SIT Graduate Institute Alumni Newsletter, Spring 2023

The MAT 3 1972 group celebrated their 50th anniversary with a weekend visit to Brattleboro which included some time at SIT speaking with SIT President Howlett and Degree Chair Leslie Turpin, MAT 14 1983. Pictured here in the front row are: Marilyn (Bean) Barrett, Carlos Maetzu, Manju (Bhushan) Hertzig, Marilynn Spaventa, Nancy “Nan” (Dodd) Uhl, Betty Jo “BJ” Stone, and Arthur “Andy” Burrows. In the back row: Lou Spaventa, Don Bouchard, Elise (Carlson) Burrows and Bruce Kahn.

Jody Williams, MAT 7 1976, has returned to her native Vermont and is working with high school students. She also has continued her international work, most recently in Ukraine. Read Jody Williams comes full circle 25 years after her Nobel Peace Prize win to learn more about Jody and her work.

Mary Shlomit Lucich-Pavlovic, ICT 23 1978, felt called to action after seeing the images of women and children on the news about Ukraine. Last fall she traveled to the Ukrainian-Polish border to help feed, comfort, and protect Ukrainian refugees. She had previously worked with people in need in Morocco for more than two years and volunteered for nine months on a border kibbutz during the War of Attrition. “SIT has given me a greater understanding of cultural sensitivity, which was not only exceedingly useful in Morocco, but especially during my almost 30 years living in the Middle East,” she said. ”I am constantly reminded that we are all different, but all one and the same.”

Liza Boffen-Yordanov, MAT 28 1996, recently started as the new director of advancement at the University of Aberdeen. Formerly the head of advancement for Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Liza has close to 25 years of experience in international fundraising and alumni relations. Liza has held senior positions at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Franklin University Switzerland, George Washington University, National University of Singapore, and Purdue University.

Carolyn Morales, PIM 56 1996, serves as the associate dean for Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, Community, and Equity in the school of medicine at University of Texas at Tyler.

Jane Hoelker, MAT 17 1998, has been teaching English since 1970. She has taught students in South Korea, Japan, Qatar, the Emirates, Rwanda, Mali, and India. She has lectured at Qatar University and served as a visiting lecturer at Seoul National University and Pusan National University. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer and as an English Language Fellow with the U.S. Department of State in India and has been responsible for facilitating training with the U.S. Department of State’s English Language Specialist Program in Egypt, Oman, and Bahrain. She has also served on the TESOL International Board of Directors in Washington, DC, and is a past president of TESOL Arabia. She is presently an English writing instructor at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan and is preparing for retirement when she hopes to publish a book.

Heather Satrom, MAT 33 2001, has taught non-native speakers of English in the English Language for Academic Purposes program at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland, since 2005. She has participated in many fellowships including the Belfer National Conference for English Educators at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Heather has also completed training in digital storytelling, and she incorporates both digital storytelling and museum education into her courses. Heather’s Smithsonian fellowship project, “Inspiring Social Change through the Study of History and Art”, is related to the exhibition “Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In the Spring of 2023, Heather will take a sabbatical to work on an oral storytelling project to document stories of immigrant and refugee students. Prior to teaching at Montgomery College, she worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and at Brevard Community College in Florida. Heather won an Outstanding Faculty Service Award in 2018. She wrote her master’s thesis on the role of museums in language learning.

Rebecca Young, PIM 67 ISLM 2007, joined Farmworker Justice in Washington, DC, in 2010 and currently serves as senior project director for the Health Promotion team. She works with farmworker communities across the United States and finds continued inspiration for her work through the stories the farmworkers and their families so willingly share. Prior to joining Farmworker Justice, Rebecca spent seven years living in the rural Western Highlands of Guatemala. There she worked at a language school and a bookstore and cafe which provided space for after-school projects for kids and literacy projects for women.

Laura Kline-Taylor, PIM 69 IE 2009, is a life and business coach helping women to be the best mothers and professionals possible. She helps women design their own version of “having it all” and calls women who are leaders in their place of work and in their homes chief executive mothers. She is married with two children and hosts an au pair from Brazil to add inter-generational and international diversity to her home.

Ashley Townes, PIM 71 IE 2011 and Experiment Group Leader Japan 2010, is the 2022-2023 Washington Sea Grant Keystone Fellow. She is spending the year working with the maritime habitat team at the Port of Seattle, advancing the development and implementation of innovative habitat restoration projects including kelp research, floating wetland islands, and blue carbon monitoring. Additionally, she will investigate ways to strengthen the linkage between habitat restoration, stewardship, community engagement, and equity. She is completing her doctorate in fisheries ecology at University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. She continues to design and implement high-impact community-based environmental projects and best cross-cultural practices in natural resource management, especially as related to Black and Indigenous populations, people of color, and ethnic minority groups.

Asma Ali Abunaib, CONTACT 2009 and PIM 71 ISLM 2012, is the director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Champlain Valley schools in Vermont. She says she still draws on two things she learned at SIT: the experiential learning cycle and the cycle of revenge and reconciliation. Read SIT alumna brings conflict transformation skills to new role.

Justin Bibee, PIM 72 CT 2012, recently started a new initiative, the Rhode Island Human Rights Project, a year-long campaign that strives to establish statewide solidarity for human rights by encouraging every municipality in Rhode Island to sign a Human Rights Day Proclamation from December 10, 2022, to December 10, 2023. If successful, Rhode Island will be the first state in the country to establish statewide solidarity for human rights. Justin works as a refugee resettlement case manager and is a PhD candidate in peacebuilding. Read more about Justin in the Brattleboro Reformer.