Skip to content

News and features

Global Visionaries: Tony Lucero

José Antonio (Tony) Lucero

The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Tony Lucero for our February 2025 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the UW’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Dr. José Antonio (Tony) Lucero, is Professor and Chair of the Comparative History of Ideas Department and a Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He also has courtesy appointments in the Department of Geography and in American Indian Studies. Dr. Lucero describes his experience centering reciprocity in his research and teaching, leading study abroad programs to Peru and Ecuador, and exploring the role universities can play in challenging global hierarchies of knowledge.

Dr. Lucero obtained a MA/PhD in Politics from Princeton University and a BA in Political Science from Stanford University. His knowledge and expertise includes Indigenous politics, critical university studies, social movements, Latin American politics and borderlands.


Tell us about your background and experience.

I was born in El Paso, Texas and raised on both sides of the Mexico-US border. My dad’s family has been crossing the border between New Mexico and Chihuahua for generations, before there was even a border to cross. From a very young age, border-crossing was just a matter of everyday life. Everyone had family on both sides of the border. I grew up speaking Spanish and English. I spent my early years in Ciudad Juárez but my family moved to El Paso when I was about six years old. It wasn’t until I left El Paso that I realized how unusual it was to move so fluidly across international lines. As I got older, though, I realized I had a very thin understanding of my own family’s history.

In college, I became more curious about Latin America. I ultimately decided to pursue it as my area of expertise as I thought about PhD programs. However, before I decided to focus on Latin America, I was initially interested in Italy. I studied Italian for two years and studied abroad in Italy. I was really interested in Machiavelli, so I decided to study in Florence where I read Machiavelli’s journals in the archives, and was so amazed to be reading things he wrote in his own hand. That experience was transformative. It was on that study abroad program that I realized that an academic life could be an international one.

Ever since my own experience studying abroad in Italy, I was captivated by the idea of interacting with other peoples, ideas, histories and languages as part of one’s education.

Dr. Tony LuceroChair, Comparative History of Ideas Department

Before I came to the University of Washington, my wife (María Elena García, Comparative History of Ideas Department) and I were both teaching on the East Coast. We were living in New Jersey – she was teaching in New York and I was teaching in Philadelphia– New Jersey was in the middle. When we had the opportunity to come to the UW, we were very excited about living and working in the same city. The UW was, though, never on our radar. However, for me, the University and Seattle were kind of love at first sight.

I was hired to teach in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and after being at UW for a couple of years became the Chair of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. A few years later, I asked to move part of my line to the Comparative History of Ideas Department (CHID). I was drawn to this one-of-a-kind department where students are free to explore an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree within the context of a big public research university. CHID is really unique – it questions orthodoxy, encourages students to follow their interests, and challenges faculty to unlearn some of their disciplinary habits. It’s a department where ideas can thrive and roam free. I eventually became Chair of CHID and am currently in year three of a five year term.

How do you center reciprocity and equity in your approach to global research, teaching and learning?

My research is on Indigenous politics. Some of the concepts that are internalized are the values of reciprocity, relevance and respect. It’s about moving away from extracting things – the kind of logic where certain people get to go to certain places and take certain things and certain ideas. For me, leading study abroad programs was an amazing opportunity to live that kind of relationality. I have been fortunate to lead a lot of study abroad programs at the UW and we only go to places where we already have deep relationships.

I started working in the Andes in the 1990s. I was on a research trip in the early 2000s when I met an incredible group of actors, artists and musicians doing impressive human rights work. We connected at a talk by one of the most famous Peruvian academics at the time, Aníbal Quijano. Quijano came up with a very famous idea called coloniality of power – the idea that colonialism operates through the racialization and hierarchies of knowledge and people and that it becomes a machinery that exists across time in different ways and in different manifestations. After that talk, which was held at the headquarters of an anti-mining Indigenous social movement organization, I developed long-lasting and meaningful ties with that group of artists in Peru. They were all working artists who had incredible commitments to thinking about how to keep the conversation alive about truth and reconciliation. Peru had just gone through the truth and reconciliation process after two decades of internal war and authoritarianism.

In 2009, my wife and I created a study abroad program on art and politics in Peru. I’ve always felt that the UW is one of those universities where if you have a good idea you can pretty much run with it. Our idea came together – through the support of CHID. Our main collaborator was Jorge Miyagi, a Japanese Peruvian artist. He was just magic to work with. One of the highlights from that first year was collaborating on a mural project. We worked with kids in a local community on an initiative called the muralist brigade. We all met at a spot where we had permission to do the mural and then worked together to come to a consensus about what story the community wanted to tell in the mural. The artists started the mural by adding outlines and then everybody contributed with paint and sponges.

After we ran our first program, we decided we really needed to bring Jorge and one of the other artists to Seattle. We wanted to include an element of reciprocity for the people that we worked most closely with and this set the foundation for all of our study abroad programs moving forward. After our first cohort of students went to Peru, we applied for a grant through the Simpson Center for the Humanities in partnership with another CHID study abroad program. The funding enabled us to bring three artists (two from Peru and one from Martinique) to Seattle. It was called Visual Ecologies of Solidarity. The idea was to compare various ways that art can connect people to different political ecologies through a series of individual and collective talks. It was an amazing opportunity for these three artists to share their work with the UW and communities in Seattle.

This approach to designing study abroad programs has become part of the CHID ethos. We believe study abroad has to be three things: it has to be intellectually serious; it has to think critically about colonial history; and it has to have an element of reciprocity and collegiality. This way of thinking naturally carried over to study abroad since it’s in CHID’s approach to scholarship and teaching at the UW.

Over the past fifteen years, we’ve shared the networks we’ve established in Peru with other colleagues at the UW, and they have shared their networks with us. For example, Monica Rojas-Stewart in the Department of Dance and Adam Warren in the Department of History lead a study abroad program to Peru focused on Afro Peruvian history and culture. They collaborate with some of the partners from our own study abroad program. Looking back, it’s been amazing to support the work of these Peruvian artists over the last fifteen years. It’s also incredible that some of our students who participated in our first cohort in 2009 are still in touch with Jorge and many of the artists they met in Peru.

Tell us about your new study abroad program to Ecuador, Land, Native Knowledge, and Agro-ecology in the Andes and Amazon.

Our study abroad program to Peru emerged organically. I did my dissertation research in Ecuador in the 1990s and it’s a place that I had been meaning to go back to for a long time. Two years ago, I was on the dissertation committee of a brilliant Ecuadorian PhD student, Juan Mateo Espinosa. He is a medical doctor and his family has been farming the same land for generations, just outside of Quito. He felt that the best way to contribute to people’s health was through the soil. He wrote this incredible dissertation about what we can learn from herbs, plants and the land. He shared that we can really learn from the way Indigenous people have been in relationship with different ecosystems and food systems for millenia. During his dissertation defense, Juan Mateo Espinosa shared photographs of the soil. It’s a technique called chromatography; you take a photograph of the soil, and it gives you a sense of the health of the soil. It was amazing to see the soil come alive in incredible patterns and colors. He also collaborated with Ecuadorian poets. He shared the photographs with them and they composed verses based on the images of the land. It was very moving to see him share multiple stories – scientific, visual and poetic – about the land.

This approach to centering native knowledge really resonated with me. CHID is all about different ways of knowing in the world. I connected with Juan Mateo Espinosa afterwards to pitch a CHID study abroad program to him and he agreed. He is committed to being in Ecuador but he likes to have a connection with the academy in the Global North. We ran the program for the first time last year and it was tremendous. We had a terrific group of UW students. We worked with five Indigenous farmers who are incredible human beings. They were very generous hosts and we learned so much from them. The program went so well that one of our students has already booked his travel to go back to Ecuador this summer. He’s going to be living on one of the farms we visited for a couple of weeks before going to the Amazon. Another student, for her CHID thesis, is bringing an Amazonian Indigenous leader that we worked closely with to Seattle in May to create a toolkit for other students about how they can create experiences of reciprocity.

The study abroad program is based on Juan Mateo Espinosa’s work in agro-ecology. It’s all about how people have different ways of thinking and knowing. Fundamentally, it’s about how we can work with nature instead of against it. Instead of relying on pesticides and fertilizers, the program explores how to support the soil by leveraging microorganisms and other living forces in the soil and environment. Indigenous people have been doing this forever. The program has urban and rural components to it. We begin in a university town and do day trips to local Andean farms that are accessible by bus. We learn about the relationships between Indigenous farmers and the land and what they farm. We learn about traditional cooking techniques, such as Pachamanca. It means to cook in the earth and involves digging a hole, setting a fire, heating up stones and adding layers of herbs and spices and meat in an earth oven. You have to wait a couple of hours but it’s an incredible meal. The ceremony behind this process of Mother Earth birthing food is powerful. We also learn about creative ways Indigenous farmers are working with what is available to navigate drought and how they are leveraging herbs and trees for medicinal purposes to heal their communities.

We also spend time in a Kichwa community in the Amazon. While there, our host shares a practice that they do in their community every day around three o’clock in the morning. Everybody gets up and drinks a tea called guayusa. It’s sourced from a local plant, and everyone drinks the tea and shares about their dreams around the fire. It’s a sort of intergenerational transfer of knowledge. There is even knowledge to be learned from how much foam is in the tea each day, as it guides the community on whether to go out fishing or stay close to home.
We’re planning to run this study abroad program again this Early Fall Start and we are still looking for students to join us. The deadline has been extended to March 1st. It’s an amazing opportunity for students who want to spend time in the Andes and the Amazon. Ecuador is a small country so you can go from the Andes to the Amazon in a few hours.

What inspired you to collaborate on the Activating the Third University Project?
Tony Lucero (left) and K. Wayne Yang (right) in San Diego

For a long time, we’ve been trying to figure out how to create more equitable relationships between the university and the Global South. Over the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in teaching about and researching critical university studies. One of the great books about this is A Third University Is Possible by K. Wayne Yang, Provost of John Muir College and Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC, San Diego. Under the pen name of la paperson, he suggests there is a way to think about the university as a machine. He argues machines don’t care for us, and so we should not romanticize any university as a place that’s going to take care of all our wants, needs and desires. He takes the idea of a scyborg and suggests that even though we are all within the machinery of the university, which can feel confining at times, there are opportunities to do things differently and that the machinery can extend our own agency. He gives a great example of how R2-D2 is the true hero of Star Wars. R2-D2, by connecting with the Death Star, makes the victory of the rebels possible.

During the 2023-2024 academic year, I collaborated with Anita Ramasastry in the School of Law and the Office of Global Affairs, and Muindi F Muindi in the Office of Global Affairs on an initiative called Worlds of Difference. We were grateful to receive financial support from the Simpson Center for the Humanities for a project called Activating the Third University. We were curious about how to borrow K. Wayne Yang’s ideas and apply them to a global context. Our aim was to facilitate conversations and collective endeavors to investigate, address, and redress the UW’s implicit and complicit contributions, as a global university, to the reproduction of global hierarchies of race, gender, class, and geography, and in the reproduction of knowledge as the preserve of those most privileged by such hierarchies.

We organized an iterative and participatory process to involve the UW community and our global partners in tasks that focused on institutional, intellectual, and relational change. We brought in fellow thinkers from inside and outside the university to help us imagine different ways of connecting the university to partners in the Global South. We sought knowledge from Ben Gardner (School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell), Anu Taranath (Department of English and Comparative History of Ideas Department, UW Seattle) and Ron Krabill (School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell) through their work with the Global Reciprocity Network. We hosted working groups, virtual and in-person events and a graduate microseminar to examine these big questions. It was all about how we can use the idea of a third university to really inform and guide the way the university engages with the world. It was incredible to gather hundreds of students, staff and faculty across all three campuses and create space for them to share their experiences and perspectives.

The book is a collaboration with a tribal member of the Tohono O’odham community and nation. Tohon O’odham means “people of the desert.” It’s an Indigenous nation that exists on both sides of the Mexico-US border, and it’s existed there since time immemorial. At one point, the northern quarter of the reservation was the deadliest corridor for migrant passing in the Americas. Mike Wilson, my coauthor, is a renowned human rights activist. His religious and ethical commitments led him to set up water stations for migrants on the Nation’s lands. He had a crisis of conscience after serving in the US military in Central America in the 1980s, leading him to seminary education in San Francisco. He believed he had a different way to work in the world. He became an immigration advocate after witnessing poverty, racism and border policing at the Mexico-US border.

I spent over a decade working on this book with Mike. It’s an oral history project, but told in two voices. Mike tells a story in his own words and then I share an essay in between the chapters of the stories Mike shares.

My essays zoom out and are hyperlink testimonials – every part of his life opens up a different moment of thinking about the legacies of colonialism, missionary culture and US immigration policies.

Dr. Tony LuceroChair, Comparative History of Ideas Department

For example, there is a chapter on residential boarding schools. Mike’s grandfather was one of the first O’odham kids taken to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. I found pictures of his grandfather that Mike had never seen. It was incredibly powerful to see those images and share those stories. The book sparks conversation about immigration justice and the importance of rethinking borders. The current narrative around immigration is that it only starts once people cross the Mexico-US border line. However, that obscures the incredible dynamics that displace people from their own homes and their own countries.

Mike’s story illuminates all of that in a personal way. It was an incredible opportunity to work with him and to help him tell his story. In these dark times, Mike’s story is a hopeful one. It’s a story about a person who had really strong convictions and then changed his mind about some of his most fundamental beliefs. He then went out into the world and did something and continues to do things for others in the world. Mike’s story also shows the centrality of Indigenous perspectives. It’s an important reminder that indigeneity is a way of understanding the interconnections of people, land, water and histories.

The UW is a Fulbright top producer for 2024-2025

The University of Washington made the Chronicle of Higher Education’s list of the top Fulbright producing institutions. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar and Fulbright U.S. Student Programs are sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to support academic exchanges between the United States and over 160 countries around the world.

Five undergraduate or recent graduates and eight graduate-level students (a total of 13 students) received Fulbright awards and six UW faculty were named Fulbright scholars. The Fulbright experience gives students and scholars the opportunity to live and work abroad, learning about their host country and developing a new community of colleagues and friends. These programs are designed to help participants gain a greater understanding of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, ultimately promoting an atmosphere of openness and mutual understanding.

Learn More

About the Fulbright Program

Founded in 1946, the Fulbright Program is an international academic exchange program that aims to increase mutual understanding and support friendly and peaceful relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The UW is proud to have had Fulbright recipients as far back as 1949.

Applying for Fulbright at the UW

The Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships and Awards supports UW undergraduate students with their Fulbright applications.

The Graduate School Office of Fellowships & Awards supports UW graduate and professional students and alumni with their Fulbright applications.

The Office of Global Affairs is the liaison for UW faculty for the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Please contact Anita Ramasastry (arama@uw.edu) if you have any questions or need support.

Trump in the World 2.0 Spring Lecture Series

March 31 – June 2, 2025 // Mondays, 5:00-6:20 PM

Join us for a spring lecture series on the international impact of the second Trump presidency.

These talks and discussions are available as an in-person 2-credit/no-credit course for UW students. It is also available and free for the public via livestream only. Faculty and guest speaker presentations will explore how different regions and global issues are affected by the policies of the Trump administration. Moderated by Danny Hoffman, Director of the Jackson School of International Studies and Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies.

Sponsored by the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and co-sponsored by the Office of Global Affairs.


UW students: 
  • JSIS 478 E – Trump in the World 2.0 (SLN 21568) – listed in MyPlan under Special Topics in International and Global Studies. Register in MyPlan for the course; regular attendance required if taking the course
For the public: 

Questions? For course information, email jsisoas@uw.edu; for public livestream registration, email jsiscom@uw.edu

For general disability accommodation requests, contact us at 206-543-6450 (voice), 206-543-6452 (TTY), 206-685-7264 (fax), or dso@uw.edu.

 

Meet the 2025 UW COIL Fellows

The Office of Global Affairs is excited to announce that 10 faculty members have been selected as 2025 UW Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellows!

White globe on a purple background with two gold people in front of computersCOIL 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. COIL is an innovative way to traverse boundaries and make the “classroom learning” experience globally connected.

Since 2014, the UW COIL Fellows program has been supporting faculty in developing and implementing COIL modules in their courses with structured training, a community of practice and a stipend. Building on several years of collaboration between the UW Bothell and UW Tacoma campuses, the UW COIL Fellows is now a tri-campus program.

The program will span two years:

  • Winter 2025-Spring 2025 will focus on course development
  • Summer 2025-Summer 2026 and beyond will focus on implementation

The 2025 UW COIL Fellows are:

Anindita Bhattacharya

School of Social Work & Criminal Justice

TSOCW 541: Adult and Adolescent Interpersonal Violence or a new course on Global Mental Health Needs

UW Tacoma

Codrin Nedita

School of Business

BBUS 221 / BIS 201: Introduction to Macroeconomics

UW Bothell

Enrique Reynoso

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

BIS 326: Race, Space, and Segregation or BISAES 367: Exploring American Culture

UW Bothell

Gene Wang

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

Art History

UW Tacoma

Jaki Yi

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

BIS: 449 Advanced Topics or BISPSY: 489 Projects in Psych

UW Bothell

Jason Lambacher

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

BIS 284: International Relations

UW Bothell

Hsinmei (May) Lin

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

BWRIT 135: Research Writing

UW Bothell

Meichun Liu

School of Art + Art History + Design

DES 582: Graduate Studio

UW Seattle

Michelle H. Martin

Information School

LIS 564: Multicultural Resources for Youth

UW Seattle

Yolanda Padilla

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences 

BIS 258: Introduction to Latinx Studies

UW Bothell

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Panel

Wednesday, February 26 // 4:30-5:30 PM // UW Career & Internship Center Lobby

Are you curious about what it’s like to serve in the Peace Corps?

Join us at 134 Mary Gates Hall to learn about the challenging, rewarding, and inspiring moments of service from returned Peace Corps Volunteers who will share stories from their unique service journeys abroad.

This free event is co-hosted by the UW Peace Corps Recruiter and the Office of Global Affairs.

Register Now

Did you know?

  • The UW is No. 3 on a list of top volunteer-producing institutions over the past two decades
  • Since 1961, more than 3,000 UW alumni have served abroad as Peace Corps Volunteers

Globalizing the Syllabus

Thursday, February 20 // 2:30-3:30 PM

Co-sponsored by the Office of Global Affairs and the Center for Teaching and Learning, this workshop will focus on helping faculty create syllabi that are globally inclusive. Participants will explore how to design syllabi and select course content to elevate different voices, traditions, perspectives, and ways of knowing.

This interactive workshop is designed for members of the UW.

You will need a UW NetID to register.

Register Now


Facilitators:

  • Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law, School of Law; Director of Faculty Engagement, Office of Global Affairs, Seattle
  • Wei Zuo, Instructional Consultant, UW Center for Teaching and Learning, Seattle

Panelists:

  • Jayadev Athreya, Professor, Mathematics and the Comparative History of Ideas, Seattle
  • Salwa Al-Noori, Associate Teaching Professor, Division of Biological Sciences, School of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, UW Bothell

The University is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education, and employment for individuals with disabilities. If you need disability accommodations, please reach out to the UW Disability Services Office (DSO): dso@uw.edu.

Global Visionaries: Sabrina Prestes Oliveira

Sabrina Prestes Oliveira

The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to feature Sabrina Prestes Oliveira for our January 2025 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the UW’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Sabrina Prestes Oliveira is currently a senior studying Data Visualization in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the UW Bothell (UWB) campus. Sabrina describes her experience exploring what it means to be a global citizen, learning about international human rights and making the most of global learning opportunities. 

 


What was it like to participate in the Global Scholars Program?
Global Scholars Graduation Ceremony

UWB’s Global Scholars Program was my way to incorporate international awareness while majoring in Data Visualization. Connecting with the cohort throughout the year, reflecting on our global experiences in class, and having critical discussions about how our personal identities and notions of the world are shaped by international power dynamics, brought me closer to my peers than in most other courses. We also had career-building workshops and the chance to hear from speakers and former Global Scholars about their experiences working in international affairs. Many of us in the program are first-generation students and/or first/second-generation Americans, and it’s rare to find welcoming spaces that provide much-needed insights about networking, the nuances of local and global engagement, and advocacy.

What did you learn about international human rights when you visited Washington, D.C.?

Participating in UWB’s 2024 D.C. Human Rights Seminar course, which I learned about as a result of the Global Scholars Program, gave me the vocabulary, strategies, and knowledge about pushing for change in spaces that I never thought would be accessible to me. Our group of student researchers had the chance to ask hard questions directly to representatives, academics, and public officials directly involved in policy-making. Working in international human rights is an uphill battle as activists and lawyers face a bureaucracy that prioritizes corporations above individuals, community, and environmental rights. I have sincere respect for those in the field who continue working tirelessly to make the small incremental steps toward change.

What inspired you to submit a Fulbright application to teach English in Mexico?

Before transferring to UWB, I spent a year during the pandemic working in youth development. As achievement gaps widened during remote learning and the field faced staffing shortages, I learned a lot about the state of public education and wished I could do more. The Fulbright ETA program is a unique 9-month experience to provide a similar type of individualized mentorship in Mexico. Although I’m proud to be Brazilian, Mexico is hands down my favorite country for a myriad of reasons, so it felt like the natural pick for my Fulbright application. 

Tell us more about your research paper on the social and energy crisis in Ecuador.
Poster Presentation on Human Rights Day

During our week in D.C., as part of the seminar, we met a delegation of Ecuadorian activists and public defenders in partnership with local advocacy organizations as well as Amazon Watch and Amnesty International. The stories they shared about violence, cultural erasure, police brutality, and territorial/environmental rights violations motivated me to focus on Ecuador for my research paper.

Ecuador once stood out in the region for its low homicide rates and progressive human rights legislation (even if it was more on paper than in practice). Now, it has become prized territory for international criminal organizations in the trafficking of drugs. A weakened state and prison system have allowed these organizations to take control. The more I researched, the more I discovered that drug traffickers are by no means independent agents. They are enabled by and benefit from both international and local political and corporate interests.

Tell us more about the work you are doing with the Latino Educational Training Institute?

I was recently selected for UW’s Mary Gates Leadership Scholarship to support a project to pinpoint, assess, and visualize Latino community needs and demographics in WA. The Latino Educational Training Institute (LETI) is expanding their educational and entrepreneurship programs to Everett, and thoughtful data analysis can help guide their upcoming outreach initiatives. While I’ve started my analysis with data from the U.S. Census, with the support of the LETI team, I hope to expand into broader sources and find ways to highlight empowerment and opportunity in our community. 

What do you want Huskies to know about UWB’s Latino Leadership Initiative?
Latino Leadership Initiative cohort at Bothell High School after the first mentoring session

The UWB’s Latino Leadership Initiative (LLI) is truly a game-changing program as a Latino student. I joined in 2024 simply looking to connect with other Latinos on campus but also as the chance to hear many WA leaders’ stories of representing their communities, starting a business, and advocating for change in local politics. The leadership seminars with the Latino Educational Training Institute made me realize that success, unlike what we’re always told, isn’t solely an individual effort. Connecting with UWB’s LLI cohort and organizing our service project, where we hosted college/career mentoring sessions for Latino high schoolers, helped me find a space here in the U.S. where I felt I could contribute meaningfully. 

 

2024 UW Global Photo Contest Winners

Congratulations to our four 2024 UW Global Photo Contest winners!

We received more than 130 photo submissions last November from UW faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Thank you to everyone who participated!

Learn More

 

Global Visionaries: Kim Lovaas

Woman with glasses wearing a purple shirt standing outside in front of an old building
Kim Lovaas

The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to feature Kim Lovaas for our December 2024 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the UW’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Kim Lovaas, Director of International Student Services, describes her experience advocating for and supporting the international student community at the University of Washington for the past 25 years.

Kim Lovaas earned a MA from Lesley University in Intercultural Communications and a BA in East Asian Studies from Western Washington University.

Learn More

 


What inspired you to dedicate your career to working with international students?

I grew up in Bellingham, Washington -as my parents did before me – so other than growing up near the Canadian border, I wasn’t really exposed to other countries around the world or foreign languages. As a kid, my family mostly took trips within the state or down the West Coast of the United States. 

I attended Western Washington University, which is also located in Bellingham but my parents wanted me to have the true college experience by living on campus. As a first year student, I learned about a Japanese exchange program that my roommate was involved with at Western called the Asia University America Program (AUAP). She was a peer adviser for a small group of AUAP students and she organized social and cultural events as well as local activities and trips. I joined her in these activities and soon also agreed to be a peer adviser, supporting my own AUAP groups for about a year and a half. During that time, I enjoyed getting to know the Japanese students, learning more about their culture, music, food and language. I have many fond memories of introducing AUAP students to my hometown, my parents, and having a family dinner at my parents’ house.

I initially thought I wanted to be a Psychologist and started taking Psychology courses at Western. I quickly realized these courses weren’t a good fit and I  reflected on why I wanted to be a psychologist in the first place. The heart of why is that I have always liked  working with people and helping others. So I decided to lean into my evolving interests in language, culture, and people, so I focused my efforts on East Asian Studies. I had started studying Japanese language and taking courses about the history of Japan. I also realized I wanted to understand the experience of being an exchange student and deepen my studies by actually going to Japan. 

I was not sure it would be financially feasible or how my family would react since I had never been outside the U.S. before, but I realized I could afford it if I participated as an exchange student through Western directly so I was still paying only Western’s tuition. I was selected to go to Obirin University in Machida, Tokyo my junior year but because I was majoring in East Asian Studies, all of the courses that I took at Obirin transferred back and counted towards my degree requirements. 

It was an amazing experience! I lived with a Japanese family that didn’t speak very much English. I was 21 years old at the time, and the family had two little kids, so I spent a lot of time with them and really improved my Japanese language skills during that year.

Before I went to Japan, I had lived in the same place my entire life. By stepping outside of my comfort zone and living outside of the United States for a year, I learned more about myself as well as my country and culture. That international experience was such a pivotal moment in my life. 

After graduating from Western, I returned to Japan for several years to work for a Japanese company that I had taught English for as an exchange student. I worked in their headquarters office in the center of Tokyo. I had a lot of Japanese and American friends living nearby, I was paid well, and I really enjoyed my life living in Tokyo. After working in Japan for a few years and saving money, I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my career, but I knew it would have something to do with international students.

Tell us more about what brought you to the UW 25 years ago.

I returned to the U.S. to go to graduate school for a master’s degree in Intercultural Communications with a focus on international student advising. I decided to go to Lesley University in Boston which felt like a good fit since they offered a specific track for international student advising.

During the last semester of my graduate program, I was offered a job at Emmanuel College as an international admissions counselor. I was able to use the first four months of this new role as my internship requirement to complete my master’s degree, so it was a perfect opportunity to put my degree into practice. The international team at Emmanuel was small, which included the director, an international student advisor, and myself. If I am being honest, I didn’t really know what an international admissions counselor did, but it sounded interesting. I soon learned the role involved talking to students and their families  interested in attending the college, credential evaluating – looking at high school transcripts from foreign countries, evaluating the grades, and then being able to equate that to a US context. I didn’t have any direct experience when I started but I did have a strong sense of cultural sensitivity from my years of living in Japan. I stayed in that role for about two years. It was a great job where I was able to learn and grow in a lot of different areas, from traveling overseas for international student recruitment to evaluating applications and  making admissions decisions. 

After living in Japan and then the East Coast of the US for most of my 20s, I decided it was time to head back to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to my family. I started looking for jobs and found a job posting for an admissions job at the University of Washington. I was excited to work at the UW having grown up in Washington and knowing its reputation.

How do you foster intercultural competence and understanding?

My approach to intercultural competence has always been to be open and to listen. I have found that people are often scared of what they don’t know or what’s different. In my work, students come from different backgrounds, languages and cultures. I try to be open to learning about their lived experiences and to their points of view. I try to be mindful of my own preconceived beliefs and to stay curious. I think it’s important to know what you believe, but not to the detriment of saying someone else is wrong. It’s vital that we remain open and not judgmental to new ideas.

We need to enter every conversation with a sense of curiosity and a willingness to learn. We may not always agree, but we must listen and be open and willing to learn.

Kim LovaasDirector, International Student Services
What guides your leadership style?

I am supportive, encouraging, collaborative, and aim to put students first. I try to focus on our purpose and remind myself and my team that we are here for the students. It’s so important to remember that whenever we are making decisions that impact students.

The work we do in International Student Services (ISS) is focused around immigration rules and regulations so there are many things we can’t change because we are bound by those regulations. We still try to review the regulations carefully and provide input. I gather my team to carefully review the regulations so we can work together to interpret them based on our own institutional policy. I prefer to be inclusive and seek their input before I make major decisions. I truly believe everyone has a voice. I want my team to feel like they can give input and that they are key players during the decision-making process. Although I am responsible for making the decision, I want their input.

Group of men and women standing inside a football stadium behind the words "Purple Reign"
International Student Services Team Retreat, September 2024

I also try to lead from as supportive of a place as possible. I am constantly thinking about how so much of our work is about people and how people need compassion. I am always reminding my team that there is a strong human aspect to the work that we do. We have to be consistent and fair given that we have to follow rules and regulations that protect the institution and the UW’s reputation, but we also need to remember that we are human.

Lastly, I believe strongly in creating space for my team to grow and learn on their own. I try hard not to micromanage. I am always available to help whenever I am needed but my preference is to step back and cheer my team on as they grow and learn in their roles. I want to give them opportunities to grow within their roles and take on new challenges.

What are you most proud of about your work with international students?

When I first came to the UW in 2000, we had fewer than 500 international undergraduate student applications. Most of the international students at the UW at the time were graduate students – the undergraduate student population was almost non-existent. Fast forward to 2024, where we now have over 7,200 international students enrolled (about 16% of the total student body), close to 13,000 international freshman applications and the UW is ranked 13 in the country for international student enrollment.

I am very proud of the growth in our international student population. It’s been amazing to witness how changes in the state budget, how a shift in admitting and enrolling more non-residents (which includes international students) and a commitment to funding international recruitment have resulted in a thriving international student community.

As far as the role I have played in all of this, I am proud to have been a part of this growth and to have strategically advocated for connecting international student enrollment and international student advising at the UW.

Kim LovaasDirector, International Student Services

It has been critical to ensure we can maintain staffing levels to support the growth of international student enrollment not only within ISS but across campus. Seeing the international student community growth across campus has been an incredibly rewarding journey.

What do you wish more people know about working with international students?

One thing I would like more people to know is that my team in International Student Services continues to work with international students after they graduate. When international students graduate from the UW, they are able to apply for optional practical training (OPT), which is an employment benefit available through the F-1 visa.

For most international students, it is a 12 month opportunity to stay and work in the US. However, if the international students are in a designated STEM eligible field, they can apply for an additional 24 month extension after the initial 12 month experience. Currently, there are over 2,000 F-1 UW alumni still in the U.S under OPT and STEM OPT whose immigration records are managed by International Student Services.

Even though they could be employed anywhere in the country, my team in International Student Services continues to maintain and report on their immigration records during their additional 12 months to 3 years in the US after graduating from the UW. We aren’t supporting them on a daily basis but they do still reach out for advice and support.

The only other thing I would like to mention is that the international student advisers on my team have limited scopes – their focus is specifically on immigration advising. Sometimes international students are referred to International Student Services for academic advising or mental health counseling or even career counseling. We do our best to direct the students to the other offices on campus that are able to support those needs.

 

Ahmad Ezzeddine to be next vice provost for Global Affairs

Ahmad Ezzeddine will serve as the UW’s next vice provost for Global Affairs, beginning Feb. 1.

Man wearing a suit and glasses standing outside next to a column
Ahmad Ezzeddine

Ezzeddine comes from Wayne State University in Detroit, his alma mater, where he is the senior vice provost for partnerships, workforce and international initiatives. He fills the position vacated when Jeffrey Riedinger retired and became professor emeritus at the UW School of Law. Gayle Christensen has served as interim vice provost of the Office of Global Affairs. 

Ezzeddine will lead and manage the Office of Global Affairs and serve as a strategic thought leader for the University’s global engagement efforts. This work includes enhancing and expanding our global partnerships and coordinating and collaborating with University partners to build a cohesive and campus-wide vision for global engagement.  

As Wayne State University’s senior international officer, Ezzeddine leads oversight of all international university affiliations and partnerships. He also has strategic and operational responsibility for the university’s international initiatives and activities, including international recruiting, study abroad and global education and research. Most recently, he’s been leading Wayne State’s College to Career initiative that will better prepare and support students, graduates, and alumni for careers and align university efforts with workforce trends and needs.   

I am deeply honored to serve as the University of Washington’s next vice provost for the Office of Global Affairs and thrilled to join one of the leading and most innovative universities in the world. This position offers an amazing opportunity to build on the UW’s impressive global presence, strengthen and grow its international partnerships, and continue to create transformative global experiences for students and scholars. I look forward to collaborating with our vibrant university community of distinguished faculty, dedicated staff and talented students to advance a shared, innovative and inclusive global engagement vision.”

Read More