About FIUTS and the FIUTS SUSI Program Partner Organizations
About the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students (FIUTS)
FIUTS is the host institution for your SUSI programming in Seattle, Washington, where you will spend the majority of your time in the SUSI program. FIUTS is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) located in Seattle, Washington on the west coast of the United States (different from Washington D.C., which is a 5-hour plane ride away!). FIUTS’s mission is to connect students with local and global communities through programs that build international awareness, cross-cultural communication and informed leadership. FIUTS is a place to meet people, share experiences, and make friends from around the world. We work with thousands of students each year, and are excited to welcome you to our community.
Be sure to explore our website to learn about the programs that we produce and read the FIUTS blog before you arrive to get a sense of who we are and what we do.
The FIUTS SUSI Staff Includes:
ERA SCHREPFER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Era joined FIUTS in 2006, and brings many years of nonprofit and international experience to her role. Era has traveled extensively in Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean and served with the US Peace Corps as a Community Agriculture Volunteer in the Dominican Republic. In addition to her role at FIUTS, she serves on the Board of Joyas Mestizas, and as a volunteer for Girl Scouts of Western Washington. Her interests include cross-cultural leadership development, team building, nonprofit strategy and planning, and the use of social media for social change.
ELLEN FRIERSON, director of education and outreach
Ellen grew up in New York, Germany, and Virginia. She moved to Seattle in 2011, and joined the FIUTS staff in 2012. Previously, she taught English in Germany, Ecuador, and Thailand, and coordinated a human rights education program with journalists in Cameroon. She also spent ten summers teaching German at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota, and has worked for nonprofits in Washington DC and New York City. Ellen received a BA in English from Franklin & Marshall College and an MA in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is dedicated to promoting social justice and global community through cross-cultural exchange and collaboration.
jason evans, EDUCATION PROGRAMS COORDINATOR
Jason was born and raised in a rural town in California. Prior to joining the team at FIUTS, he worked as an English teacher near Seoul, South Korea, as an Assistant Language Teacher for the Japanese Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program in Kyoto, Japan, and in various education roles on the West Coast. Jason received his BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz focusing on cultural studies. He studied abroad at Sogang University Korean Language Center (KLEC) in Seoul, South Korea. His interests are in museums, international economics, cross-cultural communication, communities in the diaspora, and social equity.
HILARY ZUÑIGA-CAMACHO, outreach & Community Programs coordinator
Hilary was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico. She moved to Washington state when she was 6 years old and has called the PNW her home ever since. She attended Washington State University and graduate at the top of her class with two degrees in philosophy and environmental science with minors in economics. Her personal experiences as an immigrant as well as her big picture and humanitarian thinking drives her passion for cross-cultural understanding and international relationships and development. Prior to FIUTS she has conducted her own research alongside the Intag Pueblo in Ecuador and held multiple positions in university settings.
JOE GREEN, SUSI PROGRAM ASSISTANT
Joe has worked with FIUTS since 2018 on numerous programs. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from the University of Washington’s Evans School. He has lived in Seattle for many years, and has also served three times in the U.S. Peace Corps, in Georgia, Liberia, and Cambodia, where he gained extensive experience assessing, designing, and implementing community development projects and education programming. Joe is an artist who is currently working on a graphic novel.
Learn more about the full FIUTS staff team here.
ABOUT THE HARRY BRIDGES CENTER FOR LABOR STUDIES
The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies supports students and faculty at the University of Washington in the study of labor in all of its facets. Through education and research, our mission is to develop labor studies - broadly conceived to include working people everywhere - as a central concern in higher education. We cultivate connections with labor communities locally and around the world, and inform policymakers about issues confronting workers.
Labor Studies is interdisciplinary. Understanding how and why work is performed, organized and divided in societies necessitates multiple scholarly perspectives. It demands recognition that labor occurs everywhere under many conditions - at home, in the workplace, waged and unwaged, organized and unorganized. Conceiving labor studies broadly also demands that we conceive labor movements broadly - to encompass struggles against oppression and hierarchy based on race, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, nationality, ability and more, in their particularities and their many intersections.
About the Washington State Labor Education and Research Center
The Washington State Labor Education and Research Center is based on the Georgetown campus of South Seattle College, one of the Seattle Colleges. As the largest community college district in the state, Seattle Colleges serve 45,000 students annually with more than 135 professional and technical programs, including nine applied baccalaureate degrees. This college is a very different type of higher education institution as compared with the University of Washington, providing SUSI participants an opportunity to experience different types of approaches to higher education in the United States.
The Labor Center’s mission is to use the best practices of adult education to design programs to help working women and men develop the skills, confidence, and knowledge to be leaders at work and in their communities.
Staff and faculty from these two centers will collaborate to deliver many of your academic classes during the program.
about nancy bacon
Three of the workshops that will help prepare you to plan and deliver your Community Action Projects will be led by Nancy Bacon. Nancy is a teacher, instructional designer, and learning strategist known for creating nonprofit learning experiences that move people to action. A former middle school teacher who has served nonprofits in many roles, Nancy has made a career of creating and leading learning programs. She has trained thousands of people in-person and online, speaks on learning and leadership, and writes books and blogs on topics at the intersection of learning and nonprofits. More about Nancy