Follow the Twitter conversation from the NAFSA 2011 Annual Conference

Kissing a 'Jersey Shore' Cast Member while Studying Abroad was Bad but is now OK

Last week TMZ.com broke the news the the University of Florida threatened to expel any of their students participating on their study abroad program in Florence, Italy if they were found to be partying with the cast of The Jersey Shore again.  The cast of The Jersey Shore is currently filming their fourth season in Florence.  Apparently, UF administrators (well one associate dean for undergraduate affairs and enrollment management) didn't like seeing one of the UF study abroad students partying and kissing The Situation on the television show Entertainment Tonight and sent an e-mail to students warning of further disciplinary action if they were to be seen with the cast again.

TMZ.com has updated the story and reports that UF has reversed their policy.

A small sampling of related articles (one quotes an excerpt of the e-mail sent to students):

University THREATENS Students Over 'Jersey Shore' [TMZ.com]

Kissing The Situation Could Get You Expelled [The Atlantic Wire]

UF referses prof's position against 'Jersey Shore' partying [The Gainsville Sun]

How can we standardize international education research, data & definitions globally to increase collaboration, analysis and understanding?

Just a question I have been pondering for a long time.  What are your thoughts on this?

One Year Anniversary of NAFSA's Connecting Our World (CoWorld)

Are you connected?  Today, NAFSA's Connecting Our World celebrates its one year anniversary.  If not, take a few seconds to visit and join the Connecting Our World mailing list at http://www.connectingourworld.org/ to help advocate for international education issues!  Below is a video of NAFSA CEO Marlene M. Johnson encouraging everyone to Be a Voice for International Education.

Call for Reviewers for Review of Global Studies Literature, No. 3

The "Review of Global Studies Literature" is an online collection of book reviews and insights written by international educators, discussing both theory and practice. The second installment went live this past December with contributions from the following individuals: Eduardo Contreras, Emily Gorlewski, Jerrod Hansen, Joe Hoff, Kevin Kehl, Gavin Sanderson, Tony Amante Schepers, Carolyn Sorkin, Kimberly Turner, Rebecca Vincent, and Virginia Wickline. 

The editors of this project, Bryan McAllister-Grande and Rebecca Hovey (with support of the NAFSA TLS Research & Scholarship Subcommittee), are now planning for their third installment, targeted for January/February 2012. This installment will be thematic: the theme is "Sustainable Global Commitments in International Education."  For this theme, we are especially seeking creative, longer review articles that analyze a particular issue, drawing upon several different recent books and the reviewer's professional expertise.  This theme is meant to build off of the attention that "sustainability" is receiving at several different levels (including the upcoming NAFSA conference), and different intellectual and practical aspects of sustainability's relationship to international education.

The web site is at www.nafsa.org/gslreview where you can download the "Call for Reviewers" and read prior installments.

Photo credit: Maguis & David

Changes to Iranian Student Visa Validity press statement by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Farsi subtitled version below



You can read Secretary Clinton's comments here.


More on this development via the following US Dept. of State media note: "Changes to Visa Validity for Iranian Student Applicants in F, J, and M visa categories"