Manuela Stewart Sifuentes (IAFS ‘01) didn’t know what to expect when she signed up to live in the Smith Hall International Program (SHIP) her first year at CU Boulder. She had a general understanding of university residence halls, but she didn’t anticipate the impact it would continue to have sixteen years later. SHIP, the precursor of what is now known as the Global Studies Residential Academic Program, shaped Sifuentes’ interests in diversity and current affairs and allowed her to develop a career promoting immigration awareness and community engagement.
Today, Sifuentes is the Director of Community Partnerships with CU Engage, which allows her to create connections between academics and those working on complex public issues. CU Engage is the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Community-Based Learning and Research, which develops and sustains equity-oriented partnerships, organizing opportunities for students to learn alongside community members, and supporting faculty and students to implement ethical and rigorous engaged research. She sees the role of a state university as both providing education opportunities and leveraging its knowledge and resources to improve the community. “I’ve always been attracted to the idea of bridging communities,” shares Sifuentes.
Previously, she was the Project Director for One Action 2016: Arts + Immigration Project, an arts-based, countywide project that fosters conversations on both historic and contemporary issues of immigration. This opportunity gave Sifuentes a chance to use the arts to engage and inform Boulder county residents on historic and contemporary issues of immigration, with the intent to foster a more informed and inclusive community.
Her recent work, along with a grant writing and language translation background, has refined her views on the central importance of diverse, community engagement. Sifuentes believes in working with communities to embrace and honor the knowledge and resources unique to each community. “This requires listening to understand, not just listening to respond, and being patient and flexible while the relationship builds,” explains Sifuentes.
Building relationships is a pivotal lesson learned directly from being in SHIP, as it allowed her build connections with people of different interests and backgrounds.
In the photo (right), pictured is Manuela in Arequipa, Peru earlier this year.
In the photo (below), pictured is Manuela (center) with SHIP peers at their 2001 graduation for CU Boulder.
