods to meet the diverse needs of UW’s international student populations. Faculty are encouraged to join and learn practical ways to create an inclusive learning environment for all students, including those with international backgrounds.
Workshop facilitators:
Dana Raigrodski, Associate Teaching Professor, School of Law
Felipe Martinez, Executive Director, CIRCLE and Lecturer, College of Education
Anita Ramasastry, Professor and Senior Advisor, Office of Global Affairs
Wei Zuo, Instructional Consultant, Center for Teaching and Learning
Chrishon Blackwell, Director, Global Engagement, Office of Global Affairs
The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is pleased to share that Dr. Samuel Wasser, a member of the OGA Advisory Council for more than five years, has received the 2022 Lowell Thomas Award. Provided by The Explorers Club, the annual award is given thematically to a group of outstanding explorers to recognize excellence in domains or fields of exploration. The awardees of the 2022 Lowell Thomas Award were selected for their excellence in Conservation Genetics.
According to the 2022 Lowell Thomas Award announcement, “Dr. Samuel Wasser holds the endowed chair in Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, where he is a Professor in the Department of Biology and Co-Executive Director of Center Environmental Forensic Science. He is acknowledged worldwide for developing noninvasive tools for monitoring human impacts on wildlife. Dr. Wasser applies these tools to forensic analyses of transnational wildlife crime. He used elephant dung to assemble a DNA reference map of elephants across Africa, which is now widely used to determine the geographic origins of poached ivory. By comparing genotyped ivory to this reference map, he has been able to identify Africa’s largest elephant poaching hotspots, track the number and connectivity of major ivory traffickers operating in Africa, and uncover strategies that transnational organized crime syndicates use to acquire and move their contraband around the world.”
The deadline for all three awards is November 1, 2022.
The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is now accepting applications for the Fall 2022 Global Innovation Fund (GIF) cycle. GIF seeds projects focused on expanding international research and learning at the UW, advancing interdisciplinarity and transformative global collaborations.
OGA is especially interested in supporting proposals by new entrants and early-career faculty.
There are three categories of awards for this cycle:
Research Awards
UW faculty members, research scientists, and non-faculty researchers from the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses are encouraged to apply for a Tier 1 Research Award (up to $5,000) or a Tier 2 Research Award (up to $20,000).
Research projects may include:
Research collaborations with international universities and/or organizations
Cross-college and interdisciplinary conferences, symposia, and workshops
UW faculty members, lecturers, and staff engaged in course development are eligible to apply for awards up to $2,000 to add a global module, project, or innovation to a course.
OGA is pleased to offer this award for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GIF Study Abroad/Away award request types include:
Pre-program visit, international (up to $5,000)
Pre-program visit, domestic (up to $3,000)
Embed a global component to a spring or winter class (three years: up to $10,000/year)
Create a new domestic study away program (three years: up to $10,000/year)
Fund an additional faculty member to attend an existing program to share responsibility of maintaining the program in the future (domestic: up to $3,000, international: up to $5,000)
Awarded programs must be run through UW Study Abroad.
The Office of Global Affairs is excited to announce that three faculty members have been awarded Global Engagement Fellows grants for the 2022-2023 academic year. Each fellow will receive $3000 from the Global Innovation Fund to build an inclusive UW global faculty community.
The Global Engagement Fellows (fellows) will convene new cross-disciplinary groups of faculty (referred to as “communities”) that share a common interest. The fellows will convene these communities on a pilot basis for the 2022-2023 academic year.
The purpose of the Global Engagement Fellows grant program is to increase connections and foster deeper ties among faculty across units at the UW. The grants were developed and awarded in response to the work of the Global Engagement Task Force.
To create a community of UW Study Abroad program directors who are dedicated to creating environmentally conscious overseas programs.
To encourage UW Study Abroad program directors to adopt environmentally sustainable best practices in faculty-led UW Study Abroad programs.
To create a database of environmentally friendly companies, organizations, and stakeholders involved in the travel and hospitality industries for countries that host UW Study Abroad programs.
Questions? Contact Dr. Taso Lagos (Lecturer, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies) at taso@uw.edu.
To convene a faculty community that explores pedagogical tools to engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in their courses to promote global literacy and cross-cultural competence.
To discuss best strategies for using the UN SDGs in cultivating global awareness and international perspectives among college students.
To develop a collection of lesson plans that focus on the UN SDGs, that connect the UN SDGs to UW curriculum, and that incorporate interdisciplinary cross-cultural approaches.
Questions? Contact Dr. Yen-Chu Weng (Lecturer, College of the Environment) at yweng@uw.edu.
To bring together a community of faculty and staff who are interested in international environmental change processes, committees, and organizations.
To increase understanding of and explore opportunities for engagement with processes/organizations such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and Future Earth.
To deepen ties and strengthen collaborations across units at the UW to address the challenges of global environmental change.
Questions? Contact Dr. Kristie L. Ebi (Professor, Center for Health and the Global Environment) at krisebi@uw.edu.
The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to announce that Gayle Christensen has agreed to serve as interim Vice Provost for Global Affairs beginning July 1, 2023, stepping in for Jeff Riedinger who is retiring from the UW next summer. The next UW Provost will conduct a search and select a new Vice Provost for Global Affairs.
