by Tony Marotta, Director of Global Engagement a Elmhurst University
International Education is a field that is filled with professionals dedicated to their students, their teams, their colleagues, and connecting folks around the world. Whether in International Admissions and Enrollment, ISSS, Student Abroad/Away, Advising, or other offices and roles within the field, we pour our heart into our work, our students, and the world. That’s why this Valentine’s Day, as most of us have rounded the corner of the halfway mark and are eying the relief of a summer break, I figured is as good of an opportunity as ever for us to take a step back, reflect, and recharge by sharing what we love about what we do. To do so, I reached out to International Education professionals near and far to ask them to share the love, their love, so we can all be reminded what got us into this line of work and keeps us coming back year after year. Much love to all who contributed! For me it’s an ongoing exchange – whether it’s seeing the new student that was having trouble fitting in and thinking about transferring to getting involved, staying the course, and finally getting connected after a few stops by the office, or just the look of accomplishment, satisfaction, and gratitude on my students’ faces as they walk across the graduation stage – it all fuels me and keeps me coming back. Positive parent interactions are nice too (we all know the negative ones), but one somewhat related recent experience in particular reaffirms why I do this job every day. After being off for a day, I found out that one of my international students that has also studied abroad quite a bit intended to invite me and the previous Study Abroad staff member he worked with most to fill in as his dad and mom at an athletics night. While I was sad that I was not able to be there upon finding out about the intention, the mere opportunity and gesture reminded me of the impact we can have on our students – we often are their guides and become their family. I shared my deep appreciation for the thought with the student (and the fact that I would have been there with advance knowledge, day off or not), and it is something I can now lean on whenever I have a tough day and need a little bit of self-love and reminder. With that, I share, with a full heart, the experiences and feedback of our colleagues:
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.” – Hugh Grant, Love Actually, 2003 In our field, no matter the role, the office, or the institution, we welcome folks from and send folks to all around the world, and we do so with various forms of love; love for one another, love for other cultures, and love for connecting being first and foremost. So, on the sacred holiday love, I hope that sharing the love from our International Education colleagues has reinvigorated your own connection to the love you experience and bring to us all. Comments are closed.
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April 2024
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