My team engaged SASSIE’s services to help us redesign our pre-departure orientation into a comprehensive and interactive virtual curriculum. We are thrilled with the results! Marcia understood our vision, provided critical feedback that improved our plan, and worked with us collaboratively to bring it to life more quickly and efficiently than we ever could have on our own. She successfully strikes a balance between ensuring excellence and adhering to project timelines, and her expertise, organization, timeliness, and patience were invaluable in advancing our student preparedness for study abroad. Marcia has a wealth of experience in international education and student health and safety abroad that would be an asset to any institution or project, but it is her keen ability to listen, synthesize, and produce that I especially valued. Moreover, Marcia is an absolute pleasure to work with – her warmth and sense of humor were a welcome bonus as we partnered to achieve a more effective, relevant student training. –Maureen Gordon, Executive Director, Education Abroad & Overseas Campuses, Temple University
SASSIE has been our go-to consultant for specialized international education programming for the past four years. We are a small department with a tight budget, but, we’re always looking to review, adapt, and strengthen our programming. After we engaged Marcia for an in-depth, holistic, evaluation of our policies, practices, and materials, we knew we found a reliable, thorough, and highly flexible partner with exceptional expertise in the field. We have most recently worked with Marcia on student mental health abroad content, which we recognized as more and more of a need. She developed an effective and engaging two-part series that our students found helpful both in the pre-departure stage and while they were abroad. The second session included the participation of a mental health professional and tailored content for the student participants. As part of our risk management practices, we have also engaged Marcia in developing and facilitating highly relevant incident response training for our Crisis Response Team. We were able to think through how our team would respond to unexpected challenges, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and develop new policies and practices as a result. We can always count on SASSIE to explore new ideas and specialized content that meets the highest standards for our field. -Tiffany Jacob, Director of International Programs, University of Arkansas, Clinton School of Public Service
We incorporated SASSIE’s Preparing for Wellness Abroad Training into our education abroad pre-departure resources three years ago (2023), and it has fundamentally strengthened how we support students’ mental wellness. Prior to then, we lacked a comprehensive resource to proactively address the increasing emotional and psychological needs of our students while abroad. The SASSIE training was an ideal solution to fill the gap. Now our students depart with greater self-awareness, practical coping strategies for navigating stress and cultural adjustment, and a clearer understanding of when to seek support. Getting to work with SASSIE’s founder, Marcia, is a huge plus because she is a trusted expert in study abroad, global health and safety, and intimately understands the realities of international education administration. This training is an essential aspect of our preparation model and reflects our commitment to supporting the whole student through their global journey. –Ahaji Schreffler, Senior Director, Education Abroad, Drexel University
CFHI brought Marcia on as a consultant to help us review and strengthen our existing risk infrastructure in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to support the development of new protocols and procedures specifically related to COVID. She worked quickly and thoroughly to conduct a full audit and made a series of specific and actionable recommendations rooted in best practices and by compiling the best available examples from myriad expert stakeholders. We enjoyed working with her so much that we asked to stay on and develop a subsequent training for our global team. After working with Marcia, we feel very confident in our decision-making processes and risk management infrastructure. I highly recommend SASSIE to any institution or organization that is seeking to audit, improve, or build out any aspect of their health, safety, and risk infrastructure. -Robin Young, Executive Director, Child Family Health International (CFHI)
We engaged SASSIE to audit our travel abroad health, safety, and security policies and procedures so we could return to travel with confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The engagement was successful for several reasons. Marcia took the time to listen carefully and understand our current capabilities and needs. She used a very sound and thorough process: she reviewed our existing documents, spoke with students and faculty who had participated in our programs, and gathered benchmarking data from peer schools. She has many contacts in the field and is well-versed in timely topics, such as self-care and wellness while studying abroad. She has advised senior leaders on travel decisions, so she could help us think through strategic matters in addition to tactical ones. Thanks to our work with Marcia, we have streamlined our crisis management procedures, improved our communications with key crisis-response partners, and strengthened our training and support for the faculty and staff who lead our programs. -Lisa Byrne Miller, Director, TuckGO, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
SASSIE’s various packages meet school’s where they are in terms of travel health and safety planning and procedures. Whether a school is brand new to academic travel and needs support in developing programs with health and safety in mind or if a school has been doing this for years but could use experienced minds to look at the big picture to strengthen current infrastructure, SASSIE can provide specific and thoughtful guidance that meets any school’s needs. We found that Marcia asked very important questions about various aspects of travel, such as reasoning for our travel destinations, mission-alignment, insurance policies, emergency plans, and how we might make changes towards accessibility and equity in our travel programs. She also went through our existing documents, from applications to chaperone agreements, to crisis response plans, with a fine-toothed comb and made suggestions that add layers of security for all of our travelers. We couldn’t be happier that we hired SASSIE to consult with us on all things travel at Notre Dame. -Nora Moffat, Director, Center for Global Leadership, Academy of Notre Dame de Namur