Revealing our roots: a conversation with Erin Sabato

I formally connected with the Collaborative in 2017, when Quinnipiac became an institutional member. I'd been at Quinnipiac at that point for about 8 or 9 years. Prior to that, I had been spending a lot of time reading, looking for articles and researching how to measure the impact of CBGL programs.

Prior to joining the Collaborative, my office had worked for several years with a for-profit, very business-oriented organization that offered an assessment tool designed to measure what they called global competency. We started with this tool because at that time, I thought, something is better than nothing; I was increasingly being asked to demonstrate the impact of our programs in a more structured way. I had been looking for something to show the growth in our students in a number of areas. But after a few years of working with this company, I knew it wasn't the right fit, it wasn't the right organization, and the tool wasn’t asking the right questions.

In late 2015, I attended a one-day workshop at Sacred Heart University, which is about 25 minutes from Quinnipiac. Eric Hartman was the featured speaker. I had to leave the event early, but before I left, he came out and handed me his card and I followed up with him soon after. I was so excited to learn about GlobalSL – the work they were doing and the tools they had developed. I was especially grateful for their commitment to open-source materials and started using them in my own work right away.

I can’t really remember how I first stumbled across the Global Engagement Survey. After learning a bit about it, I kept it in the back of my mind and I don’t think I fully made the connection at that time between the GES and GlobalSL. But then, the stars aligned in different ways, and colleagues of mine went to one of AAC&U's conferences on global learning in Denver, Colorado, and Eric was presenting there. Because I was on maternity leave, I wasn't there, but a whole delegation from my university went, and they came back, and they said, “Have you ever heard of this Global Engagement Survey?” I said actually, that sounds familiar, and so I started putting the pieces together.

Eventually, I reached out to Nora Pillard Reynolds. We immediately connected, both personally and professionally. One of our strongest points of connection was Nicaragua: we had both spent significant parts of our professional and adult lives working, living, and collaborating with community partners there.

After those initial conversations with Nora, I made the decision that Quinnipiac would join what was then GlobalSL. So initially I was looking for an assessment tool to measure student learning and program outcomes. But really what I was looking for was a community of like-minded people, and that is what I found with the Collaborative.

When I first started going to Nicaragua, I was an undergraduate at Quinnipiac. Looking back, it was now what I would consider an outdated model of engagement, although I didn’t realize it at the time. When you're that young, and when you have advisors and faculty supporting and almost rewarding you for participating in this very antiquated deficit model – you don't know what you don't know.

After I graduated, I went back to Nicaragua and lived there for a little while. Then I went to graduate school in Costa Rica, which gave me more lived experience and broader perspectives. I have thought a lot about the reactions of other people when I told them, “Oh yeah, I'd just been living in Nicaragua.” They would say, “Oh my gosh, that's so amazing! That's such great work!”

But what was I really doing? I realized how easy it is to just maintain that status quo. And I also realized how many people still support that older model of engagement. But then once you know more, once you really spend time reflecting on how you were doing things, once you know better, you can't unlearn that and go back to old ways of thinking.

After joining Quinnipiac in 2008 as a program director, I was in a position to question how we were doing things, and push back a little on our current model – the model I participated in as an undergraduate student. I wanted to meet people where they are  and understand why they have the certain perspective and frameworks that they operate with – while exposing them to different perspectives, or different ways of engaging with community partners. But I wanted to have the research and outside expertise supporting the changes I wanted to make.

Much of that work involved shifting institutional culture, trying to move away from this older model of global engagement that was still deeply embedded when I arrived at Quinnipiac. When it came to a lot of our community-engaged programs, I really felt like I was alone in a lot of that work. I had some colleagues that got it, but sometimes it really felt like an uphill battle.

So while I initially sought out GlobalSL from the research perspective, it really was the community. Other institutions, other individuals, scholar practitioners, we were all saying the same thing. I wasn't alone in this mindset anymore.

It really did help legitimize what I'd been trying to do at the university. I could say, “Look, we have all these other institutions from around the country that are kind of using this same set of guidelines and principles.”

It is really nice to look back and think about where my institution was back when we really needed the Collaborative and then to think about all the positive changes we have made because of this collaboration. The resources, the scholarship, the community, and the legitimacy of the literature to back up what I had been saying and the changes I was trying to make. It really did work. That's cool to be able to look back and see that.

My pathway to deeper engagement after joining was working closely with Nora on the GES. I think once Nora learned about my work, and the model, and what I was trying to do at Quinnipiac, she connected me with others. Dennis (Mcunney) and Robin (Young) and Patrick (Eccles), we started presenting together at conferences. Nora was this matchmaker. She would say, “Here's a call for proposals, I think you guys might be really interested in working together.”

That fed me for a while, being able to collaborate with people. I say Dennis and Robin, because they were the ones I presented with the most. We wrote articles together, we presented at IARSLCE, we presented at AAC&U together.

That was really great. It was really something that was so special about the Collaborative, providing these opportunities. It was a really special time when we could meet together in New Orleans, or Clemson, wherever we were, and present together on our work. I would have never met them or worked with them in that capacity, if it wasn’t for the Collaborative.

We all came from such unique institutions; you had a nonprofit, a private institution, a public institution. But we had such shared ethos and values. I learned so much from both of them, and others as well, but, they were the ones that I presented with the most.

That was something that was really, really wonderful. We even tried to keep it going during COVID. We presented at a lot of virtual conferences together, which weren't as fun, because we weren't together in the same space but at least we were still collaborating. 

The other thing that I really enjoyed was working closely with Sam (Brandauer) and Nedra (Sandiford), Kelly (Trail), Bibi (Al-Ebrahim) when we did the Fair Trade Learning and Toolkit workshops together.

So those were really great. I would have never collaborated with Nedra otherwise. She was so integral to the development of the Toolkit and the Toolkit pages. I really enjoyed working with her in that capacity.

Writing articles together, presenting together, and creating additional resources for new members, or new participants, or people that are new  to the collaborative. Because that's what I was looking for 10 plus years ago. To be able to provide that to others was really great, and it felt really important.

I still use the language of the Commitments, of the Collaborative on an almost daily basis. Just a few weeks ago, I met with a pre-health student organization. They wanted to create a new travel program with an organization we had never worked with before and I was able to point to all the potential red flags by using our shared language.

It takes away the personal, right? This isn't just me judging if this organization is viable or not. By having the language of our commitments, we can have a conversation and talk about how we want Quinnipiac to engage globally. If it doesn't fit within this model, within this framework, then the answer is no. Having that language is really helpful, not only in making some of those decisions – because it's pretty easy to show where there is misalignment. But it also can be used as an educational tool.

I think back to my 20-year-old self going to Nicaragua for the first time, and I didn't know what I know now. Had somebody come to me in a kind and gentle, but firm and educational way, and said, “Look, these are some standards that we want to adhere to. Let’s talk about why, and let me talk about the repercussions of engaging otherwise.” It probably would have shaped my understanding much earlier. That's probably the clearest way that the work of the Collaborative still shows up in my work.

I give a lot of presentations to a lot of faculty, staff, and students, and I can guarantee that at least one or two slides in every presentation I give has a citation from somebody that is connected to the Collaborative. There is not a doubt in my mind. 

It's just a really special group of people. You trust their work, you trust their values, you trust their ethics, you trust their rigor. It's just a really special, special group of people.