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Meet OGA’s new Director of Global Engagement, Chrishon Blackwell

Chrishon Blackwell will lead key initiatives for the Office of Global Affairs focused on building community and broadening what it means to be global.

Chrishon Blackwell
Chrishon Blackwell

The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) welcomes Chrishon Blackwell, as our new Director of Global Engagement. Chrishon joins OGA at an important point in its history as it reimagines and reframes global engagement at UW. As Director of Global Engagement, Chrishon Blackwell manages new and existing international initiatives that support research, teaching, and global engagement among students, faculty, and staff.

Chrishon joins OGA from George Washington University (GW), where she oversaw summer at-large initiatives that supported the university’s broader strategic priorities of enhancing student success, retention, diversity, and internationalization.


Q: What background and perspective do you bring to this new role?
I have 20 years of professional experience working with international populations, 14 of which are in higher education administration. I am TESL/FL certified, hold two undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Business Management, a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership, and am currently pursuing a doctorate in Human and Organizational Learning in the Executive Leadership Program at GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

My professional experience includes international recruitment, teaching and curriculum design, operations, and program management. I think the variety of academic and professional experiences that I have will bring unique and creative ways of approaching global engagement.


Global Engagement Task Force Recommendations

Five key recommendations guide OGA forward, shaping our vision for global engagement at the UW.

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Q: What excites you about serving as our first Director of Global Engagement?
I am excited to leverage my professional background and academic experiences to cultivate relationships across culturally diverse backgrounds and create partnerships across local, national, and global spaces.

Over the past year, OGA’s Global Engagement Task Force met with 100+ stakeholders across our campuses and schools, and reimagined the role we could play in facilitating global engagement for the UW. As our new Director, I am thrilled to bring this vision to life, expanding our programming to support faculty and students of all different backgrounds.


Chrishon along the river in Kowloon, Hong Kong

Q: How does your research inform and connect to the work you plan to do as Director of Global Engagement?
I have spent the past several years exploring the connections between cultural competency, comprehensive internationalization, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Throughout my career, my work has often required close collaboration with faculty and the offices that support academic success and retention such as the registrar, student affairs, multicultural services, international students and scholars, health and wellness, and career services. As such, I recognize and appreciate the importance of each of these offices working together to support a diverse, equitable, and inclusive institution.


Q: How do your own experiences align with the mission and work of the Office of Global Affairs?
The Office of Global Affairs vision aligns with my personal and professional goal to create opportunities and spaces that support global research, teaching, and community engagement. I think that there are so many ways to contribute to student success through global engagement efforts whether that is through supporting campus-based initiatives aimed at increasing access and retention, facilitating cultural competency development among faculty, staff, and students, and/or promoting cross-border activities that advance pedagogy and research.

Reframing Global Engagement at UW

Written by Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law, Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program, and Faculty Director, International, Comparative and Transnational Programs

Anita RamasastryIn autumn of 2020, I was appointed as chair of the Global Engagement Strategy Task Force and charged with reimagining the role that the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) plays in informing and shaping the future of global engagement at the University of Washington.

Over the last year, I had the pleasure of not only diving deeply into discussion with seven peers from diverse units, but meeting with and learning from over 100 stakeholders from across the university.

This work took place at a time of inflection both for the UW broadly and for OGA. The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly transformed UW’s model for teaching and learning, it also put global travel including study abroad on hold. The pandemic also underscored the importance of UW providing administrative and social support structures for international students and researchers during a major global crisis. The Black Lives Matter movement and a renewed call to action for greater focus on anti-racist approaches to education prompted us to grapple with what it means for us to be globally engaged in a way that confronts issues of historica and contemporary racism and colonialism and is consistent with the UW’s overall approach to diversity, equity and inclusion. These challenges and opportunities shaped our process and our recommendations.

Five key recommendations emerged for the future work of OGA:

  1. Shift OGA’s focus from being a steward of policies and procedures to being a builder of global learning and research communities
  2. Serve as a portal and ambassador for stewarding and advancing institution-wide relationships with key global actors — from international organizations, such as the UN and the World Bank, to key foundations and think tanks
  3. Catalyze global teaching and education beyond study abroad, ensuring a global education for all through the use of technology
  4. Identify and work to eliminate the structural barriers that prevent many BIPOC faculty, staff, and students from leveraging OGA’s services and programs
  5. Continue to provide broad administrative support (travel security, MOUs, etc.) for the myriad global partnerships, but also invest more substantially in fewer, deeper, and bi-directional partnerships

Collectively, we are eager to see OGA build a richer ecosystem for global engagement at the UW. UW has a strong commitment to global citizenship. We now have the chance to expand and reframe our approach.

Download the full report


OGA would like to give a special thank you and acknowledgement of the tremendous service of the task force members: Anita Ramasastry (Chair), School of Law; Gayle Christensen, Office of Global Affairs; Leela Fernandes, Jackson School of International Studies; Debra Glassman, Foster School of Business; Stephanie Harrington, College of the Environment; Joe Lott, College of Education; Rebecca Neumann, College of Engineering; Judd Walson, Schools of Public Health & Medicine

Q&A with Ben Sommers, UW’s new Global Travel Security Manager

The UW Global Travel Security program was established to facilitate safe and successful global travel for UW students and employees.

Ben Sommers

The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) welcomes the program’s new manager, Ben Sommers, this October. As global travel slowly returns, vaccinations increase and new challenges arise, Ben’s leadership will be integral to informing and supporting our global travelers as they navigate a quickly-changing travel landscape.

Ben has almost a decade of experience managing international programs for students and global travelers. He joins us from 4-H International Exchange Programs where he was a Senior Program Manager. A husky undergraduate alum, Ben has dual Masters degrees: in International Communication from American University and Korean Studies from Korea University.


Q: What are you bringing to your new role here at UW?

I have been fortunate to have had a diversity of professional and personal experiences that have underlined the value of international travel. I think there is a great deal of truth in the adage that you never get to know your own cultures until you leave them behind. After a year plus of restricted travel, we are all eager to get back out and have the types of transformative travel experiences that we’ve put on hold. Apart from my professional and academic experiences, I think the most relevant piece I bring to the role is the firm belief in the transformative power of international travel and the importance of growing UW’s connections with the global community.


Q: What do you look forward to as you begin your new position?

Current International Travel Policy

Revised rules for official international travel have been issued for all travelers.

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I am very excited to be back at UW, especially at such a significant moment as the university community returns to campus. In a general sense, our world is also progressing towards reopening and it has been energizing to see limitations on travel being lifted and so many of our faculty, staff and students getting back out into the world. It has also been particularly inspiring to get a small glimpse into the various ways that the UW community is bringing their curiosity, adventurousness and expertise to their projects around the globe. I look forward to collaborating with university stakeholders in supporting and advocating for international travel as a critical form of global engagement.


Q: As you connect with students, faculty and staff here at UW, how can your own history of travel and studying abroad help you?

As I mentioned above, I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to see a sliver of the world. When reflecting on the trajectory of my life and career, I can definitively point to the undergraduate exchange program I participated in as a transformative moment in my life. I spent half a year at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. As a Korean adoptee, those six months deepened a feeling of curiosity I had in a place that I felt so inextricably connected to, but yet also incredibly uninformed about. I later built on that experience by doing a dual degree exchange program as graduate student at American University, jumping at the opportunity to complete a second degree program back in Seoul at Korea University.

Ben Sommers in Chiang Mai, Thailand in his last role before joining OGA. He is standing next to a taxicab
Ben Sommers in Chiang Mai, Thailand in his last role before joining OGA

Beyond studying abroad, my personal and professional travel have acted as sort of mile markers in my life. They have been experiences that have been sometimes humbling, sometimes thrilling, but always educational and informative. I think many students, faculty and staff at UW, regardless of the depth of their travel histories, have experienced the same range of impacts during their adventures abroad. Beyond feeling motivated to help enable more travelers have productive and meaningful experiences, I hope to be a resource that helps our traveling community feel supported by an on-campus office.


Q: What do you see as the key role of the UW’s Global Travel Security Program?

I think the Global Travel Security Program’s ultimate role is to help facilitate travel and to advocate for the university’s global engagement efforts. The presence of the university abroad on any given day is considerable so the Global Travel Security Program helps to ensure that those travelers are supported by being connected to the vast resources that they may need to access prior to, during or post-travel.

Global Travel Security Key Resources

There are highly regarded subject matter experts on just about everything and everywhere here at UW. The Global Travel Security Program and myself hope to be a collaborative partner in preparation for international travel. It goes without saying that the international travel landscape is particularly complex at this moment so hopefully we can help travelers to decode and untangle those complexities and ensure that the intersection between university policy and country or regional regulations does not pose challenges to the critical work being done around the world.


Q: How can UW global travelers connect with you as they plan their research, service, or study abroad?

I really do hope to connect with you all! My office is housed in the Office of Global Affairs in Gerberding Hall. Please feel free to reach out via email (travelemergency@uw.edu) or by phone (206.616.7927). The general resources available on the Office of Global Affairs website is also a great starting point for travel planning. You can find information on travel registration, insurance and emergency assistance.

Study abroad sparks hard conversations about race and equity

For two days in late August, more than a million people inundate West London to celebrate one of the world’s largest street festivals—the Notting Hill Carnival.

Elaborate floats and colorful-costumed performers wind their way through streets to the sound of steel bands and calypso music. It’s a tribute to the traditional Afro-Caribbean carnivals of the early 19th century that celebrated the abolition of slavery.

What stood out most for UW School of Public Health student Eric King wasn’t the vibrant sounds or endless sea of people, but rather the sight of British police officers embracing and dancing with carnival-goers.

“I didn’t notice any law officials with firearms. This was different from my experience as an African-American man living in the United States,” says King, then a public health major and now a graduate student in the School’s Department of Health Services. “It speaks to the prominence of gun culture in the U.S. as well as the climate created when law officers are viewed as members of the community instead of controlling outsiders.”

King (BS, Public Health ’16) was attending a four-week exploration seminar called Dark Empire: Race, Health and Society in Britain, which examines the presence and well-being of minorities in Britain, who now make up 14 percent of the country’s 64 million residents. Students explore the social, emotional and physical determinants of health within the framework of Britain’s history and multiculturalism.

Read more from the School of Public Health…

We the people: Race & equity at the UW

The Race & Equity Initiative builds on the University of Washington’s longstanding commitment to inclusion and social justice. The Initiative centers on creating an inclusive experience for students, faculty and staff, addresses institutional bias and racism, and engages our communities to help us work through our shared challenges for a world of good.

Read more…

UW Bothell to host Global Engagement through Technology Symposium

UW Bothell Global Initiatives and the Teaching and Learning Center will host the Global Engagement through Technology Symposium on September 18, 2015. The event brings together faculty, staff and administrators interested in implementing international collaboration components into courses across the curriculum and sharing best practices to create a physical and virtual learning community.

Learn more…

UW students and leaders connect with Ambassador Kennedy in Japan

Dr. Peter Moran, Director of UW International Programs & Exchanges, visited Tokyo to serve on an expert panel and connect with University of Washington and Waseda University students at an event celebrating the exchange of students between the United States and Japan. At the panel discussion, Dr. Moran discussed the UW’s long history of student mobility to and from Japan and the UW’s special relationship with Waseda University. The UW is a worldwide leader in student exchange with Japan.

Dr. Moran, Delaney Lake, Ambassador Kennedy and Yuki Shimiya
Dr. Moran, Delaney Lake, Ambassador Kennedy and Yuki Shimiya
Dr. Moran connects with UW and Waseda students in Tokyo
Connecting with students in Tokyo

Ambassador Kennedy hosted a reception at her official residence after the event. UW student Delaney Lake, currently studying at Waseda University, and Waseda student Yuki Shimiya, who spent last year at the UW, joined Dr. Moran at the reception. Both students are part of the Waseda Global Leadership Program.

The Waseda Global Leadership Program is one example of the transformational student exchange experiences the UW offers. UW students in the program engage with a small cohort of Waseda exchange students spending the academic year at the UW. The following year, they study abroad at Waseda University.

The program engages students through academic reflection, experiential learning, and community service. Central to the impact and success of the program at the UW are strong campus partnerships. International Programs & Exchanges, UW Honors, and the Carlson Leadership & Public Service Center support the students in creating a learning community focused on leadership and service.