





































H
An Interview with 
Associate Vice Chancellor 
Hillary Kahn

8

Hilary E. Kahn is Associate Vice Chancellor for International Affairs at IUPUI 
and Indiana University Associate Vice President of International Affairs. She is 
also editor for the Framing the Global book series with IU Press and Associate 
Professor of Anthropology at IUPUI. She has been in the field of international 
education for nearly two decades and is the author of multiple articles and four 
books. At her core, Hilary is an ethnographer, an identity through which she 
views the world and that anchors her commitment to advancing global learning 
and chipping away at our territorialized notions of responsibility.

Q: How did you first become 
interested in leading the campus 
in advancing the Sustainable 
Development Goals (SDGs)?  

Kahn: I first became interested 
in the intersection of the UN 
Sustainable Development Goals 
and internationalization with my 
work internationally. I was having 
a number of conversations with 
colleagues and institutions and 
international education leaders 
and scholars from around the 
world, when I was the president of 
the Association for International 
Education Administrators. And 
everybody was talking about the UN 
Sustainable Development Goals and 
how we needed to fulfill that agenda 

through the lens of international 
education. And I knew that very few 
people, very few institutions, very 
few people, very few communities 
in the United States were having 
such conversations. So it truly was 
through my international networks 
that I started seeing how important 
it was for institutions to embrace the 
agenda, but I also saw the unique 
position of international offices to 
take it on and to in some ways lead 
these efforts. Even so, while the 
SDGs are global in scope they are 
also manifest and made real in local 
context. 

Q:  Can you say more about 
why these international offices 
are unique, especially at the 

Designer
rio santos 
IUPUI 

Online 
journal 
development
ted polley 
IUPUI 

Editors
khaula murtadHa 
IUPUI 

andrea copeland 
IUPUI

Associate editors
william b. crow 
Lehigh University

carolyn gentle-
genitty 
Indiana University

jim grim 
IUPUI

rita hodges 
University of Pennsylvania

natasha howard 
Morehouse College

terri jett 
Butler University

brendan maxcy 
IUPUI

carol mullen 
IUPUI

mary price 
IUPUI

carol rogers 
IUPUI

javiette vashan samuel 
University of Tennessee 
Knoxville

sarah stanlick 
Worcester Polytechnic 
Institute

ellen szarleta 
IU Northwest

laura weaver
Indiana Campus Connect

Office of 
community  
engagement staff
liz m. terry 

marisa watson-juárez 

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S



universities? 

Kahn: I think one of the misunderstandings of 
the SDGs is that they are international and only 
international and that they only impact things 
that are outside our borders. Nothing could be 
farther from the truth.   I also actually think that 
the same thing can be said for internationalization 
and international learning. That there is this 
misunderstanding that what we do is only 
meaningful beyond our borders and that all we’re 
doing is either informing students about the world 
beyond the United States or only bringing in 
individual scholars beyond our borders, and that 
we are not doing anything for our local community. 
And again, strongly, nothing could be farther 
from the truth. Global learning and the SDGs are 
so relevant to what we are doing in Indiana, in 
Central Indiana, in Marion County and we have 
to act on this responsibility.  IUPUI has a deep 
heartfelt commitment to community engagement. 

That’s why we’re here.    And nonetheless the 
definition of community is too often geographically 
territorialized and territorialized in ways that are 
very local. And we very rarely step out of those 
geographic boundaries when we are thinking about 
how to engage others and how to make the world 
a better place. What it comes down to is our sense 
of responsibility.  Our sense of responsibility is too 
bounded. 

It’s an aspect of global learning that I’ve tried to 
implement in professional development settings 
or in teaching and curricular settings. Global 
learning is not just about knowledge. It's not just 
about attitudes, and affect.  It's about a sense of 
ethics. It's about a sense of responsibility, a sense 
of caring. And, and we tend to align our sense of 
commitment at very localized settings where we 
feel most comfortable and that's where we care the 
most. But the truth is it's also tied to our identities. 
We have localized identities, and our cultural 

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identities are often extremely rooted, in our particular 
cultural, historical, geographic locations. And we don't 
often  expand ourselves beyond these concentric ways 
of thinking about our identities. We don’t identify with 
our broader connections. Then the same thing goes 
for our sense of responsibility. Because our sense of 
responsibility and sense of commitment is very much 
layered on top of how we define ourselves. But if you 
started to define yourself and reflect on yourself and 
see yourself global and complicated and multilayered 
and transnational, which is what we really are.  That 
everything we do is actually somehow impacted or 
informed by global phenomenon, processes and powers 
and people. If you can do that, then you can start to 
dissect yourself and your identity, then you can start 
to care about the world too.  But the first step actually 
starts with yourself. Just like all learning starts with 
yourself.

Q:  But what does that mean when we are 
messaging to our local communities so that they 
do move beyond that sense of space, bounded 
space? 

Kahn: I think there is such a misunderstanding about 
how international Indiana already is. Do you know 
that nearly one in ten households speak a language 
other than English at home!  And there are around 
275 languages spoken in the state of Indiana. Can you 
believe that? 

Q: Yes, this is what we are finding out from the 
Immigrant Welcoming Center too. 

Kahn: Incredible. And so it is really an educational 
campaign that we need to be doing and starting with 
the fact that our definition of Indiana needs to be 
dismantled [It needs to be] diversified, and be much 
more complicated than it is. The definition of a Hoosier 
needs to be revised. Iinternationalized. Because it is 
inherently about difference.  Even think about things 
that are the epitome of Indiana. Motorsports. We can't 
build our cars without international commodity chains. 

And we can't think about just the sport itself. It’s 
intensely global. Think about limestone quarries, and 
where all that limestone ends up in buildings all over 
the world.  Think about where all our corn, ducks, soy 
beans, and engines land around the world. Think about 
all the people and companies we have here in Indiana. 
Think about everything. It's all about the way it's being 
framed. And, we are framing ourselves as this land 
locked, isolated state, when all you have to do is live 
here for a little while and realize that that's the farthest 
from the truth. 

Q: When you said it is the way it is framed, can 
we link that to the educational work that you 
referenced a moment ago? What would that mean 
in terms of our relationship with educators.

Kahn:  I always think part of global learning and any 
powerful critical learning process starts with rethinking 
whatever categories you're supposed to be starting 
with. And in this case it's about starting with the 
diversification of our definition of the state of Indiana. 
And as you say, ‘educate,’ what does that mean about 
the educational mission?  I don't know whether this is 
where you're going or not, but we need to redefine the 
term ‘educator.’ I always like the fact that we've gone 
away from calling ourselves ‘professor’ or that we often 
call ourselves educator. But we need to be learners too, 
right?  We try to focus on processes of learning and 
educating and not necessarily identifying or aligning 
them with a particular person.  So we're almost at a 
point where we need de-territorialize that; to decouple 
the process of learning and teaching away from these 
preordained categories or appointed positions and so 
on. We need to make it more about the process. That's 
actually one thing I recognize. We’re  proud of our 
learner-centric learning, right? But it should really be 
learning. It is about learning. It's about the process and 
what comes out of it. 

Q:  You are making such an incredible important 
point about the process. Say some more about 
your vision for furthering the UN sustainable 

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development goals.  Where do you see it going 
for your vision? 

Kahn: It's interesting. I think I entered into the 
work with the Sustainable Development Goals 
very focused on international education. And, and 
as you said, it's a cornerstone for our efforts for 
internationalization at IUPUI.  I'm delighted that 
we're able to move on that. But I really do see it as 
more than international education. And I want to 
make sure that we are able to decouple the SDGs 
from our global identity. Because this is about what 
we do locally as well too. And this is what we do 
generally with the communities that we engage 
with. We can move this agenda forward when we're 
working together; when we're working collectively, 
when we're working as partners. One of the SDGs 
is about partnership. It's one of the most critical 
ones. Number 17, it's the last one, but it's really the 
first one. It's where it all starts. And we need to be 
doing that with people and communities all over 
the world and in ways that are very reciprocal and 
transformational, and not necessarily about what 
we're getting out of it, but it's about what we're 
doing together. 

Q:  I know that notion of ‘together.’ People 
often say that. But how do we foster equitable 
partnerships? I think that is a major challenge 
if your vision is to really have these reciprocal 
relationships; this transformation of what we 
have been doing. How do we really foster this 
as a part of your vision and furthering the 
work? 

Kahn:  I think it's an area where we can 
contribute. It is in our office’s DNA, thanks to the 
work of people like Susan Buck Sutton. But I do 
think we must work hand-in-hand with offices 
of community engagement.  We should probably 
need to have more really good conversations. And 
now that I'm talking to you, we should do an event, 
specifically about that—community, reciprocal, 

transformational bi-directional partnerships. 
What does that really mean? How do you develop 
these? Because it's one thing to say you do it and 
it's another thing to actually do it. Too often we end 
up falling back on those darn categories, you've 
got those darn binaries that you need to undo. And 
I think in many ways that's what's lovely about 
the sustainable development goals- is that it's not 
about binaries out the system. It's about how this is 
all connected and holistic, and integrated, iterative, 
integrated and interdependent. 

Q: You mention the interdisciplinary and the 
iterative. Those are two words and ‘engage ‘we 
will probably ask you to elaborate for just our 
everyday readers. Because it is a journal for 
supporting faculty and staff and students, but 
it is also for our community. And so when you 
talk about interdisciplinary work and iterative 
work, those are not necessarily words some 
of our folks out in the community would use. 
Can you say a little bit more about what the 
two words mean? 

Kahn:  Well, it's not linear. Right? It's not about 
even having even a preordained sense of where 
you're going. It’s about letting the collective 
knowledge production be the direction. It's about 
allowing the empirical to speak.  Don't ask me to 
define that one either. 

Q: But I am tracking with you. That is our tag 
line for ENGAGE!   co-created knowledge, 
serving. 

Kahn: It’s about serving, but it's allowing the 
process to direct you. And so many people are 
uncomfortable with that lack of direction.  Unless 
are goals are truly collectively articulated, then 
there will always be the power differential. You 
see quite a bit on that international level when 
we're talking about international partnerships and 
locally too. You have a big power house like Indiana 

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University and IUPUI, working with communities. 
It's tough to truly focus on the collective and to 
do things together, and even when you try and 
even when you have the best intentions, it's still 
very difficult. So you must constantly be checking 
yourself, constantly going back and re-learning and 
rethinking and reeducating and making mistakes 
and recognizing that this is a process, an iterative 
process that will never be fully completed.  The 
sustainable development goals, there is not an 
end point, even though we have a lot of metrics 
and so on. It's a process. And it will constantly 
be a process, making the world a better place. 
It always can be better. There's always room for 
advancement. There’s not a best. There will never 
be a best place. Even the term ‘best practices,’ 
there's no such thing as a ‘best practice.’ There's a 
lot of promising practices that we should adhere 
to. But there's always room for improvement. And 
the interdisciplinary nature is just so key. We can't 
do this by ourselves. We can't pick your profession, 
your discipline. We have to do this collectively 
too. And I think global learning and community 
engagement recognizes that. The sustainable 
development goals clearly recognize that. This 
must be done with as many different perspectives, 
with as many different ideas with as many different 
theories and methods and forms of practice and 
different ways of doing things, and different ways 
of interpreting things. That's how you learn, right? 
And we've learned that too. That's where you are 
creative. That's where you're nimble. That's where 
you're the most skilled.  That's where you’re better 
is when you're working together. 

Q: Better together. You talked about being 
nimble, it made me think about how many 
times within our disciplines we are not 
necessarily nimble. Sometimes we are very 
confined. 

Kahn:  The other day we were talking about our 

cultural lenses through which we see the world but 
disciplinary lenses, oh my goodness! I mean, that’s 
another great example of how we're enculturated 
into a thought process that we're not even aware of 
it. It’s so tacit- it’s why it can be so difficult to teach 
disciplinary thinking.  

Q: Sometimes it is about the teaching-- not 
necessarily supporting the learning. . . . This 
disciplinary lens is enculturated just like you 
said.  Yes, it is all these, there are all these 
theories. The theories. 

Kahn:  I think there's a misunderstanding that 
interdisciplinary work is somehow a threat to the 
disciplines. But I think it actually makes you a 
better disciplinary thinker. It makes you stronger. 
If you're able to strengthen that positionality 
through diversity. It isnt’ just about gender 
equity, but about poverty, about cleaner cities, 
about education,. . . It is about Social Work, 
Anthropology, and Public Health. 

Q: Is it about intersectionality?

Kahn: Yes, it’s about intersectionality. And that's 
the only part about the SDGs that kind of irks me 
sometimes. It’s those darn boxes. They're beautiful, 
but they're not meant to stay in boxes, right? They 
should come up with something else- puzzle pieces 
perhaps. 

Q: There is another diagram that I wanted 
to put next to this interview column. And I 
looked at the ones with the boxes. I liked how 
they had a little definition with each one. But 
the boxes. . . 

Kahn: That's not the point. And that's why I 
always have a hard time, like what could we do 
to scale this up? Should we have a theme for the 
campus? Should we choose a goal and then we 
can all focus on that. I'm not against that. But 
again, I just don't think that this is about choosing 

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a particular global issue. It's might be about 
focusing on one, but then always recognizing the 
interconnections between them. Which is why it's 
such a powerful curricular piece too.  And such 
a powerful research device as well. Actually, the 
grant that we are collaborating with OVCR [the 
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research] on is 
requiring the proposals to cover at least two of the 
goals.  So again, that interdependence, whether it's 
between goals; between local and global, whether 
it's between partners-- that's so critical to what we 
do. 

It is also critical for us to translate our work at 
IUPUI, all of the work, from research, to service, 
to teaching, into the lexicon of the SDGs. Because 
what we found out a year and a half ago when we 
were starting this work in early 2020, was that 
nobody really knew what the SDGs were-- maybe 
about half of them. But then when you started to 
outline all the 17 different SDGs:  about gender 
equality and healthy lives and ending hunger and 
ending poverty and so on. Then they were all like, 
‘Oh, well, of course I do that.” And then it ratcheted 
up to something like 90 percent were contributing 
to the SDGs in one way or another, but they just 
weren't doing it in the lexicon of the SDGs. And so 
Ian Mcintosh, in our office, is actually working in 
this area and translating what we do at IUPUI into 
the vocabulary of the SDGs.  And so we're going to 
keep working on that. 

We are currently doing this school-by-school 
but we do need to do it more systematically. We 
need to start developing a more formal inventory. 
Institutions of higher education are doing that.  I 
just received something from UC Davis. It was so 
beautiful. They are really doing such great work 
and have great support. And I think we have that 
at IUPUI as well. We've got great support, but we 
need to ratchet this up a bit. We need an “All In” 
approach. 

Having an All In approach includes connecting 
more with business. The business communities in 
Central Indiana and beyond, care about this work, 
and they need research to support it. I think there's 
many, many more businesses that are committed 
to this work than people would ever know.  Some 
of the biggest advocates for this work are coming 
out of our business community. And that includes 
businesses and CEOs in Central Indiana. There's 
the UN Global Compact. That is where businesses 
and institutions sign on to a sustainability agenda. 
And two of the biggest, Cummins and Lilly, are 
signed onto it. They represent an important 
cornerstone of scaling up this work. 

 Q: Are US foreign policies impacting other 
nations around the world as to global health 
and wellness?  

Kahn: Let me just say this--that nothing that 
we do in the United States or, I think anywhere, 
is done in isolation. And everything that is done, 
from policies to our practices, to our preferences, 
to our various different commodities, we do not do 
it in isolation, there is always a ripple effect. And it 
ripples in ways that I think we can't even ascertain. 
We have no idea. That's why I think one of the 
problems, just generally a foreign policy, not just 
US foreign policy, but all policies, all everything-- 
is that it's so hard to really understand the ripple 
effect. And we all can think of so many different 
examples of when we've created a new policy or 
a new approach or a new law thinking that we 
are going to be stamping out this, or helping in 
this area when in fact, we are completely blind to 
what it's doing and other areas. And I guess this 
comes down to need to be thinking holistically, 
systemically, about the interdependence of it all. 
And that's a skill set though that we don't learn. 
We are taught to think as individuals. We're taught 
to think in isolation. We're taught to think about 
categories. We learn to think within disciplines. 
Were taught to think about the present, and not 

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necessarily the future either. So the more that we 
can be thinking-- across our boundaries, across 
our borders, across all our different policies and 
practices and the different phenomenon that we 
encounter on a regular basis, then the more apt 
and the more able we might be able to think about 
that impact of our policies.  So that's how I'd be 
answering that question. It's hard though. How 
are we supposed to know?  I think about if we can 
at least know-- see those connections, then we'll 
start to understand that we need to be thinking 
about the longer-term impact.  It goes back down 
to the sense of responsibility, right? If we're only 
thinking about ourselves; and if we're only thinking 
about our own geographic territories, or if we're 
only thinking about one problem and one issue, 
then our ability to think more broadly- to have a 
responsibility that transcends oneself and one's 
localized sense of who they are is severely limited. 
We need to be having a broader sense of self, a 
global sense - a global sense of the United States, a 
global sense of Indiana.  And that's how we make 
change. Ultimately that's how we make the world a 
better place. 

Q: And that's how we ultimately make the 
world a better place. And it's never the best 
place. 

Kahn: No!  And what fun would that be anyway? 

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The business commu-
nities in Central Indiana 

and beyond care about this work, 
and they need research to support 

it. I think there's many, many more 
businesses that are committed to 

this work than people would ever 
know.




