Dr. Amy Anderson
Dr. Amy Anderson
Written by Mary McLoughlin '20
As a ten-year-old growing up in rural Ohio, Amy Anderson remembers thinking that Ohio was the center of the world because it was where she and her family were located. But after volunteering in Togo, West Africa with the Peace Corps, Amy’s world grew as she realized how much she could learn from the different ways other people see things and how to recognize the intersections of her identity for all they have to offer.
Now, Amy serves as the Associate Provost for Global and Intercultural Affairs and as Executive Director of the Center for International Programs at UD. In these roles, she works to make the vastness of the world accessible to UD students. She says her favorite part of her job is joining students in the “process of discovery, in uncovering ourselves and seeing what the world has to offer and what we have to offer it.” Amy believes that understanding how the complexities of our identities and lived experiences are situated within our global community has the power to connect us to our passions and vocations.
As a first-generation college student, Amy has learned that making international experiences accessible means more than just making them available. She remembers how her own identity often made her feel like an imposter in school, and now that experience guides her own work making sure people from a variety of backgrounds can connect to the international experiences UD offers and feel that these experiences are for them as well. For this reason, she dedicates herself to creating an open and non-judgmental environment that welcomes every background and worldview, guided by her conviction that “We can’t judge people for what they don’t know. One step is a step forward, and if you want to take a step, let’s do that together.”
When Amy discusses what she has accomplished during her over 20 years working in international education programs, she describes her accomplishments in terms of “we.” For Amy, any commitment to putting equity, diversity, and inclusion at the center of UD hinges on collaboration and depends on people with different experiences and skill sets holding one another accountable with “a little grace and care.” She understands her role in moving UD toward a more inclusive and globally-oriented institution as “meeting people where they are and reaching in rather than calling out.” It’s been this attitude of collective consciousness building that has allowed CIP to grow from a small team of individuals working toward individual goals to a dynamic team in partnership with the campus working toward connecting different missions and agendas in cooperation with a shared vision for the future. After twenty years of this work, Amy insists that she “has never been more excited than right now.”