Highlights from SIT’s 56th commencement

August 14th, 2022

Fifty-four students received their masters degrees Saturday in a ceremony at School for International Training. Half the graduates were on campus for the event, while the other half joined online. Here are just a few of the many highlights from the day.

Today would not be possible without the support and encouragement of your family and friends ... both those outside the Graduate Institute and within ... who have been there to support you in your quest for education.

Dr. Sophia Howlett, President, School for International Training

Grit without connection, without heart, without joy is meaningless.

Carol Spahn, CEO, Peace Corps

While programs like ours at SIT Graduate Institute expose so much devastation and pain in our world, they also reveal the beautiful, joyous, empowering, and loving realities of our current existence. SIT cultivates spaces for all of it -- to hold the pain and joy simultaneously.

Domenique Ciavattone, MA in Climate Change & Global Sustainability

... Ultimately, what joins us together is a belief that there are issues bigger than ourselves and a community that transcends our own individual concerns, and that we need to be part of supporting that much bigger picture.

Dr. Sophia Howlett, President, School for International Training

Revolutions happen from below, from the bottom up. Change happens cumulatively from the actions that each of us take across all moments in our lives. We are collectively more powerful than we think.

Dr. Bruce Dayton, chair, MA in Diplomacy and International Relations

You have experienced firsthand the interconnectedness of human narratives, unpacked the unfounded claims of the vocabulary of othering, and realized that the future of human experience lies in the extent to which we can all bring together our intellect, emotion, and imagination to create new ways of thinking ...

Dr. Said Graiouid, SIT Dean of Faculty
Dr. Leslie Turpin (right) hugs her colleague, Dr. Elka Todeva.

Elka has been our intellectual powerhouse. She is endlessly fascinated by languages and the power dynamics in language use. As the TESOL field has taken a more multicultural turn away from native-speaker dominance, Elka has been at the forefront of discussions ...

Dr. Leslie Turpin, chair, MA in TESOL