Two University of Idaho employees are in South America for a three-week recruitment cycle.
Shawn Greenfield | Courtesy
Katie Shiffelbein and Shawn Greenfield socialize during their three-week South American trip to recruit new students to the University of Idaho.
During their trip, Shawn Greenfield, international marketing and recruitment specialist and Katie Shiffelbein, American language and culture program coordinator travelled to nine cities in six different countries.
From Aug. 30 to Sept. 18 they stopped in Brasilia, Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Santiago, Chile, Lima, Peru, Quito, Ecuador, Guayaquil, Ecuador and Bogota, Colombia.
Greenfield said the trip was organized through EducationUSA, which is a network of about 400 U.S. government sponsored offices around the world that work to promote U.S. education to students from all over the globe.
“We were in each city only a couple of days each and had full itineraries where we were visiting local high schools to meet with students, having discussions with universities in-country to consider possible collaborations, visiting EducationUSA offices and talking with advisers and attending the larger fairs themselves in each city,” Greenfield said. “In each city, we talked to hundreds of students who were interested in studying in the United States, either for English language courses, through our American Language and Culture Program, and for our undergrad and grad degree programs at the UI.”
The first part of the recruitment trip was a U.S. government sponsored trade mission through the department of commence. There were more than 120 universities that applied to be part of the mission, and only 66 received the opportunity to take part, UI being one.
“The University of Idaho was only one of about 10 or so schools to participate in the entire circuit,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield said in Brazil they spoke to more than 2,000 interested students. They spoke to about 1,000 students in most of the other cities they visited. There was a constant flow of students attending the UI table, which ended up at around 150 to 200 students speaking directly to Greenfield and Schiffelbein.
“It was wonderful having 2 representatives (Katie and me) at the fairs, along with our translator, as it provided us the opportunity to talk with a much larger group of students at one time,” Greenfield said. “There is no exact number of students that have been recruited to UI. With already around 650 international students from over 80 different countries attending UI, there is always room for more.”
Greenfield said their primary focus of the trip was to explore new regions they haven’t actively recruited in before.
“And to meet with prospective students, advisors, school counselors, and universities,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield and Schiffelbein keep contact with the students they talked to on the trip.
He said this trip has allowed them build relationships and getting further insight in new regions of the world.
Erin Roetker can be reached at [email protected]