Jesuit Universities Pre-NAFSA Get-Together
Author:Ricardo García Ceceña, Student Mobility Advisor, ITESO
This past May, the city of New Orleans hosted NAFSA, the largest International Education conference, held each year in the United States.
Since 2018, international relations administrators of the Mexican Jesuit Universities (SUJ, in Spanish) have hosted a Pre-NAFSA get-together, and last year, based on the success of the SUJ reception and building on this strength of experience, they came up with a proposal to extend an invitation to all the international relations administrators of the IAJU universities attending NAFSA. The proposal was well-received and 12 universities, representing AJCU, AJCU-AP, AUSJAL, and Kircher, co-hosted the inaugural IAJU International Education Conference’s Pre-NAFSA Get-Together.
Loyola University New Orleans were added to the SUJ organizing committee and played a pivotal part in the planning and execution of the event.
The co-hosts of the event were: Universidad Iberoamericana-León, Universidad Iberoamericana-Mexico City, Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla, ITESO, Loyola University New Orleans, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Universidad de Deusto, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Bogotá and Cali, Loyola University Chicago, PUC Rio, and Sophia University.
The Get-Together was hosted on Sunday May 26th on the Loyola University New Orleans campus, and the committee was very pleased with the response from our invited partners. The purpose of this get-together was to show the solidarity and strength of the Jesuit university network for our non-Jesuit partners and provide a space for networking. During the event we shared our mission and main activities, connected people between our co-hosts and explored potential collaborations. 106 educators attended from mostly non-Jesuit institutions.
Loyola University New Orleans was an exceptional host providing space in their library for the event, as well as entertainment in the form of a student jazz band from their music department.
The organizing committee is already planning to repeat this event at next year’s NAFSA, in San Diego, and we hope that more Jesuit universities will join this initiative. If you are interested in participating as a co-hosting institution, please write to Andrea Sánchez ([email protected]) and Della Burke ([email protected]).
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