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CCIE Updates: Electronic Newsletter
WEEK OF JULY 12 Updates
CCIE NEW ACTIVITIES
● DUES for 2021 - 2022 - PLEASE PAY FOR YOUR COLLEGE OR DISTRICT!
● CCIE NEW Website: www.ccieworld.org
● CCIE Education Abroad Working Group: Invitation to Join
● Sprintax online software for nonresident federal tax e-filing and state tax return preparation
● 2021 IIE SIO of the Year Award
● 9th Annual National Community College Peacebuilding Seminar
● Graduate Student Survey
● AIFS Abroad is hiring
● The need for a counter-narrative on anti-Asian racism
● CCIE Membership Benefits
CCIE PROGRAMS & ACTIVITIES
CCIE DUES FOR 2021 - 2022
CCIE wants to remind all our members that, now, more than ever, it is important to pay your dues. CCIE dues are collected on the academic year - July 1 - June 30. It is critical that every member be current with their dues in order for CCIE to continue to support activities such as the Newsletter, Web-Page listing and Institutional Grants, Faculty Grant, and Student Scholarships. CCIE does appreciate the effort that all of you are doing to help support international education at our colleges. However, advocacy needs to continue on many levels, and support of CCIE is central in this process.
In order for CCIE to continue to offer institutional grants and students scholarships, we need all members to pay their dues.
Thank you for your support
Rosalind
CCIE NEW and UPDATED Website: www.ccieworld.org
CCIE Web-site has a new look! Please visit the new and improved CCIE Website. We have updated the look and made navigation easier to access. Please take the time to look specifically at the information on the website about your college to make sure the links work and that the information is correct.
For those offering education abroad or any international programs, please sent to Rosalind your information for inclusion on the web-site.
Please send any corrections to Rosalind. Special Thanks are given to Drew Gephart and team for their amazing services.
CCIE - EA Working Group: Invitation to Join
CCIE has a Working Group to talk about future prospects for Education Abroad. The group meets monthly and everyone is invited to join. In previous meetings, the following topics were discussed:
a) virtual internationalizing the curriculum programs
b) virtual guest speakers from international partners
c) virtual internships (paid and voluntary)
d) building assessment for any virtual opportunities offered in the future
e) ‘go/no-go’ planning dates
f) re-opening plans (for whenever it happens)
g) legal issues, health issues, logistics for social distancing, and crisis management are now needed
Please contact Rosalind for the ZOOM invitation
THE NEXT MEETING IS THURSDAY AUGUST 12 at 4:00 pm
SPRINTAX ONLINE SOFTWARE FOR NONRESIDENT FEDERAL TAX E-FILING AND STATE TAX RETURN PREPARATION
Sprintax offers an online software for nonresident federal tax e-filing and state tax return preparation. Sprintax have outlined some of the core things that you need to know for this tax season and have also provided some useful resources that you can share with your international populations.
Who must file tax forms for 2020 tax season?
If individuals were physically in the U.S. in F or J status as a nonresident for tax purposes anytime between January 1 - December 31 2020, they are obligated to send one form, Form 8843, to the U.S. tax agency IRS (Internal Revenue Service), even if they had no income. For the 2020 tax season, if nonresidents earn over $0 of taxable US source income, they may need to file a federal tax return with the IRS. Depending on their individual circumstances, they may also need to file a state tax return(s).
Tax Filing Deadline
The US federal tax filing deadline has been extended from April 15th to May 17th 2021. State tax deadlines may differ from state to state.
Resident or Non-Resident for Federal Tax Purposes
Generally, most international students & scholars who are on F, J, M or Q visas are considered non-residents for tax purposes. International undergraduate students on J1 & F1 visas are automatically considered non-resident for their first 5 calendar years in the US, whilst Scholars/Researchers on J visas are automatically considered non-residents for 2 out of the last 6 calendar years in the US. If you've been in the US for longer than the 5 or 2 year periods, the Substantial Presence Test will determine their tax residency.
Sprintax Blogs and Resources
The Sprintax blog is updated very regularly with various tax season hot topics. Below are some useful blog articles
∙ Everything a nonresident in the US needs to know about the second COVID stimulus payment
∙ Nonresident aliens: Your guide to navigating the COVID-19 CARES Act Stimulus Payments
∙ Breaking: Sprintax is Now LIVE For Nonresident Federal E-Filing!
∙ How to apply for your ITIN from outside the US
∙ Making a profit from Robinhood? Here's everything a nonresident needs to know about their trading tax requirements
∙ FICA Tax Explained for Nonresident Aliens
Sprintax is offering a series of free open student and scholar tax webinars this tax season. Please contact the web-site for dates and registration. The informational webinars will cover everything you need to know about nonresident tax from who needs to file for 2020 to the stimulus checks and everything in between! You can access a Sprintax Nonresident Tax Webinar recording here.
Sprintax have created a $5 Federal discount code for CCIE's international populations. The discount code, S20CCIE5, can be used by nonresidents to provide them with $5 off their Federal return if they wish to use Sprintax to prepare their tax returns.
For more information on how Sprintax can assist with nonresident tax compliance at your institution, please reach out to partners@sprintax.com. If your international students and scholars have nonresident tax queries, they can always reach out to the live chat on the Sprintax system, or the Sprintax student support email hello@sprintax.com.
Anna Fitzpatrick AFitzpatrick@sprintax.com
IIE 2021 SIO of the Year Award
The IIE Senior International Officer (SIO) of the Year Award was created in 2019 in honor of IIE’s Centennial and is presented annually to a SIO who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in internationalization. Never has international education leadership been more important and we look forward to acknowledging and celebrating yet another innovative leader in 2021. Nominations may be submitted on behalf of an individual or self-initiated. Nominations are accepted through July 30th. More information about the nomination process, selection criteria, and past winners is available online. Contact Clare Overmann with any questions. covermann@iie.org,
9th Annual National Community College Peacebuilding Seminar
Registration is now open for the 9th Annual National Community College Peacebuilding Seminar, to be held virtually on October 29-30, November 5-6, and November 12-13, 2021. The National Community College Peacebuilding Seminar is an annual conference for educators and students interested in the critical role that community colleges play in higher education, with panels on a range of topics related to peacebuilding, conflict, human rights, social justice, international affairs, and nonviolence. The seminar will be held on three consecutive Fridays and Saturdays, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time, and feature twelve 45-minute sessions. This year’s seminar is sponsored jointly by the Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education, a not-for-profit corporation advancing experiential learning on humanitarian and peacebuilding practices, and David J. Smith Consulting, LLC.
For full-time and part-time educators, the registration fee is $80, which must be paid in advance of the seminar. Graduate students will be charged $25, and undergraduate (including community college) students can attend free of charge but will be limited to specific sessions.
If you are interested in attending the seminar, please complete this form and submit it on or before Monday, October 22, 2021.
To register
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHbwUOdxNYqCgvvo678lLazNCZadS0AeioL6qtAS8vA6ni2Q/viewform
Graduate Student Research Project Needs Participants
I am a graduate student in the International Higher Education Master’s Program at Lesley University and I am conducting a research project for an independent study guided by my professor Dr. Louise Michelle Vital on virtual global education programs developed during the COVID-19 pandemic that were offered in place of in-person education abroad. I am specifically trying to gather the educator perspective and am reaching out to facilitators, designers, and/or administrators of these kinds of virtual programs in the past year. The data is being collected through a qualitative survey with an option to participate in a follow-up interview. Please find a secure Survey Monkey link below and forward this call to your colleagues. I can share the results of the study, please contact me if interested. This study has been approved by the Lesley University Institutional Review Board.
Link to survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VirtualStudyAbroadSurvey
Thank you very much!
Susanne Feld
she/her/hers
sfeld@lesley.edu
978-201-9517
AIFS Abroad is Hiring
AIFS Abroad is hiring several entry level and mid-career roles and hope you will review, apply, and would appreciate your help in promoting these opportunities to your current/former students and professional network. I have included the titles for all available roles below and you can learn more and apply on our AIFS Careers page.
Regional Enrollment Coordinators (3 roles available): Student facing regionally based working with student sales
Global Program Advisor – Study Abroad (3 roles available): Working with the current Admissions Officers on pre-departure student advising for study abroad
Global Program Advisor – Internships (2 roles available): Focused on pre-departure advising and career processes for internship participants
Director of Academic Programs (1 role available): Focused on Fairfield School of Record management, student academic enrollment, London academic team and related management
If you have any questions, want to discuss the roles, or talk about what it is like to work at AIFS Abroad, feel free to send a message to Angela Manginelli, AIFS Abroad Vice President of Alumni and Inclusion, (amanginelli@aifs.com / 203-399-5580).
Angela Manginelli
She / her / hers
Vice President of Alumni and Inclusion Initiatives | AIFS Abroad
203.399.5580 | amanginelli@aifs.com
The need for a counter-narrative on anti-Asian racism
Mark A Ashwill : BLOG
It’s no secret that the uptick in expressions of anti-Asian racism in the United States, including verbal and physical assaults, is having a deleterious effect on the recruitment of international students in key Asian sending countries, the source of 70% of all international students in the US.
The most egregious cases have received extensive coverage in the Vietnamese print, electronic and social media. A number of parents whose children had been accepted to US high schools, for example, have changed their minds out of fear for the personal safety of their sons and daughters.
Just as the adverse impact of COVID-19 was greater on boarding and day school enrolment because of the age of the students, media coverage of anti-Asian incidents is likely to produce the same result because personal safety is of vital importance, especially when the students are younger than 18.
These parents will simply delay their children’s overseas study plans until the situation improves, send them to another country that is perceived to be safer or wait until they’ve graduated from high school and have them enrol in a foreign institution of higher education.
Another option is to give up on overseas study altogether and have them pursue higher education at home, where there are more viable options than ever.
Last year, when COVID-19 infections were at record levels, only the more adventurous and risk-tolerant students accepted their admission offers and travelled to the US to begin their studies. The positive experiences that they’ve had to date is testimony to the quality and leadership of their institutions and their own resilience and that of their parents.
Most Vietnamese and, presumably, other Asian students who study in the US, expect to encounter a certain degree of racism, likely of the “words can never hurt me” rather than “sticks and stones may break my bones” variety.
While it saddens me as a white US American, many of whose ancestors were the settler-colonisers written about in glowing, triumphalist terms in official top-down US history, this expectation is realistic. It exists and is spiking, the cumulative effect of four years of Trumpism and the racism and xenophobia that are characteristic of its leader and his legion of followers.
While we can’t change the conditions that gave rise to this form of racism overnight, whose roots were planted over 400 years ago with the arrival of the first settler-colonisers, we can address this concern, whether implicit or stated, when interacting with parents and students from Vietnam and other Asian countries.
The paramount importance of personal safety
The need for safety was acknowledged as a basic human need by the US psychologist Abraham Maslow and appears in the second tier of his famous “Hierarchy of Needs”. It has always been a primary concern among parents and many students considering overseas study, for some countries more than others.
In the case of the US last year, it was the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s complete and utter failure to contain it from day one. This year, anti-Asian rhetoric and violence are rearing their ugly heads, in addition to a jump in the number of mass shootings, one involving Asian Americans, both of which of which reinforce the US’s well-earned reputation for lack of safety.
As an academic by training, I look closely at as much data as possible that impacts our industry – for better and for worse.
The Mapping Hate Crimes in the US website maintained by the UCLA American Indian Studies Center under the UCLA Institute of American Cultures that tracks hate crimes in the US confirms one conclusion of a recent New York Times article, “Swelling Anti-Asian Violence: Who is being attacked where?”: namely, that most attacks are in mega-cities on the East and West Coasts with significant Asian populations.
(To illustrate an exception to this trend, they use the example of a 57-year-old man in Stevens Point, Wisconsin who showered some Asian American grocery shoppers with ethnic slurs in May 2020 because they were doing what every US American should have been doing, wearing face masks.)
Reassurance through action
Whether prospective students and their parents ask or not, US educational institutions that recruit Asian, including Vietnamese, students should assume that the issue of anti-Asian racism is very much on their minds.
Colleagues need to reassure potential students and their parents that they are safe in their academic and local community the same way many used their successful containment of the coronavirus as evidence that they care deeply about their students, faculty and staff.
In this context, talk is dirt cheap. More than words of reassurance, they need to provide specific information about what measures have been taken to protect members of their community. Merely saying it is safe and “you are welcome here” are not enough in this day and age, given what is happening and the rising level of sophistication of most students and parents.
The reality is that some places are more favourable than others, meaning more tolerant and therefore safer. This is a ‘selling point’ for many secondary and post-secondary institutions that should be highlighted in their promotional materials and interactions with students and parents. This message should be consistent from one institution to the next.
Related to this is the need to actively promote study in the US, still a brand in most countries, but one that no longer sells itself.
They could also call on Asian students and alumni to talk honestly about their experiences on- and off-campus. I know some who have yet to encounter racism in its passive or missionary form and others who have and have successfully dealt with the negative interaction(s).
Finally, those institutions that work with education agents and other partners should push this compelling message out to their network in Asia.
More specifics include the following questions: What are town-gown relations like? How does the institution deal with anti-Asian and other racist incidents involving words or actions? What is it doing to familiarise its academic and local community with the international students it hosts and their cultures? Is this thorny issue addressed in its international student orientation?
This is not fluff; it is truthful, on-point marketing that reflects positively on most institutions. Assuming they are ahead of the curve, they should not hide this particular light under a bushel.
Positive yet realistic messaging
The happy reality is that anti-Asian violence is not occurring in every town and city in the US, a vast country of 3.8 million square miles and 330 million people, just as run-of-the-mill crimes against people and property tend to be perpetrated in specific areas.
In addition to being proactive in the face of this spasm of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia, this is a positive message that should be consistently communicated to prospective US-bound students and their parents. In doing so, colleagues are not sugar-coating reality; they are recognising that it is not black and white but rather complex and technicolour.
The alternative – to do nothing or not enough – means that rightfully concerned Asian parents and their children will believe that the words they read and the images they see in narrowly focused media reports are happening everywhere in the US and this will lead to a concomitant decrease in interest in study in the USA.
Dr Mark A Ashwill is managing director and co-founder of Capstone Vietnam, a full-service educational consulting company with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City that works exclusively with regionally accredited colleges and universities in the United States and officially accredited institutions in other countries. Ashwill served as country director of the Institute of International Education-Vietnam from 2005-09. He blogs at An International Educator in Viet Nam. A list of selected English and Vietnamese language essays can be accessed from his blog.
BENEFITS OF COLLEGE & DISTRICT CCIE MEMBERSHIP
Members of full status are entitled to:
a) ability to vote in all elections and to enjoy other rights and privileges accord to all members;
b) eligibility for officer positions
c) inclusion of College in CCIE list-serve and in the Web-site
d) participate in the annual business meeting
e) receipt of CCIE on-line monthly newsletter and access to CCIE Website
f) eligibility for CCIE faculty and staff grants
g) eligibility for CCIE student scholarships
h) access to a collaborative network of community colleges who are devoted to international / intercultural educaton
i) inclusion in CCIE annual reports that documents the individual activities of member colleges and which is shared with colleges and organizations throughout the state and nationally.
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