(Official White House Photo: Pete Souza)

In November, NAFSA released a statement calling on President Obama to lead a national conversation on immigration reform. The president took an important step in that direction in last night’s State of the Union address.

The President has spent most of his first term responding to the immigration opponents’ position that they will not talk about immigration reform until enforcement is beefed up and the border is secured. He has deported record numbers of illegal immigrants and devoted unprecedented resources to our southwest border. Last night, the President cashed in that investment. He said,

“I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration. That’s why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.”

We applaud the President for reminding the nation that this problem isn’t going to fix itself – and we simply must do the hard work of reforming our immigration laws.

The President’s use of the term “comprehensive immigration reform” is significant. Many, even in our own community, have shied away from the term, viewing it as too toxic. This is one of our perennial problems:  We let the other side dictate the terms of the debate, delegitimizing the words that describe real solutions to real problems, while somehow demagoguery about “amnesty for lawbreakers” remains okay. Last night, the president reminded us that the country’s interests do in fact require comprehensive immigration reform, and he placed it squarely on his agenda.

The President did acknowledge that “election-year politics” might keep “Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan,” calling instead for initial steps like passing the DREAM Act and easing the path to green cards for highly skilled immigrants. All of us must now turn up the heat on Congress to do these things. But we must not lose sight of the marker that the president laid down:  Our goal is comprehensive immigration reform.

The President has taken an essential step toward restarting the national conversation on immigration reform. But it is not enough—because, as we all know, Congress will be divided next year too, and the year after that. The acknowledgement that Congress is too divided to act in any given year is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last night, President Obama laid out a vision for making America successful. He knows, as we do, that immigrants are essential to that vision. If comprehensive immigration reform is to happen next year or the year after—or ever—the president must begin now to have a conversation with the American people about why this is important. It will take a long time, because we have abandoned the debate for a long time. The time to start is now.

The President cannot let this drop after a line in the State of the Union. And neither can we. We must all redouble our efforts to reclaim this debate, and to help our country understand its stake in comprehensive immigration reform.

His opening lines:

Even in challenging economic times, making sure that study abroad is part of our college students’ education is a vital investment. If we want a new generation of leaders and innovators who can be effective in an ever more globalized world, sending our students overseas is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

A poll commissioned by NAFSA backs up this notion: more than half of Americans recognize that study abroad is a vital component of an education that prepares them for success in the global workplace, and nearly three-fourths believe that America’s higher education institutions must do a better job of teaching students about the world if they are to be prepared to compete in the global economy.

But the numbers just aren’t adding up. Steves points out that, “Four out of every five first-year students aspire to study overseas. But at any given time, only about 2% of students are able to.” He specifically mentions the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Act as a way to increase access to study abroad.

What are your thoughts? How can we keep this conversation going in tough economic and political times? Share your comments below.

Upon entering the receiving room just off the governor’s office, our group continued to joke and chat with the young staffers who were interning at the office, and I would like to think that we made a positive impression.

As soon as I got back to my office, I drafted thank you e-mails to everyone who helped in getting the proclamation signed and getting us in the door to meet with the Governor. I connected the Governor’s priority of preparing competitive students to the role that international education has in doing just that. I am happy to say that in just a few days, we heard back from two of the three staffers to whom we sent thank you messages.

This experience reminded me about the importance of staffers in any office: that they are the eyes and ears of the politicians or whoever they may be serving. Making meaningful connections with staffers can help to ensure that our cause will continue to be supported.

As I move into the state-wide phase of my Connecting Our World Grassroots Leadership Program project, which focuses on state supported scholarships for study abroad, I am more conscious of fostering these relationships and am looking forward to continuing to build a community of support in our state.

Rebecca Bacon is a NAFSA member, trainee in the Connecting Our World Grassroots Leadership Program, and advocacy subcommittee member of the Georgia Association of International Educators. She coordinates the undergraduate degree-designation program, the International Plan, at Georgia Institute of Technology, which focuses on developing students’ understanding of how their discipline is practiced in an international context and enhancing their ability to function effectively in multicultural environments.

Before crafting a networking strategy, we need to apply a working definition: It’s a process of developing professional contacts—or strategic connections—and building relationships for the purpose of obtaining field or sector-specific career advice and identifying related professional contacts. Are there unique strategies that apply to our field? Every profession has its own norms of behavior and patterns of communication and interaction.

In my 30-plus years as a member of NAFSA, I feel confident in saying that we are a gregarious bunch of professionals, easy to interact with, sensitive to differing interpersonal expectations when communicating across borders and in different languages, and quick to share advice and information with colleagues whom we might be meeting for the first time. Right? Think about your own early regional meetings and how quickly you were able to build collegial relationships with those at other institutions in your region. Think about the ways in which you’ve already created your network during grad school and in other venues to further your education and training in the field.

But apart from the obvious instrumental reasons for being widely connected in our field, what are the implications of growing strategic connections for your professional development and career advancement? I’d suggest these advantageous reasons for being very deliberate as you go about building your professional network:

• Provides access to insider information and informed insights about the field.
• Builds long-term mentoring relationships.
• Provides competitive advantage in the job search process and interviews.
• Results in clearer self-assessment of how a job is or is not aligned with your career aspirations.

Read more about the types of connectivity, how to develop a strategic approach, and the networking competencies that will help you build and sustain a professional network in the international education field.

What tips and strategies have you developed to build your professional network? How will you incorporate the strategies you have learned here?

Marty Tillman has been a NAFSA member since 1977 and recent chair of the NAFSA Task Force on Career Development Resources. He has over 30 years of senior management experience in higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations. Tillman is currently the president of Global Career Compass, an international consultancy; formerly, he was associate director of Career Services at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His consulting focuses upon the impact of education abroad on career development. An authority on global workforce issues, he is a frequent NAFSA speaker and regularly writes for the International Educator magazine.

A similar proposal seems in order with respect to today’s war against illegal immigration from Mexico—and with much better reason. Demographers such as Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center now tell us that “We have reached the point where the balance between Mexicans moving to the United States and those returning to Mexico is essentially zero.” That doesn’t mean that illegal immigration has ceased, nor will it ever. It does mean that there is no net migration from Mexico any longer. There is dispute about the relative weight of the factors that account for this, but there is none about what the main factors are: the economic downturn and stepped up enforcement in the United States, and more opportunity in Mexico. The flow of Central Americans seeking to transit Mexico to enter the United States illegally is also down due to the vastly increased danger from criminal gangs in Mexico that prey on these migrants.

In view of these essentially undisputed facts, it is more than a little curious that the immigration debate in the United States still fosters the illusion that the country is in mortal danger from vast hordes sweeping across the southwest border to invade our communities and steal our jobs. Here is a radical proposal: Let’s declare victory in the war on illegal immigration and turn our attention to real problems—goodness knows we don’t lack for them. Everyone could share in this victory—everyone could take credit, and brag that his or her favored approach was the one that won the war. The more the merrier—let everyone join the victory parade.

This is not to say that we would have no remaining immigration issues to address; of course we would (see NAFSA’s latest immigration recommendations). But maybe if we could put this divisive war behind us, we would be able to address these issues more rationally. Maybe we could have a sensible debate about what to do about the 11 million undocumented aliens who remain in our midst. Maybe we could have a constructive debate, not driven by fear, about what constitutes a rational deportation policy. Maybe we could begin to address the issue of undocumented residents piecemeal, beginning by passing small, common sense measures, such as the DREAM Act, which would address the situation of those segments of the undocumented population that most obviously deserve redress. Maybe the time is not far away when we would be able to recognize that we face labor shortages in certain occupations that historically rely on immigrant labor, and create ways for the labor force that we need to enter the country illegally. Much becomes possible when a war ends, and enemy is vanquished, and wartime passions subside.

We’ve met so many amazing students – some of them now former students – over the years, and their commitment to international education inspired this community. Hammad Hammad, one of the early winners of our Student Diplomat contest, went on to found Inspire Dreams and spoke at the NAFSA’s 2011 Annual Conference in Vancouver as part of a plenary panel on social entrepreneurship. Mitch Smith caught up with us in Kansas City, his hometown, after touring Africa with New York Times journalist Nick Kristof as winner of his 2010 Win-A-Trip contest. Last year an entire group of students from Ramapo College joined us for NAFSA’s Advocacy Day and made a big impression on Capitol Hill.

Since we launched our “Students Connecting Our World” Facebook page in early September, it has gotten more than 400 “likes,” and recently, over 1,000 people voted in our Student Diplomat Video Contest, co-sponsored by STA Travel (a NAFSA Global Partner) in which we asked students to tell us, in a short, compelling video, about a study abroad experience that placed them in the role of “student diplomat.” Benjamin Hershey of Ohio State University won the contest for his story of learning and personal growth during a study abroad experience as an urban planning student in Dresden, Germany.

We’re especially thankful to our student ambassadors for “Students Connecting Our World,” who have really stepped up to help us create content for this initiative, make it relevant to students, and spread the word. These ambassadors include Nora Dougherty and Brendan Flanagan of Ramapo College; Monica Shah of American University; Kyle D’Souza, who recently earned her masters at New York University; and NAFSA’s public policy interns from American University this past fall, Elsha DeJong and Camila Linneman. Elsha recently wrote this piece, “7 Topics Students Should Cover When Talking to Family About Study Abroad,” featured on the student section of Connecting Our World.

Our goal is to top 500 likes for the “Students Connecting Our World” community on Facebook by the end of 2011 – that’s just 50 people for each week left in 2011. Can you help us spread the word? Here are some things you can do:

1. Through your campus study abroad Facebook page, “like” “Students Connecting Our World” on Facebook. That way students who visit your Facebook page will see “Students Connecting Our World” featured there.
2. Print and display our “Students Connecting Our World” flyer anywhere your students gather or meet up, especially those who are interested in studying abroad.
3. Post a “Students Connecting Our World” web sticker on your institution’s web page or blog.
4. Tweet or otherwise share this blog post with colleagues and student groups.

But sometimes the day-to-day things connect, in unexpected ways, to the big things. For me, it was a light bulb moment. A student I had worked with over the recent years kept hitting snags in dealing with the U.S. immigration system – months-long, complicated, more-than-the-norm snags. It turned out he had one, seemingly intractable problem: he had just one name. The United States requires every foreign national to list a last name in all immigration systems. But this student had no first and last name—just a single name. This caused him problems throughout his stay in the United States. I hated telling this student, “There’s just not much I can do.” It’s a helpless feeling for an advisor committed to helping students navigate through the broken immigration system. So you could say that it was this small but significant issue that encouraged me to attend NAFSA’s Advocacy Day.

NAFSA’s Advocacy Day teaches you the tools you need both nationally and locally to advocate for international students and scholars, study abroad, and other international education policy issues. On my flight to D.C., I thought, “I’m just a blonde, 25 year-old from Georgia—where the political climate for international matters is not very encouraging. There is no way I’ll be taken seriously. I’m just another Elle Woods from the Legally Blonde movie.” My friends, I was wrong. I left my meetings “on the hill” with a new spring in my step. The greatest thing I gained from Advocacy Day was being able to go back to the international student, now a good friend of mine, and tell him, “I told your story in Washington, D.C.”

A few months after I returned from Advocacy Day, I got a call from Boston. A major marketing company had hired my friend with no last name and was sponsoring his H-1B visa. He would hold a position of senior business analyst. I cannot say that I had anything to do with his success except for one thing I did. I went to D.C., I went to Advocacy Day, and I came back with encouraging words – and he kept working toward his dream. He didn’t give up. This might just happen to you too… I’m going back. Hope to see you there. Register here.

Ashley Johnson is a NAFSA member and an international student advisor at the University of Georgia. After attending NAFSA’s 2011 Advocacy Day, her interest in public policy and advocating for the students she serves have become a priority.

On the final day of our Region XI Conference in Manchester, New Hampshire last month, I was at our registration table when one of our team members informed us he had just met Newt Gingrich in the hotel lobby. Curious, I headed down the hallway and found the Gingrich party had set up in one of the rooms we had used for the conference.

I was met at the doorway by his New Hampshire campaign manager. He explained it was a private event but if I wanted to meet Newt and his wife, Callista, I was welcome to come in. He was very gracious as most of the Region XI team members had followed suit and we were all welcomed. I hadn’t planned on advocating but as I was getting my picture taken, I was asked about my conference badge with its many ribbons. I mentioned my work and then spoke about NAFSA and our concerns with visa issues and the importance of study abroad.

After the meet and greet, Newt spoke and then opened the floor to questions, and we were able to ask him his views on immigration and study abroad. He acknowledged that our current visa system is “broke” and needs to be fixed. He feels we need to do a better job of allowing students and entrepreneurs who want to come into the United States the ability to learn and establish businesses. It was a unique opportunity. I don’t think anyone in the room would have imagined the meteoric rise in the polls that Mr. Gingrich would have over the ensuing weeks.

I am not a public policy expert. All I learned, I found at www.connectingourworld.org. The Connecting Our World Web site has all the information needed to keep you informed and inform others. I don’t know if I’ll run into any other candidates this year, but I plan to stay informed just in case.

Vincent C. Schaff is a NAFSA member, chair of NAFSA Region XI, and director of university outreach at Institute for Shipboard Education and Semester At Sea. He blogged about his experience at NAFSA’s 2011 Advocacy Day in the post, “Teaching an Old Dog, New Tricks – Connecting our World through Armchair Advocacy.”

Exhibitors weren’t deterred by having their tables in a renovated “armory,” and discussions were held over wonderful food and beverage. John Diezel, a 2011 Region XI award winner, along with advocacy-focused colleagues including current Region XI Chair Vince Schaff, presented sessions on region-based advocacy efforts and provided many opportunities for Region XI professionals to learn grassroots skills to take back to their campuses. Region XI’s leadership team has demonstrated a strong commitment to advocacy efforts;  it will be a region to watch as it develops funding models for individuals in the field as well as resources and networks for information sharing. There was also a very well attended session on social media with a “how to” approach. Tweets were tweeted, blogs were written and followed, and “to friend or not to friend” was discussed. Perhaps even I learned a nugget or two about my “social” presence.

A touching moment occurred when it was announced to the region that their Distinguished Service Award had been renamed the James Leck Distinguished Service Award, in memory of James Leck who passed away very suddenly earlier this year.

Thanks to all for a wonderful New England experience and see you in Maine next year.

In the four years that I have been involved in the Academy, I have spoken with many supervisors of Academy trainees. These colleagues have consistently commented on the many benefits of Academy participation for their staff member, their office and even their institution. Academy trainees develop the skills and confidence they need to take on additional responsibilities, provide increased leadership, and expand their professional network – all to the benefit of their office and their institution. The many learning opportunities trainees have in the Academy expose trainees to best practices in the field of internationaleducation. Many supervisors have shared with me that their staff member was able to use this information to enhance their work at their institution and to develop new initiatives. Supervisors also report that Academy trainees often demonstrate an increased commitment to the field of international education and an interest in further training and education opportunities.

Please take a minute to think about the new professionals on your staff and in our field. Would they benefit from the Academy? What about your colleagues at other institutions? Do they have staff members who would benefit from the Academy? If so, please encourage them to apply for the Academy. You can find more information about the Academy, including the application, at http://www.nafsa.org/events.sec/academy_main/

Applications are due December 1, 2011.

Krista McCallum Beatty directs international student and faculty services at Ohio University. In this role she advises international students, scholars, faculty, and staff on many different immigration and cultural issues, advises the International Student Union, and directs a very busy office. She has also worked in education abroad, including a stint as a resident director. McCallum Beatty enjoys interacting with the many different people she meets through her work and believes international education is a transformative experience for all involved, including her. Having been a coach twice, she thinks the Academy is a great program and is excited to be serving as the chair for the Academy.