50 Stories for 50 Years: Catherine Tinsley, Board of Directors

June 1, 2022

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year during 2018/19, we collected stories and profiles of people and institutions that have helped us build our organization, which first began as one person’s dream in 1968. We will feature one story per week on our blog. Please enjoy these “50 for 50” profiles featuring ASSIST’s dedicated board members, dynamic staff, welcoming host families and enthusiastic ASSIST Scholars.

Catherine Tinsley
ASSIST Board of Directors: Host Family, Schools, and Representatives Committee

What is my ASSIST story? I am not an ASSIST alumna, parent, school representative, teacher or host parent. Why am I a supporter of ASSIST? It all comes down to the people.

I have been an exchange student, a host mom (though not with ASSIST), a teacher of those in a foreign land, a homemaker for a growing family in a foreign land — and these experiences left me convinced of the power of the international experience to expand horizons. It teaches people about themselves and, at the same time, about the universality of humankind.

With ASSIST, I have been on a school’s host committee, a board member, chair of the Washington DC Chapter, and chair of the 50th Anniversary Committee. The best part of all these roles is how they give me a unique window on ASSIST at all levels: Scholars, alumni, schools, families, directors, and staff in the US and abroad. Everyone I meet confirms my first impression: These people “get it” in terms of the transformative power of international education.

I have the honor of working with my fellow board members, a dedicated bunch of professional and natural educators who“get it” with all their hearts. There is a collegiality in this group unlike any other board I have worked with.

I get to watch an amazing team of teachers, school administrators, board members and staff who recruit our Scholars. I was blown away as I came to understand the beauty of the recruitment process. Every ASSIST alum knows what I am talking about, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what was so terrifyingly wonderful about that application process.

I have met many of the families that open their homes and their hearts to our Scholars. They house them, coach them through the American culture, and include them in their own adventures – including meals, chores, family discussions, travels and holidays with extended family. They recount to me how they are enriched even as they enrich the Scholar’s experience.

Based in Washington DC, I am also privy to our collaboration with various embassies of our scholars’ countries. Without fail, they are impressed with what we are doing – especially when they meet a whole cohort of our Scholars, alumni and staff. We are world-class, and they recognize it.
The schools, the teachers and the Scholar’s fellow classmates are the magic sauce. The simplicity of founder Sandy Sanderson’s vision holds true as it did 50 years ago: put a student from abroad in an American classroom and everyone gets an abroad experience. Without this group, the whole experience can’t exist.

The staff are amazing. To call them “staff” misses their most essential quality of being the nuclear family unit to the whole organization. They bring all the hometown American qualities of Suffield, Connecticut to this global organization. Without them, everything comes to a grinding halt and the flavor of ASSIST is lost.

All of this, and I haven’t even mentioned the wonderful moments when I get to meet scholars. In the fall of the year, they are still adjusting, still excited, scared, amazed, almost but not quite overwhelmed. In the spring they can regale you with stories of “what they know now that they didn’t know then.” And in their ASSIST year or 5, 10 or 50 years out, it is clear they are all smart, enthusiastic, and courageous — and so much fun to get to know.

Why do I love being involved with ASSIST? Because with ASSIST, I am with my kind of people. I am home.

About Cathy:
Cathy Tinsley sits on the ASSIST Board of Directors and is chair of the 50th Anniversary Committee. Her passion is international education. She is a career homemaker. Over the years, she and her husband Tom have made homes in Denmark, the Netherlands, and numerous corners of the U.S. Her non-profit interests have included Earlham College, Washington International School, Halcyon House, and LearnServe International, as well as ASSIST.