Written by Debra Faszer-McMahon

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

-Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (333). 

“I beg you so much not to give way to national prejudices, but to allow for many customs and manners you will see – why should not others have their peculiarities as well as we have ours…” -Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Collected Writings: Volume 2 (297).

Every spring term, students from Seton Hill University (SHU) are invited to take a big leap (both financially and personally) by enrolling in a study away experience. In the 21st century, January and May term trips have included locations as diverse as Greece, Italy, China, Argentina, Poland, France, Ireland, Mexico, England, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Morocco, Brazil, Spain, and the Galapagos Islands. This study explores the global mindset of the Sisters of Charity, how that has developed over time, the kinds of intercultural humility that have been cultivated, and how this legacy continues to shape Seton Hill University students as they engage in travel and study. 

As Mark Twain notes in The Innocents Abroad, quoted above, travel changes perspectives, often in profound, life-altering ways. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton had her own international travel epiphanies, most notably her introduction to Catholicism after the tragic loss of her husband due to consumption while they were visiting Italy. But less well known might be her sage advice to young international travelers, offered first to her son prior to his departure for his initial experience outside of the United States. In a letter to William around 1814, she offers ten concrete recommendations, including the epigraph cited above: “I beg you so much not to give way to national prejudices, but to allow for many customs and manners you will see – why should not others have their peculiarities as well as we have ours …” (Seton Collected Writings 297 and Barthel 174-175). This advice from Mother Seton to her son is revealing and important, and continues to speak to the kinds of intercultural humility that Seton Hill seeks for study abroad experiences today. 

Understanding one’s own perspective and context is essential for intercultural connections. It is not enough to study the histories and practices of others - one must also recognize and analyze one’s own cultural norms. Darla Deardorff, a leading theorist in intercultural studies, notes the importance of this type of “cultural self knowledge,” describing it as a key ingredient for successful intercultural communication (477). The idea is to see one’s own culture with new eyes, and for Deardorff that starts with an attitude of openness, curiosity, and respect. These attitudes recall Mother Seton’s instructions to her son to “allow for many customs and manners,” signaling an openness and an avoidance of hasty judgment. The foundress of the Sisters of Charity envisioned international travel and intercultural experiences as grounded in a context of cultural self knowledge. Mother Seton reminded her son that acknowledging his own cultural “peculiarities” was an important part of avoiding “national prejudices” and engaging authentically abroad. The notions of intercultural openness, cultural self-knowledge, and the withholding of judgement are part of the legacy of the Sisters of Charity, and that legacy has informed intercultural experiences at SHU, particularly in the areas of intercultural service, international exchange, and the history of language study abroad. Seton Hill University continues in that direction, offering high quality immersive study in diverse global regions and linking travel to deep intercultural engagement, service, and language study. 

While the description of Mokpo residents as “primitive in many ways” reveals the Columban sister’s own “national prejudices,” it is clear that Mother Mary Lucy believed the Greensburg sisters would quickly adjust to what at first would seem “shocking” cultural differences, just as Mother Mary Lucy and her Columban community had become accustomed and “never even notice now.” Mother Mary Lucy’s letters functioned as a kind of pre-travel orientation, helping the Sisters in Greensburg to develop more cultural self-knowledge and priming the sisters for a sense of curiosity and openness. In another section of that same letter, Mother Mary Lucy shares with the soon-to-depart travelers some of what she sees as Korean cultural norms, while simultaneously acknowledging how different the Sisters’ cultural views would likely be from the host country’s: 

“the Koreans are a kindly, friendly people and we always find them most respectful and anxious to help. They can be very devoted. They have a great love for their own country - conceit almost!  It is amusing at times but one has to learn to be all things to all men and try and get their point of view which is usually the very opposite of ours” (Letters from Korea 1959-1961). 

This pre-departure guidance highlighted for the upcoming travelers the importance of cultural self knowledge, recognizing that the norms and “point of view” of the sisters would often seem completely different from their Korean peers, and yet such insights had the potential to reveal much about themselves and their own cultural biases. 

One of the key relational investments driving these insights was the willingness of the sisters to engage in authentic contexts and to learn the local language. Indeed, pre-travel advice emphasized the importance of language study, acknowledging that it is hard to dedicate the time but noting how essential it is for successful interactions: “One piece of advice I venture to give is – spend the first six months at the language. It is not a waste of time. Once work begins you will not be able to spend time at it and you need the language if you are ever to get any place” (“Letter to Mother Claudia”). The value (and difficulty) of this investment in language study became increasingly clear as the Columban sisters already in Korea shared some of the unique challenges of the Korean language with those soon to arrive: 

“We are still hard at the studying even if a bit confused. After learning to count to one-hundred in Korean numbers we felt that now we could count every thing [sic]. When we began to count the books on the table we were told that when counting such things we had to use different numbers, counting pencils yet another set of numbers, persons still another. As yet, we don’t know exactly how many ways there are to count but there are many. To complicate things more, you use Chinese numbers when you count money, use the telephone, and on the calendar” (“Letter to Mother Claudia”). 

In this and other letters both prior to departure and after arrival, one notes a growing awareness of the complexities of language and the challenging cultural investment the Sisters are undertaking. 

While 70 Sisters of Charity volunteered for the Korean mission, there were only slots for four, and thus on October 6th, 1960, Sisters Mary Agnes Carey, Mary Noreen Lacey, Alice Ruane, and Martin de Porres Knock departed for Korea. They arrived on November 4th, 1960, and within a few months their letters began to evidence the cultural and linguistic adjustments they were experiencing, along with a growing self awareness regarding the struggle to learn a new communication and cultural system. 

For example, in a letter a few months after the four arrived in Korea, one notes a shifting identity, with the letter being signed not from an individual or from the “Sisters of Charity in Korea” but instead from “Your ‘Korean’ Sisters.” The fact that the sisters used apostrophes around ‘Korean’ indicates their acknowledgement that a few months in the country left them a long way from being able to self identify fully with the culture. Nonetheless, they were beginning to see themselves, and hear themselves, somewhat differently. The letter talks about language study and how they were progressing: 

“Today in class we were back on our old problem, the difference between pahl (arm) and pahl (foot). To the Koreans the initial p in each is very different. To us Americans the sounds are the same. We practiced and giggled. Adella told us each to say the words. When Sister Mary Noreen said them, Adella told her to repeat them and us to listen as Sister had said them correctly.  We three bent breathlessly over the table, staring at Sister’s lips in the hopes of discovering the secret of proper pronunciation. She opened her mouth. Nother [sic] came, and we all burst into uncontrolled mirth. She said, ‘I can’t repeat it. I don’t know what I said.’  Sometimes we laugh so hard that we wonder if the Koreans hear us” (“Your ‘Korean’ Sisters”). 

After a few months in their new land, the sisters had developed newfound insights about both English and Korean. They had begun to understand that in some languages, like Korean, initial p sounds are more complicated than in English. They were slowly discovering how hard it is to imitate and learn new sounds, customs, and practices. Their letter also signaled a shifting sense of identity by including the playful apostrophes around “Your ‘Korean’ Sisters.”  Yet, their ongoing sense of cultural distance is evident in the closing lines, where they wonder if “the Koreans hear us.” While the Sisters were beginning to see and hear themselves differently, their insecurities about being “heard” signal the ongoing challenges of intercultural engagement. Nonetheless, one can see that somehow they have moved closer to, or at least grown much more aware of, their host country’s cultural norms. Language learning has become more playful, if still a perplexing challenge. 

Other letters received from the sisters remaining back in Greensburg kept asking for more details about the “hardships” that the sisters in Korea were facing, but the sisters in Korea found this framing problematic. Sister Mary Noreen Lacey notes that “Many times when sisters write to us they complain that we don’t tell them of our hardships, but they say they can read between the lines. We would like to know what they read. Things on the ‘missions’ may be a bit different but one gets used to them or finds other ways to do things” (Lacey). As the months progress, the sisters even describe a kind of joke that developed out of this contrast in cultural perspectives. After the Christmas holidays, a few days after the letter above, the sisters in Korea wrote about their new “household joke” as follows: 

“We were pleased and happy to receive many cards and letters over the vacation. Not a few commented on what they call ‘hardships’.  Some said that they could read between the lines. We, too, are curious about the ‘hardships’ and have been wondering what is between the lines. Anyway, our household joke now is, ‘Well that is one of the hardships of the missions, you know.’ We use this if we misplace something or if we are starving for a grape jelly sandwich and there is nothing in the cupboard except strawberry jam” (“Your Korean Sisters,” Jan 5 1961). 

The sarcasm and playfulness of this response, with “‘hardships’” minimized in quote marks, does not mean the sisters were unwilling to acknowledge challenges, or that the sisters didn’t experience hardships. However, the tone in which they communicate begins to shift as they become more comfortable in their new locale, and also understand more of the cultural, economic, and historical issues determining the lives of the people around them. For example, on March 21, 1961, the community in Korea wrote home about a scare with a late night visitor, who it appears was attempting to steal something. But the letter is very careful in how it represents the event for those back home, and it also seeks to redress stereotypes about Korean culture: 

“Perhaps you have heard that one of the Korean weaknesses is a tendency to steal. We had heard so many tales on the ship that we never left our baggage out of our sight once we were in Korea. Recently in the Korea Times, a newspaper published in English, there was an account of a woman who stole two thousand hwan (less than $2.00) from a cab driver. When apprehended she explained that she and her baby were hungry. Her husband is a soldier whose salary is 4000 hwan a month. A bag of rice at present costs at least $18 and a family of three or four would use that much in a month. One wonders how the poor are able to survive. A man who stole some wire left a note saying that this was against his conscience, but that he would pay it back as soon as he could get a job. The unemployment situation is a serious problem for the government. Considering all this we should not have been surprised that someone might want to share our possessions. But surprised we were, and a bit scared too” (Your ‘Korean’ Sisters, March 21, 1961). 

As the above letter attests, by March of 1961 the ‘Korean’ sisters were beginning to see previously held stereotypes about Korean culture in new historical, economic, and political contexts. While they note that back home “you may have heard” the stereotype that Koreans have a “tendency to steal,” the letter emphasizes not that bias (despite an attempted theft within the community), but rather a new insight and self reflection where “one wonders how the poor are able to survive” considering the low pay and the high costs for food. The sisters admit that “considering all this we should not have been surprised” but also admit that nonetheless they were surprised, and scared. They are coming into new knowledge of both their own cultural biases and the cultural, economic, and political realities of their new home. 

Indeed, the sisters’ work in Korea consistently focused on serving the poor and the disadvantaged. They began with St. Joseph’s Middle and High School (1961-2015), which became St. Joseph’s Intercultural High School (2018-2025) in Gangin-gun, Jeollanam-do, Korea. In 1984 they established Eunhae School, originally a special education school for children with physical disabilities that now serves as a model for special education in Korea. In 2001 they started the Seton Rehabilitation Center in Gwangju, Korea, which is an outgrowth of the Eunhae School and includes a Seton Bakery, which was “developed to provide practical workplace skills and experience for young people with disabilities” (Bowser, “List of Korean Sisters Missions and Outreach Activities”). In 2006 they began the Euntee Ecology Community, which, following the spirit of Laudato Si, cultivates native Korean plants and seeds to “advocate for ecological awareness” and to “preserve God’s gift of nature” (Bowser, “List of Korean Sisters Missions and Outreach Activities”). In 2008 they also stepped in upon request to lead a mission in Ecuador serving children with disabilities in Pedro Carbo, and in Korea under the leadership of Sr. Sung-hae Kim, they began the Seton Inter-religious Research Center in Seoul, which hosts courses, academic gatherings, lectures, and symposia focused on interreligious topics from Christian and non-Christian religious traditions. 

Sr. Sung Hae Kim was the first Korean sister to enter the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. As a Harvard trained academic, she epitomizes another strong focus of the sisters in their international missions - making an early effort to equip Koreans themselves to lead the missional efforts. For example, in the first five years of their mission, from 1960-65, the sisters began training students so they could graduate from their high school and then, if possible, attend University, noting that they were preparing their new Korean counterparts “in order to form a nucleus of a community in Korea that will eventually staff the schools in Korea with entirely native personnel” (“1960-1965 History of the First Five Years in Korea”). The Sisters also made other key decisions to bridge intercultural divides and to prioritize Korean culture, like insisting that “all should maintain the same [Korean] menu in the community” so that “any possibility of cultural discrimination was not allowed” and establishing the Korean novitiate in Korea rather than in the US, recognizing that “formation would be better [for Korean Sisters] within their own culture and in their own language” (Sr. Sung Hae Kim & Sr. Kyong Min Lee, 34). 

 Such pivotal intercultural insights meant that the Korean novitiate and the ministry of the Sisters grew very quickly. Sr. Marlene Mondalek stressed the importance of inculturation in the formation of the Korean Community. Her exceptional ability to speak Korean, as well as her understanding of the Korean culture and customs, were a blessing to the growing community. The sisters made concerted efforts to develop intercultural humility and to offer leadership roles to their Korean counterparts, which in many ways demonstrated surprising foresight about the way trends toward globalization would shift cultural interaction in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. For example, Father David Sheehan, a Columban Father, emphasized in a letter to Mother Victoria Brown the prescience of the sisters in their efforts towards intercultural exchange, long before terms like globalization became common parlance. He claims that their work was so far ahead of their times that “you could almost say they were prophets. For instance we are told that the world is heading for a new era in which there will be one world community. Side by side with their Korean colleagues teaching and guiding their students these Sisters of Charity have demonstrated the world’s oneness” (Sheehan). 

While much of this globalized interchange happened in Korea, there is evidence of intercultural exchanges between Korean students and students in US schools as well. Early in the life of St. Joseph’s School in Korea, Sr. Alice Ruane wanted to encourage Korean students to learn English, and thus “established a pen pal program with students from Sister of Charity schools in Pittsburgh” (Bowser & Grundish, 45). In fact, the sisters’ early efforts toward international classroom exchange call to mind what Seton Hill students experience currently with story exchanges through international nonprofits like Narrative 4 or conversational exchanges via web 2.0 tools like TalkAbroad. The reciprocity of the mission in Korea didn’t end with pen pals. While initially sisters from the US made the journey to Korea, over time more and more Korean sisters have come to study and work at Seton Hill and in the missions of the Sisters of Charity in the US. As Bowser and Grundish note, “This intercultural exchange has proven beneficial for the whole community, which is now governed as two autonomous provinces within one congregation” (48). Indeed, as Sister Sun Hae Kim and Sister Kyong Min Lee attest, “As the framework of the Korean community formed, the relationship to the motherhouse in Greensburg changed from one of dependence to a relationship of mature autonomy and friendship” (77). Korean sisters took over leadership roles, and as the Korean Province became more financially and administratively independent, they had opportunities to develop their own missions, including outreach abroad. In 1992, the Korean Region was “elevated to a Province,” and soon they began establishing their own international missions in China (1997) and in Ecuador (2008).  

The work of the sisters in Ecuador provides more evidence of this ongoing focus on service to the vulnerable and on globalized efforts to bridge cultural and social divides. After attending a conference in Latin America, the Korean sisters were asked to support the INESEM Center in Pedro Carbo, Ecuador, where there was a maternity clinic and center serving children with disabilities (Kim, Sister Sung Hae, SC and Sister Kyong Min Lee, SC, 91-92). In a personal interview in 2024, Sister Hechun Park, SC discussed the mission to Ecuador, where she spent four years in ministry and completed Spanish language study. Indeed, Sister Hechun, who is part of the Korean Province but has spent substantial time with the Sisters in the US Province, has been a strong advocate of intercultural linguistic exchange. She teaches Korean weekly to a group of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, and she enjoys sharing stories about her four years spent in the Ecuadorian mission. 

While Sr. Hechun Park was not part of the first group sent to the Ecuadorian mission in 2008, she had a nursing background, and two years after the Korean sisters took over, she was sent to help run the Ecuadorian clinic. Upon first arriving, she was surprised by the limited medical facilities. The clinic was very small and stocked with what to her seemed rudimentary equipment. Even the aids that provided additional staffing did not seem to have the training that she was accustomed to from aids in the US or Korea, nor were there RNs present to assist. Sr. Hechun quickly understood that this was a learn-on-the job sort of environment. While the town in which the clinic is located, Pedro Carbo, is rural, it serves as a regional hub and sits about one hour south by bus from the major port of Guayaquil. The sisters run not only the clinic but also a school for children with disabilities, serving approximately 100 kids weekly. 

When Sr. Hechun first arrived in Ecuador, she spent four months doing language study, but she notes that she would have loved to spend more time studying Spanish. For her whole first year, she says that the “Spanish language often felt like noise” (Park). It wasn’t until the second year that the language became sounds, and gradually over time she could understand and communicate. One raw memory for her involved an impatient language teacher who equated Sr. Hechun’s trilingual language interference with a lack of innate intelligence, which was deeply hurtful for Sr. Hechun, as it would be for any language learner. However, she also has fond memories of being invited to another language teacher’s home in Guayaquil and being amazed by the beauty of Ecuador and the way people lived, while remaining acutely sensitive to the sharp contrasts between the wealthy elite and the rural poor in the region. Such insights, both about the way language teaching can be invigorating as well as demeaning, and about how socioeconomic factors impact cultural norms and experiences, are critical for all those who choose to invest in international travel, language study, and service abroad. 

In another personal interview, this time with Sr. Jane Ann Cherubin, SC, the need to see beyond what Mother Seton termed “national prejudices” is once again central. Sr. Jane Ann is a key figure in the history of Seton Hill’s international endeavors. She spent many years living in Korea, beginning in 1976, and her work included developing the first Sisters of Charity school there. Most recently she served as the General Superior of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, encompassing both the Korean and US Provinces, and after finishing her term, Sr. Jane Ann plans to return to Korea to live. She noted in our interview that when the Korean Region became a Province, the sisters had to choose between the two locations, and she chose Korea. She said, “I strive to be where God is calling me.”

In discussing her own intercultural adjustment, Sr. Jane Ann offers several thoughtful insights about her own language learning process, including how the intercultural linguistic journey is life-long and ongoing. For example, she was pointedly gracious in discussing the linguistic struggles of one of the earliest sisters who went to Korea. The oldest member of the initial group, Sr. Mary Agnes Carey, had been selected for the mission in part because of her strong language background. She had taught Spanish since the 1950s at Seton Hill. However, when the sisters arrived in Korea, she encouraged other sisters to do formal language studies while she took care of the work of managing a school in the countryside. Even though she struggled to learn Korean, with the limited time she had, Sister Mary Agnes was still able to say the perfect words in Korean at the perfect time according to Sr. Jane Ann’s recollection. While Sister Mary Agnes’s story of linguistic struggle could easily be presented as a limitation, Sr. Jane Ann noted in our conversation that watching Sister Mary Agnes be so effective in her work, despite limited Korean skills, taught her some key lessons about intercultural linguistic competency: “And that’s when I realized that language is more than words. Sometimes there are two Koreans talking together and they are not communicating. Sometimes there are two Americans talking together and they are not communicating.”  She notes that she herself struggled with Spanish as a university student in the US, commenting “And I took Spanish and French in college, and I had to pass a language exam before graduating. And that was even harder for me than the other courses that I took, and so when my Spanish teacher heard that I was going to Korea she could not believe it. But I learn because I need it. I’m more able to pick it up when I need it” (Cherubin).

This idea of motivation and practicality driving language learning is a key factor behind why Modern Language faculty at Seton Hill continue to prioritize living with homestay families and becoming embedded in one city during study abroad experiences. Wanting and needing to connect across cultural divides to meet daily needs like shared meals, shared space, and shared time makes one much more interested in and able to absorb vocabulary and grammar.   

Sister Jane Ann acknowledges that while her Korean is better now, “watching the news is still really very difficult for me, and politics, a lot of those words I don’t know” (Personal Interview). She was tasked with participating in a two-year visitation project interviewing Korean sisters, and she describes how nervous she was to visit some of the older sisters, wondering if they would speak the high formal Korean that she can find challenging. She was so nervous, in fact, that she borrowed one of the sister’s electronic translators, thinking that she could use it if she struggled, but noting that in the end, “I didn’t use it once.”  She said “I think that the older sisters know my limitations in the language, so they would not use the very high form. And if I didn’t understand something, they would explain it. But of course, I still feel I can learn more” (Personal Interview). 

Elizabeth Ann Seton was not abroad for long, but the experience had a huge impact on her future work. Indeed, even short term experiences abroad can have an outsized impact on one’s later global perspective, particularly when those experiences are authentic and involve deep engagement with intercultural relationships. Sr. Jane Ann has certainly seen such authentic and deep experiences impact her own life, but her insight about Mother Seton is perhaps even more applicable for the typical Seton Hill student than for her own life-long missional journey. While Sr. Jane Ann has chosen to focus her life and career in intercultural contexts via her work in Korea, most Seton Hill community members, including current students, are more likely to experience what Elizabeth Ann Seton encountered via short term intercultural travel. While most of our students will likely not decide to live abroad, short term international travel, as evidenced through Mother Seton, has the capacity to drastically change the trajectory of one’s thinking, perspective, and sense of global connection. That is particularly true when, like Mother Seton, students live with and interact meaningfully with people from the regions they are visiting.  

Pope Francis spoke powerfully about the capacity of travel to have this kind of life-altering impact in a homily he gave in 2021, where he emphasized the importance of journeys for personal and spiritual growth: 

“A journey always involves a transformation, a change. After a journey, we are no longer the same. There is always something new about those who have made a journey: they have learned new things, encountered new people and situations, and found inner strength amid the hardships and risks they met along the way. No one worships the Lord without first experiencing the interior growth that comes from embarking on a journey” (Pope Francis, Homily, Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord). 

This notion of the importance of travel, of experiencing difference, and of stretching the boundaries of one’s curiosity and spiritual growth has driven the Sisters of Charity and continues to inform thoughtful faculty-led travel at Seton Hill University. The Sisters of Charity have formalized this commitment by crafting a “Congregational Policy for Cultural Immersion,” work that began in the 1980s and continues today. The introduction to the policy describes “the need to expand our vision as a religious congregation, to become more globally conscious, to expand our sense of the multi-cultural environment surrounding us and calling us to service” (“A Congregational Policy”). Indeed, in the 1989 statement, the sisters are clear-eyed critics of the limitations of their own community regarding intercultural dynamics: “Sisters in various areas of the Congregation named ‘Provincialism,’ ‘underdeveloped knowledge and experience of the world today,’ as underlying contradictions to attaining the vision which we desire. Sisters of Charity, while expressing our openness to human needs, were described as deficient in cultural understanding and limited in response flowing from basic appreciation of pluralism and cultural sensitivity” (“A Congregational Policy”). 

Anyone who has spent time with Seton Hill University students would likely have to admit witnessing similar challenges in parts of our student body. We have an obligation to, like the Sisters of Charity, both name our “underdeveloped knowledge and experience” of the diversity of the world today, and name the need to “become more globally conscious, to expand our sense of the multi-cultural environment surrounding us and calling us to service” (“A Congregational Policy”).  

The Sisters took up this challenge by establishing opportunities for community members to participate in intercultural experiences and international travel, especially to Korea but also to other regions. Participants are asked, as part of the cultural immersion program, to “engage in a social analysis process of how the experience has helped deepen understanding of global interdependence and justice issues” (“A Congregational Policy”). As Sr. Jane Ann notes, intercultural projects such as Interprovincial Experience of Charism & Mission (IECM) have allowed groups of five sisters from the Korean Province and five sisters from the US Province to travel jointly to Ecuador to participate in service projects related to the school and clinic in that region. Part of the joy and challenge of this work is that all ten of the traveling Sisters had to work on language skills, with the Koreans and the Americans all trying to learn a bit of a third language, Spanish. As Sr. Jane Ann notes, “it was a wonderful situation because everyone was in the same boat. You depended so much on people” (Cherubin). As Sr. Jane Ann and Pope Francis both attest, such authentic journeys, where self-reliance becomes challenged, can lead to deep internal changes that enhance collaboration and make cultural self-knowledge and spiritual growth possible. 

Such growth and connection between Korea, Ecuador, and the US did not come to a halt in 2020 when the Sisters were faced with a global pandemic. When COVID disruptions made international travel impossible, the two Provinces began a new initiative called “Sharing Our Life” by which groups in Korea, the US, and Ecuador would meet via Zoom to connect. Interestingly, Sr. Jane Ann emphasized that despite many exciting new translation technologies, simultaneous translation was found to be disruptive, because “it is important to hear the feeling in the voice - simultaneous translation cuts down on time, but it misses out on other critical factors” (Cherubin). Other key initiatives have included “Getting to Know You” projects, such that one sister in the US and one in Korea, with text in both English and Korean, offer one page self introductions that are distributed amongst the two provinces. Cherubin notes that they are trying other projects as well, such as prayer partners, conversational partners, etc., even using new apps like the Korean Kakao to talk with each other, write, and send gifts. 

Seton Hill University continues to honor the legacy of the Sisters of Charity as we approach the second quarter of the 21st Century. We are working to incorporate new strategic initiatives that will help our students follow in the model of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and in the mode of journey championed by Pope Francis. We seek additional funding to support student travel and service experiences, both abroad and in diverse regions outside Pennsylvania. We continue to invest in international partnerships and expand initiatives like Narrative 4, as well as international agreements with Universities beyond our current collaborations in Italy and Spain.  We seek additional external grants to support language study and curricular innovation related to regions outside of Western Europe. And we continue to remember and celebrate the words of Elizabeth Ann Seton, who reminds us to step outside our national boundaries, to withhold prejudices, and to embrace cultural differences through international study, service, and travel.