NAFSA Region IV Round-Up

SPRING 2019

Save the Date: Fargo, North Dakota - Region IV Conference

October 21-24, 2019

Join us in Fargo, North Dakota for the 2019 Regional Conference. This year’s conference theme is “Go FAR GO Global.” It all starts in Fargo - ranked in the top 100 best places to live in 2018 by “Livability”, which also ranked our downtown as one of America’s 10 best downtowns in small to mid-sized cities. (The Region IV Team recently experienced this very enthusiastically at the Spring Team Training)

• Pre-conference workshops begin on Monday, October 21st and conference sessions end on Thursday morning, October 24th.
• Tell us what workshops you want to see offered by completing this survey by April 15th
• Submit a session proposal! – more info coming soon on how to submit by June 28th
• With discounted exhibitor pricing (the lowest priced of all eleven NAFSA regions!), we are looking to host the largest Region IV exhibit hall ever;
• Fly directly into Fargo’s Hector International Airport (FAR) & use Uber/Lyft to get around

We are excited to welcome you for some curling and yoga; a real Viking ship at our Scandinavian Heritage Center; a “Brewhalla” brewery tour – stay for a bonfire if you want; and some great music at the opening reception in our Plains Art Museum. Our regionally known “foodie” town, which also boasts a booming craft beer culture, is great for our traditional Region IV Conference favorites (restaurant hops & pub crawls).

Go to Fargo – Grab your Instagram shot - Spread your wings - “Go FAR GO Global”

Advocacy Day 2019

NAFSA’s annual Advocacy Day event took place March 18-19th in Washington, D.C. This year’s event was sold out in advance with over 233 advocates ready to take the power of over 10,000 NAFSAns to our nation’s capital! This year’s key issues were promoting increased diversity and participation in study abroad programs and creating awareness for the benefits of having international students, scholars, and their families in the U.S.  We asked our members of Congress to become original cosponsors of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Act to significantly increase the number and diversity of American students studying abroad especially to non-traditional locations. We also introduced our elected officials to the Welcome To Succeed campaign and urged them to publicly announce support for the international students and scholars who are contributing their talent to our colleges and universities, to our communities, and to the nation.

Our regional advocates from Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri came prepared with stories about students and scholars making a difference at our institutions and in our communities. Both international students and scholars and U.S. students studying abroad have such a positive impact in our local communities and in the nation.  I am very proud of the advocacy work our Region IV advocates are doing to draw attention to the communities we serve and the much needed support we are providing our colleagues throughout the region. 

If you are interested in learning more about Advocacy Day or attending the event next year, please contact Desirée Waits, Region IV Public Policy Representative at dwaits@wustl.edu. Please also visit Connecting Our World to sign up and learn what NAFSA is doing to advocate for international education year-round.

Advocacy Day Reflections

Jeff Foot of LewerMark International Student Insurance reflects on his experiences attending Advocacy Day, 2019:

It was a wonderful team building experience where interested citizens were exercising their civic rights to speak to the issues they care deeply about. Personally, I feel strongly international students - in front of a larger nationalistic and anti-intellectual fabric currently being woven - are being deterred from entering this country in numerous ways both material (travel bans, visa issuance, and benefits processing) and perceptually (border walls, family separation, tone deaf responses from current president when violence carried out against minorities, etc.).

Lawmakers need to repeatedly hear our message that engagement with countries possessing varying perceptions, being an active part of the global community, is the path forward. Retreating from that stance and perceiving countries as adversaries with contradictory policies and practices that can harm us is a novice idea (however intelligently created by their staffers who have never been abroad).

But wait, there’s more.

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