On SITe podcast

SIT alumna Abby Maxman discusses Oxfam, current challenges in development, and her time at SIT. She became president of Oxfam America in 2017. She was formerly Deputy Secretary General of CARE International in Geneva, Switzerland, and Vice President of International Programs & Operations for CARE. Maxman received her MA in International Administration from SIT in 1995.

A hallmark of SIT's Vermont commencement ceremonies is the prominent presence of African percussion. Western Massachusetts musician Tony Vacca and his friend Steve Leicach, often with other musical guests, provide those sounds. Tony's long career became a cross-cultural passion when he first visited Senegal. In this episode, he talks about his voyage, and demonstrates Senegalese instruments.

Brian Hammer, SIT Study Abroad academic dean for Asia and the Pacific, discusses the realities and rewards of studying in China. He holds a PhD in geography from the University of Washington in Seattle. He is an experienced traveler and researcher, and was previously associate director of programs in the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University.

MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) chair and faculty member Leslie Turpin discusses experiential learning and how it's used in SIT's pioneering TESOL program. Leslie, who is also an alumna of the program, has taught at SIT since 1989. She received her PhD in integral studies at the California Institute for Integral Studies in 2004. As the managing director of acclaimed puppet theater Sandglass, she produced two international festivals, and she is also US tour manager for the Georgian ensemble Zedashe.

SIT Graduate Institute master's student Fadia Thabet received the 2017 International Women of Courage award from the U.S. State Department for her humanitarian work in her home country of Yemen. As a Child Protection Officer, she worked to prevent the recruitment of young boys by Al Qaeda and Houthi militias, and reported human rights violations to the U.N.

SIT alumnae Vicky Garcia and Mary Hensley work with the indigenous people of the Cordillera region of the Philippines, helping farmers bring their heirloom varieties of rice to the rest of the world. Vicky grew up in the Philippines, and previously worked for the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment.

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Riley Merline is Director of Special Projects at SIT. He previously worked with faculty-led programs at Colorado College, and spent 10 years as an educator on issues of migration and borders in the US, Mexico, and Guatemala, with eight of those years as resident director for the Border Studies Program of Earlham College. At Northern Michigan University, he majored in Spanish and studied abroad in Chile and in Spain. Riley holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona in Latin American Studies. 

Manal Taha discusses factors that lead to violent extremism in Africa. Manal, originally from Sudan, is a graduate of SIT’s Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation master’s program. She has worked with the United States Institute of Peace, the State Department, and US Agency for International Development, and has led peacebuilding initiatives in Libya and Sudan and studied radicalization in conflict zones.

James Heflin interviews SIT Graduate Institute Sustainable Development MA student Bahati Kanyamanza about the difficulties children in refugee camps face in getting an education. Bahati was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1996, when violence came to his community, Bahati and his family fled to Uganda, where he lived in refugee camps for 18 years. When he was 22, Bahati and two friends established the COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA), which provides primary and secondary schooling in refugee camps, and connects students with organizations to support their university education. Bahati moved to the US with his wife and daughter in 2016, and became one of SIT’s Global Scholars. The Global Scholars program provides the opportunity for individuals forced to flee their home countries due to political unrest and violence to study at SIT, all expenses paid.