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International Student Success Initiative adopts Konkeros employment tool

At Stetson University, we understand that bringing your student to an American university may be part of a bigger plan. Your goals may include enabling your student to gain work experience in the U.S. after graduation, or perhaps giving your student the opportunity to develop a prosperous career in the U.S.

If this is your case, the process to gain employment starts today.

Parents:
Ideally, you are reading this message while your student is a first-year student, sophomore, or junior, because gaining employment in the U.S. requires significant time and effort.

The first action we recommend is to get an immigration attorney as soon as possible – even if this is your student’s first year. A good attorney will assess your student’s profile and determine the most viable employment/immigration strategy. An attorney may even help your student develop a profile that is more favorable for employers and immigration officers.

Understand that most international students gain employment in the U.S. through networking. For this reason, we strongly advise students to focus their job-seeking efforts on developing a professional network, instead of submitting work applications online.

Stetson University is the first higher education institution in the U.S. to implement Konkeros. Konkeros is the most powerful tool your student could use to find a job in the U.S.. The site includes a business ranking system, which can be used to find and rank all the companies most likely to hire your student. This platform provides a viability score to help your student rank prospective employers,. The score indicates which companies are more likely to hire your student based on your student’s profile and historical company data.

Stetson will also give international families, at no additional cost, a book entitled “Konkeros 2018: An International Student’s Guide to Finding Employment in the U.S.” This cutting-edge book describes in detail the process to gain employment in the U.S. The book will be available in the fall 2017.

Lou Paris
Instructor of International Business and New Venture Creation
Assistant Director, Prince Entrepeneurship Program

For more, see International Student Success Initiative.

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A Typical Day at WORLD

What does a typical day at WORLD look like?

Roxanne Lewis, international student and scholar services coordinator, assists a foreign student.

Paula Hentz, director of international learning, consults with Professor Mercedes Tichenor on study abroad programming.

Roxanne Lewis is completly unaware that she’s still wearing a pig mask.

Roxanne Lewis chats with Professor Elisabeth Poeter at the annual Faculty Open House at WORLD.

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Global Community Engagement Dashboard highlights international student outcomes

WORLD and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness collaborated on the development of an interactive data visualization tool. The new Global Community Engagement Dashboard is designed to enhance Stetson University’s comprehensive internationalization efforts and position the University for opportunity planning around international and intercultural learning.

The first phase of the project focuses on Stetson’s global footprint including geographic diversity of students, international student enrollment and academic achievement. The dashboard illuminated several  strategic findings:

  • The international undergraduate student population increased by nearly 20 percent over the past two years (169 students in Fall 2014 to 208 in Fall 2016).
  • International students enrolled from 56 countries and five continents.
  • The international student academic profile has remained steady for the past three academic years. International students enroll about evenly in the College of Arts and Science and the School of Business Administration.
  • Fall 2016 average cumulative GPA for international students was 3.34 compared to 3.09 for domestic students.
  • International students demonstrate strong Fall to Fall retention; the Fall 2015 cohort retained at 88% compared to 78% for domestic students.

The dashboard was unveiled at the New International Parent Luncheon on August 16, 2017. The project is spearheaded by Roxanne Lewis, international student and scholar services coordinator at WORLD and  Angela Henderson, director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness. The next phase of project development will highlight student and faculty engagement in international study.

I invite you to use the interactive dashboard to run reports and get useful information on Stetson’s global footprint.

Resche Hines, Ph.D.
Assistant Vice President of Institutional Research and Effectiveness

Angela Henderson
Director of Institutional Research andEffectiveness

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It’s Good To Be Back!

We hear quite a bit about FOCUS Orientation, but Stetson University also hosts New International Student Orientation, a program tailored to meet the needs of students new to the U.S. and to Stetson. Tove’s Strandh, senior student from Sweden, explains more in her blog post.

August 25, 2017


Welcome to my first blog post! My name is Tove Strand and this semester you’ll be able to follow me through this blog during my last months at Stetson. If you want to read more about me, you can do it here!

I’m still processing the fact that classes started yesterday but, luckily, I don’t have classes on Fridays so I have a long weekend to recharge. I hope your summer was as good as mine. I went back to Sweden for three weeks in May and then spent the rest of the summer doing an internship for a company in South Florida. Afterwards, I came straight back to Stetson to welcome the new international students for the International Orientation. Classes only started yesterday but I’ve been back almost two weeks now. So yeah, I didn’t really get much rest this summer but that’s fine because I had a great summer anyway!

I arrived to Stetson on a Sunday and the following day International Orientation started with a one-day training for all leaders. There were 14 leaders among 84 students so we needed this day to plan (as much as we could) for the upcoming week. I did this last year so I already had a good sense of what was coming up.

Before I continue you should know that this orientation is nothing like FOCUS. The leaders don’t get paid and there isn’t much preparation for us. We are more or less given a schedule for the week and then we’re on our own to make it work coordinating everything. Okay that isn’t exactly true, we get SO much support from W.O.R.L.D. (Roxanne and Paula). But that is why I love International Orientation. You go with the flow, you make the best out of every situation, and solve problems as a team as they arise.

The second day was probably my favorite day because that’s when all the new students arrived. We spent the whole day at the airport finding tired and jet-lagged internationals and shipping them off to Stetson in buses. The following three days consisted of information, information, and information. But then, when all tired internationals wondered if they would ever see anything else besides the inside walls of LBC, Friday arrived and we went to the DeLeon Springs! Actually, scratch what I first said, this was my favorite day of orientation. We spent the day swimming in the freezing water and playing games. Some went kayaking and saw alligators. International Orientation was, just like last year, so much fun and I gained so many new friends.

If I could do it again I definitely would.

Follow her blog: Tove Strand ’18

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New International Parent Orientation welcomes parents from nine countries

On August 16, 2017, Stetson University formally welcomed parents of new international students from nine different countries – Argentina, Australia, Belgium, the Cayman Islands, Ecuador, France, Honduras, Peru, and Saudi Arabia.

During the half-day New International Parent Orientation, family members

Now celebrating its third year, the primary goal of the Orientation event is to introduce parents from across the globe to campus life, academic environment, American culture, and the diverse success resources available to their student.

As in past years, feedback was very positive. Parents cited enjoying the beautiful campus, learning from current students, and exposure to resources offered to their international students.

International Parent Orientation at Stetson University is facilitated by Cortney Dowdle, international student recruiter, and Roxanne Lewis, international student and scholar services coordinator.