Marcia Henisz founded SASSIE in 2020 specifically to serve the needs of academic institutions that were actively engaged in international experiences, but lacked the resources or global footprint to have a full-time staff member dedicated to international safety and security. With over two decades of experience in international education, and five years focusing exclusively on health, safety and security, Marcia possesses a strong understanding of international program administration and a significant skill set in international risk management.Her approach to safety and security is based upon a belief that clear policies and protocols and knowledgeable travelers and response teams, provide an excellent scaffolding to support crisis management. This is what she wants to help clients to achieve.
As the inaugural Director of International Health, Safety and Security at Drexel University, Marcia focused on the management and mitigation of international risk for all travelers at the University, including incident response, strategy and policy development and the education of travelers. Marcia has also worked in international programs at the University of Pennsylvania where she managed education abroad programs and Stanford University where she worked in global business operations. Prior to her work in higher education, Marcia worked as a high school French teacher for six years.
Marcia has been an active member of the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), Pulse, NAFSA, the Forum on Education Abroad and URMIA. She served from 2018-2020 as the Chairwoman of OSAC’s Academia Sector Committee (formerly known as the Academia Working Group). She has presented on safety and security strategies at NAFSA, URMIA, the Forum and OSAC conferences and has contributed to multiple publications on the topic of safety and security in academia.
Marcia believes strongly in the primacy of international experiences in education and considers developing educated and well-supported travelers as a critical backdrop to this essential mission. Her knowledge and experience in international education and safety and security paired with strong management and interpersonal skills, enables SASSIE to positively shape and manage the direction of safety and security response for academia.
