I hope this message finds everyone well and coping with what seems to be a very harsh and cold winter in many parts of the world!
As the NAFSA Winter Leadership Meetings approach, I just wanted to share with all of you some updates on the overseas advising situation "out here". Please keep in mind that these are just my personal observations, but I do "chat" a lot with OSEAS colleag ues from all over the world on e-mail almost daily and am getting a general sense of things:
1) For various reasons, the OSEAS e-mail lists have been discontinued but thanks to the tremendous efforts of NAFSA's MicroSIG committee and in particular Martyn Miller and Craig Rice, an OSEAS topic has been created on the Inter-L and OSEAS worldwide communications and information sharing have resumed.
Without the continued availability of this medium for all advisers, the unity and sense of professional identification established over the past few years may dwindle or disappear. Unfortunately, not all advising regions have access to e-mail technologies for various reasons and this causes an inbalance in professional growth. Those regions may have to depend more on regular meetings to receive information and training.
2) USIA supported professional development opportunities are at an obvious standstill due to funding problems. A USIA sponsored advising conference scheduled to take place for Africa has been cancelled, and the upcoming March Middle East advisers' confere nce has been postponed until September 1996, at least. Both these regions have not held a regional training conference in at least four years.
Therefore, maintaining professional enthusiasm and information exchange through electronic networks is crucial for all regions right now.
3) Many OSEAS advisers who work in Fulbright or USIS sponsored offices are going to have difficulties getting to various workshops and conferences in their regions, and certainly to this year's NAFSA conference, if they are dependent on funding for travel from their foundation or center. With all the cuts ahead, travel seems to be the last priority of any Fulbright or USIA connected office at the moment.
Non-USIA sponsored OSEAS advisers working in university or independent centers who had very limited access to professional training through USIA in the past face even greater challenges for continuing growth if those training opportunities continue to dim inuish.
Ensuring continued professional development for all OSEAS advisers should be of primary concern to those involved in international education for both retention and quality control. Opportunities to meet with NAFSA colleagues should be maintained to make s ure that the education and training lines remain open in both directions as was suggested in the OSEAS Position Statement of September 1995.
4) Defraying costs, generating income and fundraising for overseas advising centers is of major concern to many colleagues. As we hear of more and more centers closing (several USIS advising centers in the Far East, a center in Australia, all centers in F rance except the Fulbright office in Paris) or cutting down their services (no more telephone queries answered in USIS Leipsig, the consolidation of USIS offices and staff in Germany and in Ireland), 25% minimum budget cuts worldwide on Fulbright programs which will certainly influence advising centers located in Fulbright commissions/foundations, we wonder who will be next to shut down and how long will it take for our turn to come up. Trying to come up with creative income- generating ideas for our cont inued survival has become a major theme worldwide and is turning many of us into quasi fundraisers/advisers.
Searching for potential partnerships with the private sector while maintaining OSEAS professional integrity and its code of ethics is a challenge for us all. I believe that the OSEAS sponsored workshop on "Fundraising for Overseas Advising Centers" organi zed by Lynne Lerner of the Fulbright Commission in the Netherlands and which be presented at this year's NAFSA conference in Phoenix, is a timely reflection of where OSEAS thoughts rest at the moment.
NAFSA'ns should also be concerned. OSEAS advising centers worldwide are the window on stateside higher education for hundreds of thousands of international students annually. If many of our over 450 USIA trained advising centers who "grew up" on the OSEA S Advisers' Professional Code of Ethics disappear within the next two years, who will be left out here to advise those potential stateside-bound students? I truly hope we won't reach that stage and that NAFSA will do its utmost to include support for cont inued OSEAS professional development, both as trainees and trainers, as part of its mission for 1996-97.
Evelyn Levinson, OSEAS Sub Regional Representative for Southern Europe
OSEAS Europe Board Chair, May 1996-97
Director, Educational Information Service US-Israel Educational Foundation (Fulbright Foundation in Israel) Tel Aviv, Israel
e-mail: elevinson@fulbright.org.il
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