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

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.

President Cauce meets with Finnish Ambassador and delegation on innovation and collaboration

Aerial photo of the UW Seattle Campus — Aerial photo of the UW Seattle campus and surrounding Puget Sound. The Finnish delegation met with the UW as part of a series of meetings with business, academic, and governmental leaders in Seattle and Washington state. *University of Washington*

On November 4, 2021, University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce welcomed a delegation from Finland, including Mikko Hautala, Ambassador of the Republic of Finland to the United States of America, and Timo Harakka, Minister of Transport and Communications, accompanied by a team of diplomatic officials. Sean Carr, incoming Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), and Francois Baneyx, Director of CoMotion and Vice Provost for Innovation, joined the meeting to discuss areas of mutual interest for Finland and UW.

The delegation visited UW’s Seattle campus, as part of a tour of the Pacific Northwest, focused on building relationships with the region’s governmental officials, academic institutions, and business community. Washington state is home to an active and strongly-connected Finnish-American community, and the Finnish delegation had earlier signed an MOU with the state of Washington outlining future research and technological collaborations.

During a cordial exploratory meeting, President Cauce introduced the UW’s broad-based strengths in academic and applied research, emphasizing the expertise and experience of UW faculty and researchers in various areas such as the study of misinformation. In late 2019, the UW launched the Center for an Informed Public, an interdisciplinary and nonpartisan effort to translate and apply research on disinformation in policy, public engagement, technology, and education. Minister Harakka pointed to the importance of education in shaping the ability of citizens to resist misinformation and manipulation and the need for countries such as Finland to broadly build skills and increase literacy in areas such as artificial intelligence.

President Cauce noted the importance of ‘knowledge diplomacy’ between governments in a time of breakdown of many other forms of diplomacy. Communicating scientific research and information to the general public was seen by both groups as an important role for governance and academia, and an area of common interest and possible collaboration between Finnish institutions and UW.

GIX’s headquarters in the Bellevue Steve Ballmer Building, hosts prototyping labs, event space, and three startups. GIX

Ambassador Hautala also underlined Finland’s focus on six US states for potential technological synergy and partnership. Helsinki and Seattle both host thriving start-up communities, and the University of Washington’s CoMotion and the Global Innovation Exchange create environments focused on experiential learning and technological innovation for students and faculty. As the incoming Executive Director, Carr highlighted the strong potential for collaboration in educational ventures with GIX for Finnish universities.

The meeting concluded with expressions of a shared sense of mission and collaboration among the Finnish delegation and UW representatives and optimism towards the many paths forward for collaboration between Finnish institutions and the UW.

Population Health: UW & Aga Khan University partnership leads to research, learning, and health collaborations

The University of Washington and the Aga Khan University have partnered substantially over the past years to advance global population health and link their institutions. Through these collaborations, students, faculty, and researchers have benefited from the shared expertise and exchange in a range of areas and disciplines.

Read more about the history and impact of this partnership and the Office of Global Affairs and Global Innovation Fund’s involvement below:

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“There were a lot of synergies between our two institutions not just in terms of our social justice missions, but around the values of what this partnership holds,” Farzana Karim-Haji, director of the Aga Khan University Partnerships Office, said. “The Population Health Initiative at UW draws parallels to AKDN’s Quality of Life Initiative, where both are focused on a holistic view of improving the overall human condition from a variety of aspects in health, education, poverty alleviation, climate change, etc.”

Reflecting on an innagural visit to Cuba

Alaska Airlines began the first regular commercial service from the West Coast to Cuba last weekend. President Ana Mari Cauce was part of the delegation that flew to Havana, her birthplace.

Read her reflections from the trip…

Helping refugees abroad with a Fulbright scholarship

Hamda Yusuf ’16 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in a first-ever cohort for a “Community-Based Combined Grant,” which requires both community work and teaching in a foreign country. In fall 2016, she’ll be heading to Austria for 9 months to support Refugees Welcome, a non-profit that is dealing with the Middle East refugee crisis there, and will be an English teaching assistant in secondary schools.

Arts partnership captures a refugee experience in Seattle

A new exhibition and video documentary tell the story of a refugee family. These were developed by ART WORKS Projects in collaboration with the UW Center for Global Studies, The Seattle Times, UW Libraries and the King County Library System.

See photos and video from The Seattle Times…

As 1 Million Strong implementation partner, the UW is creating a pipeline of China-savvy leaders

On the anniversary of its 1 Million Strong initiative, the US-China Strong Foundation, a global nonprofit committed to strengthening US-China relations, announced its new 1 Million Strong implementation partners – including the University of Washington – who will help guide the initiative’s growth.

Announced in September 2015 by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping during the Chinese leader’s official state visit to the US, 1 Million Strong looks to create a pipeline of China-savvy leaders and employees in the US. The initiative calls for a five-fold increase from current numbers: today, approximately 200,000 US K-12 students are learning Mandarin, while there are more than 300 million English language learners in China.

Read the entire press release from the US-China Strong Foundation…

Myanmar goes mobile, with UW’s help

A reformist government speeded Myanmar’s transition to democracy three years ago, dramatically increasing access to information. In 2011, just four percent of the population had mobile phones. Now the figure is closer to eighty percent, with many people owning smartphones. But navigating the flood of online information can be problematic for new users with no experience assessing the trustworthiness of sites and sources. An initiative launched by UW faculty aims to change that.

The initiative, Information Strategies for Societies in Transition (ISST), is designed to build digital literacy, information literacy, and data literacy across Myanmar. Professors Mary Callahan and Sara Curran in the Jackson School of International Studies, Chris Coward, director of the Technology & Social Change Group in the Information School, and Michael Crandall, a principal research scientist in the Information School, lead the project in collaboration with USAID, Microsoft, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Boosting global health partnerships for Chinese universities

Supported by the Global Innovation Fund, a landmark symposium hosted by the UW last week brought together leaders and faculty from five Chinese universities, across the UW campus and the Seattle community. “Collaborating with Chinese colleagues is a tremendously high priority, both personally for faculty and institutionally here at UW,” said Judy Wasserheit, chair of the Department of Global Health and symposium co-chair.

Study: Most tweets following fall Paris attacks defended Islam, Muslims

Researchers at the UW Information School and the Qatar Computing Research Institute analyzed 8.36 million tweets beginning seven hours after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and continuing for 50 hours. Searching for words and hashtags relevant to the event, the team identified about 900,000 tweets relating to Islam and Muslims. They found that while anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments arose on Twitter, most tweets in the huge stream following the Paris attacks actually condemned the negative hashtags and expressed support for Islam.