Introduction

[00:00:00] Steve MacDonald: Welcome to the Global Engagement Insights Podcast. I'm Steve MacDonald, your host. Today, we have an exciting conversation. It's going to be about the SIO's blind spot and how to use SDGs as a framework for internationalization success. And we have two experts in this category. We have Joanna Regulska and Jolynn Shoemaker, and you guys are both from the University of California, Davis. What I would love to do is have you give us a little bit of background on your experience. And I know, Jolynn, you have a copy of the book that you've written here, and we're going to talk about that as we get into the podcast a little bit. There you go. What I'd love to do is let's start that way. Explain a little bit about who you are so we can get to know you a little bit. And then we're going to talk about this blind spot and how to use SDGs. Joanna, do you want to kick us off?

[00:00:58] Joanna Regulska: Sure. As Steve said, I'm Joanna Regulska. I am the Vice Provost and Dean of Global Affairs at the University of California, Davis. I'm also a faculty member in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. I've been in the field of international education for many years, working with students, with faculty, working abroad, working in Hungary with Central European University, and with many universities in Poland and Georgia.

[00:01:31] Joanna Regulska: In many ways, helping to develop a gender studies program but also fostering deeper and broader student engagement in global learning, global engagement, and understanding.

[00:01:48] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Thank you. Jolynn?

[00:01:51] Jolynn Shoemaker: Steve, it's great to be here. My name is Jolynn Shoemaker. I serve as Director of Global Engagements at UC Davis as well. My background is in international peace and security. I spent about 20 years in Washington, D.C., working on various issues related to international peace and security, including the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, both in the U.S. government and in the NGO sector, as well as in various advocacy roles over my time there.

[00:02:24] Jolynn Shoemaker: So, I'm very happy to be here and happy to be at UC Davis doing this work.

[00:02:30] Steve MacDonald: I would love to start very broad. I want to talk about your view of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and using SDGs. Why are they important to higher education and that whole sector? I'd love to know, Jolynn, just set the stage for us at the very beginning here.

[00:02:51] Jolynn Shoemaker: Great. Yeah, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the SDGs, were agreed upon by all countries in the year 2015. The SDGs cover a broad range of issues, from poverty to hunger to climate to inequalities. There are a few aspects of this agenda that make it different and transformational from previous international commitments. First, it brings together the environmental, social, and economic dimensions, recognizing that all of these aspects are intersectional and indivisible. Often, different issues in the past have been very siloed into distinct commitments internationally and distinct communities of practice. This agenda brings all the threads together.

[00:03:40] Jolynn Shoemaker: The agenda also applies to all countries and all contexts, so it requires the participation of all sectors. It creates a common framework, which is very useful for building partnerships and collaborating in new ways. This agenda can be a catalyst to understand what is not working to address our systemic problems and to innovate in how we solve the complex problems in the world. Another unique aspect of this agenda is that it is anchored in universal principles that apply to all countries. These universal principles are human rights, gender equality, and the principle of "leave no one behind." The "leave no one behind" principle means that we cannot possibly sustainably achieve all of these goals if we marginalize or leave out groups or communities. Countries around the world are committed to addressing the needs of those left furthest behind first.

[00:05:00] Jolynn Shoemaker: This provides a set of principles that can be used to press different actors, governments, and many other institutions for accountability. There's a shared commitment to how people are being treated and whether they can participate in decisions. All of this is tremendously important to higher education institutions as we prepare the next generation for leadership across so many sectors and careers and produce important research for solving these challenges.

[00:05:32] Steve MacDonald: Not only solving these challenges, but it's a big term. Joanna, you've talked about how SDGs are transforming international education and research collaborations. Could you maybe explain a little bit more about what that transformation looks like?

[00:05:46] Joanna Regulska: Sure. I just want to underscore what Jolynn also said, and that is that higher education institutions are vital for achieving the SDGs. This is where research is conducted. This is where the next generation of leaders is being educated. Awareness of SDGs in higher education is growing.

[00:06:11] Joanna Regulska: There are many passionate people in our sector of higher education who already incorporate this agenda faculty, staff, and students undertaking many different initiatives. I think this is the core of what we are trying to convey: that international education and SDGs are mutually reinforcing.

[00:06:38] Joanna Regulska: They are interdisciplinary and open to any area of research. They require many different areas of expertise, experiences, contexts, and perspectives, which aligns with the principle of "leave no one behind." They bring everyone together, allowing people to connect to support what they're doing and to advance research. I think that's the key. The key elements of all the global learning that we're trying to achieve are central to achieving SDGs. The research we are conducting is also central to achieving SDGs. There are many different examples of how we can achieve SDGs through research and innovation. For example, SDG 4, which focuses on quality education, includes a target that emphasizes education for sustainable development. This includes global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity, which is closely aligned with what we are trying to do through global education and global learning.

[00:08:00] Joanna Regulska: There are many other ways to think about how research from higher education is already contributing to sustainable development goals. All those areas that Jolynn mentioned climate, poverty, infrastructure, water, energy are critical to achieving the SDGs and are also critical areas of knowledge production. That is very important.

[00:08:26] Steve MacDonald: There's a lot that goes into a comprehensive internationalization strategy. SDGs are one part of that. But why is there a need to integrate these SDGs into the priorities of everything we have to do in our international education offices and all the responsibilities? Why integrate SDGs?

[00:08:45] Joanna Regulska: In many ways, higher education right now is at an inflection point. We need to transform this sector so we can engage more effectively on these pressing issues. As I mentioned, we also want to prepare our students, and we need to demonstrate the value of higher education to society.

[00:09:07] Joanna Regulska: Because that's sometimes the argument that has been used: the value of higher education. Higher education is not bringing much. If we engage with SDGs and we focus on different areas, this is exactly what the value is. The value is to provide the knowledge, educate the students, and expand the awareness of SDGs as an important point.

[00:09:35] Steve MacDonald: We've taken a lot of our fair share of knocks in a role. And this takes the role of universities to a whole new level. Jolene, this kind of leads into, I think, the very motivations for why the two of you wrote this book, Global Goals, Global Education: Advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Tell me about the motivation. Why did you embark on this? Because I know you had enough going on in your life already versus taking on writing an entire book. Why was this important to you?

[00:10:10] Jolynn Shoemaker: Yeah, we have, over the last few years, been part of so many conversations with other universities around the world, and we were seeing a growing interest from the higher education sector. But also, all these questions were being raised about best practices. University leaders were looking for approaches and ideas about how to take it forward, but the examples tended to be very dispersed. Often, the sharing was at international conferences or meetings, but the actual higher education field lacked a resource for learning about the diverse approaches from around the world. So we had support from NASA, which published the book, and we saw a window of opportunity to begin to collect and share those insights in a much more deliberate way. And so we had already identified key areas of interest from higher education institutions that were coming up again and again. So, first was the university's institutional strategy. Second was research. Third was teaching and learning. And fourth, engaging with communities. These areas were also directly in line with our approach to the SDGs at UC Davis. So we wanted to organize the book to address multiple dimensions that need to be considered to have a holistic strategy around the SDGs.

[00:11:49] Jolynn Shoemaker: And we also wanted to profile a range of types of institutions, countries, and approaches. So we ended up with 16 chapters from 16 different locations around the world. And that brought in a variety of regions: Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and North America. While we were working on the book, we also learned that SDG models and lessons from less-resourced institutions were often invisible.

[00:12:23] Jolynn Shoemaker: The higher education field needs to do better in providing the resources and the opportunity so we can all learn from institutions everywhere about how to integrate the SDGs. We learned two important factors for successful SDG integration: one, intentionality, and the second, institutional support. And Joanna already spoke about institutional commitment as well.

[00:12:51] Jolynn Shoemaker: But in the book chapters, we learned how leadership does play such a central role, along with passionate champions at all levels of the institution. Because at the core, this agenda is really about individuals with creative ideas and institutions that are willing to provide support for them. So it's very inspiring to us to see what individuals can do when they come together and try something new.

[00:13:17] Steve MacDonald: Now, I'd love to, Joanna, put you on the spot because what Jolynn just said there is trying something new. And you've been implementing this at UC Davis. I'd love to know about your experience taking the strategies that you've been talking about here and how they impact teaching, research, community engagement, and everything that we've been talking about. How have you been able to accomplish that at UC Davis?

[00:13:44] Joanna Regulska: So it has been a long journey. And I think this is important to remember from the beginning that even if you are intentional and even if you are open to experimentation, it might not work. It might be impossible. So we've tried many different approaches. We tried to organize some coffee hours, and we tried to pull faculty, and some of those things didn't work.

[00:14:13] Joanna Regulska: The first year, I would say, the first year was more about what didn't work. Learning what didn't work, we learned what are the points and how we can explore different ways. And I think in the book, especially in the introduction chapter, as somebody said, this is the longest introduction chapter.

[00:14:36] Joanna Regulska: We wanted to show the way that we did it, step by step. The 2030 agenda requires that we bring many different lenses together. So a lot of this is about piloting new initiatives and taking risks and persuading your leadership that, yes, this is the time to do it.

[00:15:02] Joanna Regulska: This is the time to experiment. Initially, we faced questions like, "Why are you doing this, you Global Affairs, you International Office? Why are you doing sustainability?" And we said, "No, no, no, no, no. Sustainable Development Goals are both global and local." We are collaborating already with the Office of Sustainability and, what was maybe innovative, our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office. So, it was about racial justice, economic justice, social justice, and environmental justice. We want to create a more comprehensive approach and incorporate this into many different activities, programs, initiatives, and so forth. So, maybe Jolynn can talk about a few of those chapters or examples that we managed to generate.

[00:16:04] Jolynn Shoemaker: Yeah, the book chapters by the different authors around the world had so many interesting examples. Higher education institutions are making deliberate efforts to incorporate the SDGs into strategy building. Often, the processes are an opportunity for deeper thinking about the institution's identity and mission and how it relates to the institution.

[00:16:27] Jolynn Shoemaker: To the SDGs. So we also saw that, in many cases, considering the SDGs led to new structures in those institutions and also brought forth new champions for the SDGs in those institutions. We also saw in the book that focusing on specific SDGs or specific topics can also provide institutions with a focal point for strategic direction around this.

[00:16:55] Jolynn Shoemaker: And this seemed especially useful for smaller institutions to bring their areas of strength to advance specific issue sets, for example, zero hunger or reduced inequalities. We also saw many examples in the book about mapping efforts. And this is a really important step, oftentimes, with the SDGs. Working on the SDGs because mapping efforts offer an opportunity to gather baseline information about existing connection points at the university to the SDGs, and that's important to institutions because it can show a way forward and grow the efforts. And that does require dedicated time from the institutions. In our case, at UC Davis, we did a voluntary university review, and it took more than a year of collaboration.

[00:17:51] Jolynn Shoemaker: And Joanna talked about some of the units that we collaborated with for that. But if we don't if we don't see that alignment, if we don't start documenting it, then it's very hard to make informed strategic choices. So mapping also has allowed many other institutions to show the relevance of the agenda and reveal connections that they may not have seen before, which leads to other collaborations. One other aspect is that these processes can be tailored to specific areas of interest. So, we saw in the book examples of mapping curriculum, for example, to the SDGs. So the efforts do not need to cover all of the activities or all of the SDGs.

[00:18:42] Jolynn Shoemaker: There's just a lot of room for customization for your circumstances in terms of the mapping process. We also saw in the book that COVID-19 opened up. It was a forcing event in many ways for exciting innovations from universities in teaching and learning as institutions started to pivot to the virtual space and then incorporate the SDGs into some of those programs.

[00:19:10] Jolynn Shoemaker: And so the book also highlights areas where teaching and learning the SDGs is so valuable, not only for students but for the instructors, the faculty members as well. And we certainly know that from our work at UC Davis through our internship that focuses on the SDGs and bringing the SDGs into classes as well.

[00:19:33] Steve MacDonald: I know with working with all these other institutions and you doing it yourself, I was just wondering, what are the challenges? The challenge of aligning an international comprehensive strategy with SDGs is that there are always too many priorities to get done in a day. What were the challenges that you found the most important to overcome to achieve this kind of success?

[00:19:55] Joanna Regulska: Faculty. Nothing's gonna happen. Faculty are really critical to those efforts. We have done several things directly related to SDGs, for example, offering SDG grants to faculty so they can start some projects and engage.

[00:20:16] Joanna Regulska: We have also, in our bilateral relationship with other institutions, focused the seed grant money on SDGs, or the other way around. Whatever the programs of research and proposals were, faculty have to articulate the SDGs that will be advanced. So this is not extra, and yet we are advancing SDGs by amplifying and articulating.

[00:20:48] Joanna Regulska: A related effort, not directly related to SDGs but very much aligned, is that now at UC Davis, faculty can put a new statement of public and global impact. This is the space where they can describe and acknowledge what they have done to make UC Davis a global university, what kind of work they have been doing.

[00:21:17] Joanna Regulska: In the tenure and promotion process, this will now count because they have the opportunity to amplify their global engagement.

[00:21:27] Steve MacDonald: Jolynn, I think you had something to add to that.

[00:21:29] Jolynn Shoemaker: Yeah, I also wanted to just mention how essential it is to engage across communities for this agenda and higher education institutions. We saw in the book just so many variations of ways to do this engagement, ranging from universities working very closely with indigenous communities to projects with local organizations and regional and international levels.

[00:21:58] Jolynn Shoemaker: Here at UC Davis, we've been working for more than a year with the city of Sacramento on a voluntary local review of the SDGs. That's going to be released next week. These kinds of projects can have their challenges. We're working across sectors. We're coming from different sectors. But over time, we can build relationships. And then those open up all kinds of other possibilities for academic institutions and non-academic institutions, local institutions, et cetera, to work more closely together. So in our case, we've already been talking to the city of Sacramento about what we could do next.

[00:22:43] Jolynn Shoemaker: Together and how we could involve students in some of the challenges that they're facing, as well as our faculty, and so forth. It opens up very exciting possibilities.

[00:22:52] Steve MacDonald: So I know if everybody else is listening here okay, I get it. I get the point. I understand the benefits. What do I have to do? You've been implementing this, you've been working with others, you've written the book on the subject. What are the practical steps that we should be thinking about if we want to be doing this out of our offices?

[00:23:11] Joanna Regulska: So in the book, we show step-by-step what needs to be done. We need to have champions, very specific champions in different groups around with which we are working. So champions with faculty, champions with students, champions with the institutional leadership. And obtaining and building that institutional support and pushing really for the integration in this strategic direction.

[00:23:41] Joanna Regulska: So mapping is one thing, because when you do mapping, you begin to have data, and you can articulate and you can say, like we did, "Oh, half of the SDGs or all the SDGs are being done by the UC Davis faculty, and half of this is being done in California," and so forth. It's a very different conversation to have data and be specific.

[00:24:07] Joanna Regulska: So that's, I would say, really very important. You want to provide incentives for faculty engagement, and you want to build support with your leadership, but you have to be able to articulate why this is important for advancing the mission of the university. So it's not just SDG for the sake of SDGs; it's how SDGs make a difference and advance the university's mission, vision, and engagement as a broader institution.

[00:24:46] Joanna Regulska: You want to encourage people to think when they're building partnerships, as we did with the grants that I mentioned because that gives you the visibility. If you focus, then your partners are also focused, and then you're advancing SDGs, but you're also advancing the global standing of the institution, you're advancing the faculty who are involved, and so forth.

[00:25:13] Joanna Regulska: And then finally, I think it's very important to think about the students. Students are critical. We created internships. We're providing opportunities for them to participate in a competition in different ways locally and globally. Students want to participate. They are already much more advanced than the faculty and staff. Maybe, the last point is when we think comprehensively about operations. So one of the things that we did in our report, Voluntary University Review, we added operations, and we wanted to show how we as an institution are committed. How do we change the big water shift that we created?

[00:26:03] Joanna Regulska: We're using steam, hot water, and we ripped the campus apart. And we put in the new pipe system to use this steam. Recycling, bicycles there are a lot of things that the campus is doing. But making those connections amplifies what you do. This is exactly how you advance both SDGs and the university's contribution. So there's a lot of stuff. Once you start seeing it, it's everywhere.

[00:26:31] Steve MacDonald: We've talked about a lot, and I want to make sure you've got a whole book's worth of knowledge and expertise and all the time, the case studies, and everything. What haven't we covered, Jolynn? What, if you could say, "Okay, I want to make sure we say this," what haven't we covered that's important to say?

[00:26:52] Jolynn Shoemaker: I think we have quite a bit of attention now on the engagement of university leaders, faculty, and students, but there's been a lot less attention on the professional staff in higher education institutions. We're seeing an emerging interest in the SDGs as an area of professional competency, and professional development. Certainly, professional staff plays such a crucial role in these institutions and such a crucial role in advancing this agenda in these institutions, and many are looking for that deeper competency on this and ideas because they're already developing programs, running programs, managing, and evaluating programs. It's just really a great opportunity for bringing more champions to take this forward at all levels of these institutions.

[00:27:48] Steve MacDonald: I have one last question, and Joanna, I'm going to ask you: If there was one thing that you wanted everybody to take away to make sure that they can remember, what's the one most important thing that you'd have them understand?

[00:28:06] Joanna Regulska: Start slow, but move holistically. So choose something where you can start and grow from, but you have to not just do one thing you have to think about the complexity. You have to have a multi-faceted strategy. How to help reinforce the message with different audiences at different moments in time, because otherwise you're going to create a silo, and a silo is not holistic.

[00:28:40] Joanna Regulska: A silo is not comprehensive. So building and expanding champions, providing support from every quarter, building partnerships with people that you don't think normally you will build partnerships with. So reaching out to those who are not involved and not included, and will help also to economize on the limited resources that we have because there will be more champions.

[00:29:10] Joanna Regulska: They will speak in different voices, and yet we'll speak together in one voice. So this is what will be the holistic way and intentional way something that we started at the beginning of this discussion.

[00:29:25] Steve MacDonald: I want to make sure that people not only have this podcast as a resource. Would it be appropriate that we gave links to maybe your online profiles or a way to make sure that people who had questions could reach out and ask those questions? Would that be okay?

[00:29:39] Joanna Regulska: Sure.

[00:29:41] Jolynn Shoemaker: Absolutely, and we do have an SDG page as well on the UC Davis site. So anyone can also Google that. We can provide the link, but if you Google "SDGs UC Davis," it comes up.

[00:29:55] Steve MacDonald: Fantastic. Then I also want to make sure if you could hold the book up again and read the title. And where do we go to get it? Do we go to Amazon? Like, where do we get the book?

[00:30:04] Jolynn Shoemaker: So, it's called Global Goals, Global Education: Advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and it's available through NAFSA. The best place is to order it directly from the NAFSA site.

[00:30:19] Steve MacDonald: So if I just type in "NAFSA" and the title of the book, it'll take me to the right

[00:30:24] Jolynn Shoemaker: Yeah.

[00:30:26] Steve MacDonald: Thank you so much for coming on. You've done so much work in this area, and to share that so that we can all benefit is just incredible. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to share with us and move SDGs and an internationalization comprehensive strategy forward. Thank you for coming on today.

[00:30:46] Joanna Regulska: Thank you.

[00:30:47] Jolynn Shoemaker: Thank you.