Global Tennessee - Episode 012 - Nashville Sister Cities & TNWAC Alumnae Spotlight by Tennessee World Affairs Council

Roundtable with TNWAC Alumnae

We kick off this episode of “Global Tennessee” with a conversation with Ali Humbrecht and Colleen Ryan about their World Affairs Council experiences as interns and volunteers and representatives to the World Affairs Councils of America (WACA) National Conferences. We also talked about their extensive international travel as students in study abroad programs.

Ali Humbrecht is a 2018 graduate of Belmont University. She worked as an intern with TNWAC as the liaison between the Council and Belmont University and coordinated the Council's social media operations. Ali attended a National Conference of WACA as a scholarship student. Last year she spent a semester at Bard College in Berlin. Ali served as tour guide for Colleen and her family last spring when they visited Berlin.

Colleen Ryan has been a volunteer with the Tennessee World Affairs Council since its inception in 2007. She attended the University of Tennessee as a Haslam Scholar and graduated in 2017 with a degree in Global Studies and Sociology. Colleen attended the University of York as a Fulbright Scholar completing her Master of Arts in Post-War Recovery Studies before heading to Beijing, China where she is completing a Masters in Management Studies as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University.

Interview with Sister Cities of Nashville (Start at 22:31)

In our second segment we talked with Heather Cunningham and Dr. Marieta Velikova of Sister Cities of Nashville. Heather is Executive Director and Marieta serves as Board Chairman. They discussed the origins and mission of this bridge-building organization and its relationship and programs with Nashville's eight sister cities: Belfast, Northern Ireland; Caen, France; Edmonton, Canada; Kamakura, Japan; Madgeburg, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina; Tiayuan, China; and Tamworth, Australia.  

Heather and Marieta explained the mission of Sister Cities: creating relationships based on cultural, educational, information and trade exchanges, creating lifelong friendships that provide prosperity and peace through person-to-person “citizen diplomacy.”