Take 5: Success Stories

This year, International Educator is bringing back a familiar favorite—our Take 5 column—but with a fresh approach. Each month, we pose a thought-provoking prompt to five members of the NAFSA community. These international educators, who represent a diverse range of voices and perspectives, respond with their insights, recommendations, and personal reflections on the myriad themes and questions that are facing the field.

What’s the project or accomplishment that you’re most proud of from your career?

One accomplishment I’m proud of is creating spaces where international students, students of color, and other marginalized students feel welcome, seen, and safe. In my current position (and at my previous university), I made intentional changes to our department’s environment and processes. Following those changes, we saw growth in the number and diversity of students visiting our department, sharing concerns and accomplishments, requesting assistance, and accessing our programs.

As international education practitioners, we are uniquely positioned to support movements toward internationalization with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. To me, this includes making our departments, programs, and institutions accessible, globally and locally inclusive, and focused on the student perspective. Through the messages we receive from students and alumni (months or even years after they graduate), I see how I’ve contributed in this area. 
—Laura Mazzeo Allen, Kettering University

I served as the lead on my institution's successful application for NAFSA’s Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization in 2020. I was new to my position and was responsible for compiling a large amount of internationalization