SIT Critical Conversations series wins digital innovation award

Announcement Date: June 3, 2022

SIT’s Critical Conversations Webinar series has received a top award for Innovation in Marketing & Digital Media from GoAbroad.com. The award recognizes creative, visionary approaches and original ideas in marketing, advertising, and digital media. It was presented on June 2 during the NAFSA conference in Denver, Colorado.

SIT launched the Critical Conversations Webinar Series in fall 2020, at the height of the pandemic, as a way to maintain a presence in the global education community during a prolonged shutdown during which study abroad programs were canceled, and students and faculty were shut out of classrooms.

SIT produced 115 webinars over three semester-long series in 2020 and 2021 that drew 1,796 unique attendees. The webinars are posted online and available to the public for free.

The webinars were designed to inspire community-wide dialogue on global, interdisciplinary topics within SIT’s Critical Global Issues framework and to keep the SIT community engaged and interactive during the pandemic. The seminars featured SIT faculty, students, alumni, and high-profile guests such as Harvard Professor Homi K. Bhabha, one of the world’s leading postcolonial theorists. Other topics included Gen Z and diversity, equity, and inclusion in education abroad, critical tools in gender and queer studies, and even soap-making and cooking demonstrations by our homestay families.

“The Critical Conversations webinar series provided a platform to engage with our communities—partner schools, students, alumni, and others—at a time when in-person events were not possible,” said Mory Pagel, SIT executive director of institutional relations and strategic partnerships. “For us, it has been an important way to stay connected to our network of partners and continue the conversations about some of the most pressing issues affecting communities around the world today.”