Cheysen Cabuyadao-Sipe

Cheysen Cabuyadao-Sipe ’23 (pronounced “SHY-sen”) serves as a Community Director and Intercultural Program Manager at Whitman College, working across Residence Life and Housing and the Division of Inclusive Excellence to strengthen student support, belonging, intercultural engagement and community development. He supervises and develops paraprofessional student staff, advises intercultural student organizations and affinity-based groups, coordinates programs centered on inclusion and belonging, and serves as a liaison among students, staff, faculty and institutional leaders. Before assuming his current expanded role, Cheysen held several student and professional positions at Whitman in residence life, admission, student leadership and institutional governance, earning recognition for his contributions to inclusive excellence and student affairs. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Whitman College, where his senior thesis explored decoloniality at the intersection of social media, tourism and Hawaiʻi. A Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) and Filipino community builder with roots in Lānaʻi and Lāhainā, Maui, Cheysen is also a graduate of Kamehameha Schools Maui. His upbringing and cultural heritages shaped his approach to leadership, grounding it in relationships, reciprocity, collective responsibility, storytelling and care for people and place. As a Cultural Architect, he seeks to understand and intentionally shape the relationships, programs, practices and systems through which people experience belonging, growth and transformation. His professional interests center on organizational culture and development, strategic storytelling, leadership development and culturally responsive community-building.

B.A. Anthropology
Whitman College