Reading the headline you might be asking yourself what NAFSA is and what is has to do with you. If you are planning on studying in the USA or leaving the USA to study abroad, you may be interested in NAFSA’s mission and activities.
NAFSA is the Association of International Educators. This association promotes international education. NAFSA provides its members with training, networking opportunities and professional development opportunities. This organization counts with nearly 10 000 individuals from the USA and 150 other countries. The majority of these can be found in campuses working directly with international students as advisers, officers, teachers or administrators of exchange programs.
NAFSA also honors excellence in International education with awards. In this case, we are going to talk about the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization. On March 9 of this year, eight U.S Colleges were awarded for their excellent efforts in Internationalization.
Five universities were awarded for the excellent efforts internationalizing their campuses: Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, Hobart & William Smith Colleges in New York, Loyola University Maryland, Northeastern University in Massachusetts and the University of San Francisco in California. Three other schools were recognized for a specific international program or initiative on campus with the Paul Simon Spotlight Award. These are the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York, La Roche College in Pennsylvania and the College of the Atlantic in Maine.
These institutions will be featured in NAFSA’s report Internationalizing the Campus: Porfiles of Success at Colleges and Universities which will be published this fall. This annual report recognizes institutions that invest their efforts in growing so as to better prepare students for a globalized and a networking economy.
You can download this report directly through their website. Reading this document could be very useful if you are looking for a highly recognized international campus or program in the USA. Also, you can get news and updates about NAFSA on their blog or watch this video on the 2009 NAFSA Conference in Los Angeles:
MariaAbroad is a Travel Blog to inspire you and show you cool places around the world. I'll share articles about travel, culture, and craft beer. Follow me along, as I adventure through the world, one beer at a time. Cheers!
Thanks for the mention, Maria! NAFSA’s 2010 Annual Conference & Expo will take place May 30-June 4 in Kansas City, Missouri. The event will bring together over 7,000 international education professionals from around the world for a week of educational offerings, networking opportunities, an international education expo featuring more than 400 universities, programs, and service providers, and much more!
Learn more and register at http://www.nafsa.org/kansascity. Online registration is available through May 7. After that date, attendees must register on site at the Kansas City Convention Center. .
Thank you Jenny for your comment. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can make it this year, but I am looking forward to next year in Vancouver! I will be following all the tweets @ #NAFSA10 and hope to read some interesting news from this amazing event! If I should make it to Kansas, I would love to meet up with you and chat!
I have an update: I am going to NAFSA in Kansas City! I am very much looking forward to meeting a lot of new folks in the Study Abroad industry! Let me know, if you want to set up a meeting or want to meet for coffee. Email me at Maria(at)mariaabroad.com
It’s imperative that more people make this exact point.