Behind the Scenes with the Center for International Education

The Center for International Education at Empire State University unites learners and educators across the globe. From decades-long partnerships with universities outside the U.S., to new, exciting study abroad opportunities, the office acts as a bridge for global learning exchanges.

Representing the office is Francesca Cichello, senior executive director of the Center for International Education, Kimberly Marsella, associate director of international education, and Lori McCaffrey, international education liaison. Cichello has been with the university since 2006, Marsella joined three years ago, and McCaffrey was hired in 2007. The Center for International Education also includes Assessment Specialist Lori Stanley, and Administrative Assistant Rebecca Rumpf.

What are your responsibilities in the Center for International Education?

Cichello: One of the larger pieces of my role is partner development and partner maintenance. We’re very lucky to have some long-standing partnerships that are over 30 years old. The stewardship of new kinds of partnerships and bringing us into a new era is also my responsibility. Expanding our footprint around the world is really important to me.

Marsella: My responsibility is to support Francesca and the efforts she mentioned. I also oversee our admissions process and have revamped our online applications. A lot of the work involves our faculty overseas, and I work with coordinators who are all based on-site at our programs to plan and prepare for the academic terms. I provide support for our graduations abroad and virtual exchange.

McCaffrey: I’m in charge of the new study abroad program that we just unveiled in Prague. We’re exploring some other short-term study abroad options. I’m also responsible for the letters that we write for students when they’re seeking documentation and authentication of their time with us here. That is called the apostille process.

What do you find most rewarding about working in international education?

Cichello: We’re working with hundreds of students at a time and making it possible for them to earn an Empire State University degree. That is incredibly meaningful to me—to know that what we do as a university within the SUNY system is completely unique. Making this commitment to serving international students a reality is something I really value, and it requires so many different people and so many different perspectives. I find it so gratifying to work with the team here in the U.S., but also all our colleagues abroad. It brings so much experience and cultural know-how to the table that makes this work very rich.

Marsella: I love working with students, and I’m incredibly moved by our students’ stories. It’s interesting to see some of the challenges that our students face and how they overcome them, how they persevere. I think of our Lebanese students working through economic crises and war.

As someone who loves to travel internationally and enjoy other cultures, I love working with the team here, but I didn’t know how much I would fall in love with our colleagues abroad, how amazing they are, and how wonderful it is to work together.

McCaffrey: I don’t have the same depth of experience yet, but I’m already seeing—just in the short time that we’ve been doing study abroad—how excited students are with the idea that they can go abroad because they didn’t think that was an option for them.

Introducing them to that concept has been very fulfilling. I studied abroad in my undergrad years and worked in the international education office at SUNY Plattsburgh. It feels like a coming-home moment that I ended up back in international education.

What are you most proud of accomplishing?

Marsella: We’ve reintroduced residencies and have successfully run five residencies since I started. It’s been exciting to send our faculty to the sites to directly work with our international students. We’ve had residencies in the Dominican Republic, Turkey, and Prague.

McCaffrey: I’m proud that we were able to roll out study abroad as quickly as we did. We had a tight timeline to get things going. I was able to hit the ground running and pull in the resources we needed from different offices to make it happen.

Cichello: I’m proud of the fact that we are such an incredible group and a functional team. If we have disagreements, it’s always in service to students and making the programs better. I’m very proud of this team, having worked with many others over the years.

What does a workday typically look like for you?

Marsella: Because most of our programs are hours ahead of us, we get in and have a slew of correspondence from teams abroad. We correspond with them daily by email or Microsoft Teams. I often do some verification of our student diplomas or degree programs. There’s always a new challenge with seven programs running in different parts of the world, and in different parts of their academic terms.

McCaffrey: My day consists of a lot of checking the status of letters and maintaining that process. They have to move through different levels of the government, so we’re always monitoring where we are in that process and letting students know. Students might be waiting for those letters for jobs or additional education in master’s and Ph.D. programs.

Cichello: Sometimes we also travel, which means compressed time schedules and lots of early mornings and late evenings to get as much face time with students and faculty as possible in addition to ministry of education meetings and partner meetings.

There is no typical day, but the typical day is often a lot of interactions in-person, via email, and via virtual meetings.

What’s a surprising takeaway from working in international education?

McCaffrey: I don’t think I realized how much the Center for International Education was doing before I worked in the office. It wasn’t until I was working here that I saw the depth of these partnerships and how many students we’re serving internationally. It’s impressive how many students internationally have a tie to Empire State University.

Marsella: I’ve been in higher education for 25 years, but honestly, to see what needs to get done with the ministries of education abroad, and how complicated that is—I really had no idea. It’s exciting to see how important our degrees are to these students.

Cichello: I am constantly surprised at the capacity we have to keep working at a high level, even when we get negative news or difficult situations. Sometimes, I feel at a loss, and then someone abroad will say or do something that is incredibly resilient, and I’m surprised by our ability to carry on.

Each of us has a different way of looking at things, but also a commitment to what we do. It’s incredibly surprising to me that we’re able to do what we do with such a small team and remain effective in other parts of our lives and fulfilled by the work we do.