By Inemesit Williams
This year, I’m at the horizon of celebrating being on this planet for nearly half a century as I commemorate 16 years into my second career as an international educator. I help college students study, intern, and volunteer abroad at various worldwide host locations and welcome international students to the United States. That’s thousands, even millions of miles traveled in pursuit of education. As the intersections of climate, racism and global education flooded and merged in my mind, I wondered how I could navigate these junctions in my role as an international educator. I began to ask myself, “What actions can I take individually and collectively to support myself, my community, and the world?”
Visiting the SDSU Imperial Valley campus for their study abroad fair.
At the center of my personal and professional search to answer this question is the overlapping nature of international education, climate change, and racial justice - a Venn Diagram of interwoven connections. Historically, many well-known climate activist organizations in our society have emphasized climate-centered messaging actions. This tunnel vision focus sidelined societal inequities rooted in systemic racism, leading them to be regarded as less urgent and often separate endeavors in the urgency of climate change. Leaders opted for climate-first rhetoric that relegated frontline environmental experiences and voices to the margins.
The global pandemic created an unexpected opportunity for us to refocus and encourage change in the climate narrative. It amplified and magnified the measurable disproportionate health disparities, climate impacts, and racial inequities deeply embedded in our societies. Highlighted data and experiences from pioneers such as Dr. Robert Bullard, Peggy Shepard, JoAnn Tall, Dr. Adrienne Hollis, Vernice-Miller Travis, Tom Goldtooth, and more inspired new, young voices to enter into climate and environmental justice activism. Climate advocates began to recenter their actions as Black, Indigenous, Brown representatives, leaders, and organizations claimed their seats at the table, or just made a whole new table altogether.
Adding my new and older voice to the crowd required that I consider the context of my collective educational knowledge as perhaps, a bit dated. To reframe my current perspectives, I committed to self-education. I delved into learning, building a bridge to revisit topics from past learning experiences and create a reparative education pathway through the lens of new, diverse voices and perspectives. There has certainly been plenty of room to navigate the role of both student and teacher concurrently.
Students at home and those distanced by a border or ocean need resources and tools to understand better how their decisions, voices, and actions can impact our society, our planet, our communities, and their personal growth and experiences. Faculty and academics offer a large expanse of opportunity to develop academic paths to navigate intersecting identities and societal issues; however, staff members are also critical partners in these efforts. As international education practitioners, we can’t distance ourselves from the need to take on these responsibilities. We have to do the work too, which may require us to settle into a space of discomfort as we learn and address something new. We can’t always fall back on what is comfortable and known in our professional areas if we want to move forward to affect change.
Sisters Ine Williams and Tanea Hibler who have both found their careers in education.
As always, jumping into something new comes with challenges, even sans a pandemic. As I watched the health crisis unfold and politics divide global leaders and inhibit collective action, the death toll of Black people began to rise. I started to view the ongoing deaths and murder of Black people in the U.S. as a type of societal pandemic. Seeing overt and targeted violence toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander community only added to the urgency. Voices have lifted across the nation and worldwide to condemn the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others. I felt more united on our planet than ever before. Death and harassment of people of color in the U.S., particularly Black people, has been going on for so long without collective external comment that I had not expected to see global solidarity, outrage, and protest around police-sponsored violence and racial harassment. I felt and saw the potential for solidarity in our actions; moreover, I wanted to share my voice in the fight.
Access to technology allowed me to find my voice when we were sequestered at home. Virtual connections with colleagues worldwide offered new platforms to share diverse perspectives, create new partnerships, and suggest further actions. I found my family of action-driven colleagues when I joined the board of the Climate Action Network for International Educators (CANIE). CANIE is a grassroots organization that Ailsa Lamot and Pii-Tuulia Nikula co-founded to help create awareness of our industry’s impact on climate change. We develop space to share free resources and training. We motivate and advocate for justice-centered action in the international education community. Our small group stepped away from the often siloed communities in higher education to find global connections, reduce actual and perceived boundaries, and generate solidarity within a virtual space.
The adaptations international education had to make throughout this past year had us crying, laughing, and wringing our hands in concern and frustration. Many teams involuntarily reduced their team size and reprioritized elements of their work. We had to be resilient as we tried new approaches to our work that sometimes failed, but we just got back up and tried again. We connected with our students in new, meaningful ways. Professional development was almost entirely virtual, but we still sought advice from others and created spaces for support. And in this unique bubble of time, we also innovated, initiating and sharing changes that contributed to more diverse, sustainable, and equitable practices.
Welcoming new international students to SDSU at orientation bowling social event.
The global pandemic created an unexpected opportunity to amplify and magnify measurable disproportionate impacts and highlight and inspire new voices in climate justice activism and global education change. As a Black, bisexual, female international educator a couple of years shy of 50, the pandemic drove my relocation from California to Arizona. This action required a pause in the forward projection of my career path in my home state and offered the best support for my family and time to improve my physical health. Now that I’ve adopted a new home, I am adding my voice from an unexpected location and within a new political arena. Still, I bring my experiences from California and around the world with me, and I am more ready for action than ever before.
Get involved!
Climate Action Network for International Educators
https://www.can-ie.org/
Free Climate Leadership Training
Climate Reality Leadership Corps Training
https://www.climaterealityproject.org/training
Free Climate Solutions Training
Project Drawdown: Climate Solutions 101
https://drawdown.org/climate-solutions-101
CANIE Event Recordings & Podcasts
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT__0v06wB6t1hmmat9JTrA/videos