You can listen to the latest episodes of the ICAway podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or right on our website.
💡 Tune in to hear about the philosophy of “compassionate compliance,” the importance of collaboration across campus offices, and tips for navigating the complexities of F-1 visa regulations.
📺 Watch the video podcast on our YouTube channel or Spotify!
🌐 Visit our website at http://www.ICAway.com
🔗 Learn more about Josh Schoonover’s work at Ask a DSO
📸 Follow Kayla O’Donnell’s work on Instagram at @ualbanyisss
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Coach Kwan: Welcome everyone to Season 3, Episode 6 of the Career Guide for International Students podcast, brought to you by ICAway.
[00:00:08] Coach Kwan: I’m your host, Kwan Segal.
[00:00:10] Coach Kwan: Join us as we explore insights from international education leaders and professionals advocating for international student careers. And if you’d like to watch this in video format, check out our video podcast on YouTube channel and Spotify.
[00:00:28] Coach Kwan: In today’s episode, I have two special guests who play vital roles within their universities, directly supporting international students as DSOs, as we know, designated school officials. They are here to discuss how their roles balance compliance with providing support.
[00:00:48] Coach Kwan: Ensuring students can pursue their educations and career goals in the US while maintaining regulations and also feeling supported rather than feeling anxious. [00:01:00] First, I would like to introduce Kayla O’Donnell, the Assistant Director, DSO, and the ARO at the International Student and Scholar Services Office at SUNY Albany, a large public research university in New York.
[00:01:14] Coach Kwan: And joining us from the other coast is another superstar of the ISSS field, Josh Schoonover, the Director of International Affairs and Principal Designated School Officials at Westcliff University, a private for profit university in Irvine, California. He is also the founder of AskDSO. com. Kayla and Josh, it’s a pleasure to have both of you on my show today,
[00:01:42] Kayla O’Donnell: Thanks,
[00:01:43] Josh Schoonover: Pleasure to be here. Thanks.
[00:01:45] Coach Kwan: of course. And thank you so much for, you know, calling in from two different coasts today. How’s your summer going so far? Where you are right now.
[00:01:53] Coach Kwan: How’s California, Josh? How’s the summer in California?
[00:01:57] Josh Schoonover: Things over here are busy and all the best ways[00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Coach Kwan: Awesome. I’m so jealous because you get to enjoy like summer all year round, right?
[00:02:06] Josh Schoonover: I get to live in on vacation. It’s, it’s a beautiful thing. We, we pay the sunshine tax for it, but I think it’s worth it.
[00:02:13] Coach Kwan: I hear you. Well, it’s worth it. And Kayla, what about Albany? Is it a beautiful time in Albany right now?
[00:02:22] Kayla O’Donnell: It is. It’s been an unseasonably hot summer. We’ve been dealing with some heat waves, but we’ve been fortunate to have some nice sunshine as well to enjoy the great outdoors while we have this break from snow.
[00:02:33] Coach Kwan: Lovely. Right. Enjoy while we can . Because the snow will last so many months after this. All right, so let us get to where we are here for. First of all, I’m sure that our audience may be curious to know more about your backgrounds, both of you. Maybe, Kayla, can you start first, a little bit like what drew you to the field of International education and your role in supporting [00:03:00] international students with their immigration needs.
[00:03:02] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, so I think it was a bit of a happy accident back when I was a student myself. I was placed in break housing at my university, which was where the international students lived. So the majority of the students I was living with were international students, and it opened up this huge world to me that I didn’t have access to beforehand.
[00:03:21] Kayla O’Donnell: And then after I completed my studies, I knew I wanted to work in higher ed. I happen to find a position in a Dean of Students office where they also manage international student and scholar services and they were in need of some additional, additional support for their students. So I started getting some training, started learning myself and I just fell in love with the field.
[00:03:42] Kayla O’Donnell: I think international students are some of our bravest and most creative students. And obviously it’s a very complex field. Every day is different. So I really love the problem solving aspect of the position as well.
[00:03:54] Coach Kwan: That’s amazing. And how many years now?
[00:03:57] Kayla O’Donnell: Oh, gosh, I’m coming up on my 10th year in [00:04:00] the field.
[00:04:00] Coach Kwan: Happy 10 years anniversary.
[00:04:02] Kayla O’Donnell: Thank you.
[00:04:03] Coach Kwan: Awesome. And what about you, Josh?
[00:04:07] Josh Schoonover: Well, mine’s a bit of a funny story also. So my background’s in education. I got my master’s in education, worked in higher education in the academic advising realm. Found myself in between jobs. I was applying, went through the interview process at Westcliff. I fell in love with the company right away.
[00:04:25] Josh Schoonover: And so as I’m going through the interview process, I get to the final stage. And the interviewer starts asking me all these questions about when I worked at an international language school for a couple of summers when I was in graduate school. And so I’m sure your listeners will appreciate this. I’m sitting there in the interview and in my mind I’m going, I’m blowing this because I’m not talking about academic advising at all.
[00:04:46] Josh Schoonover: I’m only talking about my time working with international students and after 75 minutes of this, finally, at the very end the interviewer goes, well, there’s, it’s done a two candidates. We’d love to hire you both. I think you’d be a great fit in [00:05:00] international affairs. Have you ever considered that? And just the idea of just expanding my reach beyond academic advising to, Okay.
[00:05:06] Josh Schoonover: Help students from all over the world. I said, yes, sign me up. And it’s been 7. 5 years for me. And it’s been probably the best thing that’s happened to me in my career so far.
[00:05:16] Coach Kwan: That is so cool. It’s like the job chose you.
[00:05:21] Josh Schoonover: You could say that both of us, Kayla.
[00:05:23] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah.
[00:05:25] Coach Kwan: That is really amazing. Well, thank you for sharing this background with us. And I’m sure that lots of international student advisors who are listening to us right now may have followed the same path too. So if you want to comment, you know, on the video, share with us a little bit of your background.
[00:05:43] Coach Kwan: We would love to hear more about your background too. Now, Kayla, come to our topic today about compassionate compliance, because last NAFSA conference in New Orleans, I connected with your supervisor, Dr. Elliot, Michael [00:06:00] Elliot, the director of ISSS at UAlbany. And he told me about your philosophy of compassionate compliance at UAlbany. Can you please describe what it means and why it’s so important for you work as a DSO?
[00:06:16] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, absolutely. So, really, I started thinking about that, especially at the height of the pandemic, right, 2020, 2021, and we were dealing with all these complexities as our students were also dealing with these complexities as well, and really this intersection of compliance while at the same time people had to deal with all these Yeah.
[00:06:36] Kayla O’Donnell: You know, very intense situations, personal situations, because we are first and foremost, compliance officers, right? That’s not the part of the job that most of us concern to be the favorite part of the job, right? The favorite part of the job is interacting with students, but we do. Serve as compliance officers for the students and for our institutions.
[00:06:56] Kayla O’Donnell: So trying to bridge that gap between these [00:07:00] compliance issues and also these students who were dealing with very real mental health struggles other health struggles during the pandemic and trying to find a way to bring those two things together so that as we were helping these students. deal with the regulations that F1 students have to, you know, adhere to, that we were also making sure we did that in a way that was very compassionate.
[00:07:22] Kayla O’Donnell: And okay, we might not be able to say yes to everything. We might not be able to give the person what they want at first, but what’s the next best solution? Or sometimes what’s a better solution that they haven’t even thought of? So I think really coming at it from that perspective of how do we handle compliance with compassion?
[00:07:38] Kayla O’Donnell: How do we help that student really feel heard? And for me personally, the best way to approach that is to explain the why to them, right? Because so often, especially our international students, they’re hearing what they can and can’t do, but it’s not always explained why that’s the case. And I find our students are really smart, right?
[00:07:57] Kayla O’Donnell: And if you explain to them why you are telling them [00:08:00] what you’re telling them, or why you’re advising them in a certain way, it really helps them put it into context. and better understand it while feeling supported at the same time. So that a no is not just a simple no, it’s an explanation of their particular situation within a larger context to really have them feel that support.
[00:08:18] Coach Kwan: So amazing, let’s say, from Asian cultures, we already see advisors as someone with the authority. And sometimes we are afraid to approach them. So for you to make them feel that they are being heard and supported is so important. And you are so right. Not every time that we can solve all the problems, but we have to explain to them why and respect them as much as they respect us. This is so great. Thank you for sharing.
[00:08:48] Coach Kwan: Josh I am a big fan of your work. Love all your posts on LinkedIn, what you do at the askadso.com. So not only that, you [00:09:00] ensure that your international students at Westcliff University receive support from you and your team, but you are also passionate about this topic. I know that you have expanded your practice called Ask A DSO initiative where students can follow you on LinkedIn and join your group for important tips and news about immigration. So can you please share your experience on balancing compliance and compassion as a DSO?
[00:09:31] Josh Schoonover: Absolutely. It’s a very important topic because both are integral towards properly serving international students. The way that I view it is similar to I’m a professor in the College of Education at West Cliff also, so when I teach classes, I’m grading assignments, I look for ways to give students credit for their papers.
[00:09:50] Josh Schoonover: I don’t look for things to mark down, but rather things to give them credit for. And I view the regulations in the same way. Like, okay, let’s look at the regulations and let’s see how [00:10:00] we can use these to get you to what your ultimate goal is. And it might not always look exactly the way that the student has drawn it out.
[00:10:08] Josh Schoonover: But like Kayla said, there are options for you and we can go through them with empathy, with respect, explain the reasoning why we have to take certain approaches or make certain recommendations. Obviously, of course, there are times when compliance means taking an undesirable action. And that’s something that, Can be done respectfully, of course, with the student and give them the options for beyond their time, maybe with our institution.
[00:10:36] Josh Schoonover: But at the same time, I think it’s really important to keep the other side of the coin in mind. And that’s that being compassionate also means taking into account all the other students that are doing things the right way, are maintaining status, are doing everything that they’re supposed to do, and you don’t want to sacrifice.
[00:10:55] Josh Schoonover: the entire institution for a couple of exceptions along the [00:11:00] way. I actually had one student who transferred into us and he expressed some confusion as to why we had certain documentation for our CPT approval process and said to me actually, My, my last one never had to do this. And I said, yes, your last school shut down.
[00:11:19] Josh Schoonover: They lost their SEVP approval. That’s why you’re here with us. This is never going to happen here. You’re going to graduate from this institution because of these things. So I think that’s really important to keep in mind also.
[00:11:31] Coach Kwan: Great. Sometimes we have to give them the tough love too, right? Awesome. Awesome. Great. Thank you so much for sharing this experience. I’m sure you know, not only advisors who are listening to us feel that they get some tips to support their work, but students also feel like, okay, now they get some tips to carry on what to watch out for and how to prepare for their work authorization in the US as well. [00:12:00] Now let us move on to the next one because this topic, you know, so important. I have heard a lot about students feeling like their questions never get answers because there is no collaboration between different campus partners at the university. So in your opinion, what role does collaboration between different campus offices like academic advising, career services, international student services play in supporting international students?
[00:12:32] Coach Kwan: Can you share a little bit on that?
[00:12:34] Josh Schoonover: Yeah, I think that’s really important and it can benefit the students and the institution. I’ll give a couple of examples of both of those. So I was working with the DSO at a larger institution that shared a story about a student who was having struggles in some class. Was speaking to some well meaning friends who said, Oh, you can withdraw from the course.
[00:12:52] Josh Schoonover: It doesn’t hurt your GPA. But obviously we know in our work with international students, so that drops the student below full course load. [00:13:00] And so this DSO is lamenting that at the end of the term, she saw that he took underneath the full course of credits and had to terminate the SEVIS record. Whereas if there’s some basic measures put into place, A situation like that could be prevented.
[00:13:17] Josh Schoonover: And one of the things we’re fortunate to do at Westcliff is we have a tag, an F1 student tag on the student’s student information system. So when those requests to withdraw a class come in, the registrar immediately flags it, forwards it to international affairs, and then we’re able to reach out to the student and talk to them about the importance of maintaining status.
[00:13:38] Josh Schoonover: And nine times out of 10, the student will then withdraw that. Or they’ll cancel that withdrawal request, I should say. So we’re able to protect their status in that way. But then even from the institution side, it stands to benefit from this collaboration. I’ll use career services as an example. Our career services department has collaborated with us fantastically.
[00:13:58] Josh Schoonover: So now they’re able to [00:14:00] understand who’s eligible to work. When they’re eligible to work, they have a process in place for students to graduate and then return back home and how to document that properly. It helps the students to get the support from career services when they’re eligible to work. It helps the institutions placement rates.
[00:14:18] Josh Schoonover: So all around this, it’s a real win win situation for everybody.
[00:14:21] Coach Kwan: So true. It’s a real win win situation. 100%. Just unfortunate that not all universities have that type of collaboration, right? There’s always a missing piece. Yeah, that’s a great example. Thank you so much for sharing. Kayla, can you share a little bit about the collaboration maybe on your campus and how that’s so important?
[00:14:44] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, so that holistic approach is important for all students, right? But especially for international students, because it’s always about the aim for them, right, have to follow the academic policies and the immigration. They have to follow student accounts, policies and the [00:15:00] regulation. So being looped into those conversations for our students early on is always very helpful.
[00:15:06] Kayla O’Donnell: We’ve been very fortunate that the academic advising office and our career and professional development office have welcomed us into staff meetings so that we can answer frequently asked questions or different sources of misunderstanding that may have popped up to help support them. And that’s really important now because there’s staff turnover in all offices, right?
[00:15:26] Kayla O’Donnell: So we get new staff members in, being able to have information that’s very readily available for them on our website, being able to respond to messages quickly. And for me, The most important thing is to avoid that ping pong effect for students, right, where they go to one office, they get sent to another office, they get sent to another.
[00:15:45] Kayla O’Donnell: So we try to cut down on that, whether it’s getting on the phone with the office that student needs to talk to, or sending an email that’s bringing all these parties together, because a lot of these issues The multiple layers where you need human resources, but you also need the [00:16:00] graduate school and all these different parties that come into play.
[00:16:03] Kayla O’Donnell: So building those really strong relationships, knowing who on your campus also has a real passion for helping international students and can be their advocates in other areas as well is so important. And I’m just very grateful for that collaboration with the other offices on campus.
[00:16:19] Coach Kwan: So important. Thank you so much for this. Holistic support for international students is a must. This is not something that as an option anymore. It needs to be taken seriously. And not just passion from advisors, but also skill sets, also knowledge that you all can share with each other too. I love the discussion on this topic. Now let us talk about some tips that you can share with other institutions. Josh, maybe we can start with you. If you could advise the U. S. higher education institutions on one key area to [00:17:00] focus on to better support international students, what would that be?
[00:17:05] Josh Schoonover: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of institutions on the cutting edge are really Taking this approach of learning for the sake of learning is great. But how are we preparing our graduates to be successful in a professional environment after they graduate, which is a fantastic approach. And there’s ways for us to do that with international students also, and be a bit more realistic about what their plans are after they graduate.
[00:17:31] Josh Schoonover: And I’m not just talking about OPT here, which, which obviously is important, but But international students have goals of getting an H 1B work visa or getting a green card. And I’m not suggesting that Universities start to take on the role of being an immigration attorney and actively filling out the I 539 with anybody or anything like that.
[00:17:50] Josh Schoonover: But we can start to guide international students towards taking the best steps to put themselves in the position where when they do come around for that H 1B or that green card [00:18:00] application, They’re in the best possible position to have a successful application. And that goes down to guidance about maintaining status, work authorizations that they do, the timing of things, you know, we will work with students who we know this is a plan and develop their academic plan in a way where they’re set to graduate in a way where it maximizes the amount of times that they’re eligible for the H 1B lottery.
[00:18:23] Josh Schoonover: So taking a, To Kayla’s point about a holistic approach, think about the student schools after graduation is a huge, huge opportunity for universities out there.
[00:18:33] Coach Kwan: Love that. What about you, Kayla?
[00:18:36] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, for me, I think the number one advice I’d give to other professionals working with international students is the importance of asking probing questions, right? Because whether it be differences in communication styles, language sometimes the question that’s posed to you is not the question that should be asked.
[00:18:54] Kayla O’Donnell: And it’s only through those probing questions that you can really get to the root of, okay, What? Is this [00:19:00] student’s actual goal and how can I get them to it? And especially now students, they have so many ways to get information online, chat GPT. I have students putting immigration questions in chat GPT.
[00:19:11] Kayla O’Donnell: Those are great ways to get reliable answers, but they might be bringing in context where you have to kind of take it apart and figure out, okay, where is this question coming from and how can I best address it to make sure we’re actually talking about the underlying concern here. And I saw in a previous podcast, Kwan, you had a guest, former international student, who said, you know, Oh, I finally decided to tell my advisor what I really wanted, like what my real goal was.
[00:19:36] Kayla O’Donnell: And that’s so important to get to that because only then can we really give them a full answer to help them get to that goal. So probing questions, so important.
[00:19:46] Coach Kwan: Love that. Sometimes we have to treat our students like a client,
[00:19:50] Coach Kwan: right? Sometimes they don’t know what they really need, and our role is to provide that probing question too.
[00:19:58] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, and that includes trust too, [00:20:00] right? You have to build that trust so they feel comfortable with these probing questions, and that’s a more long term thing to build that trust with students, but it will definitely help you get them to a better outcome if you can.
[00:20:10] Josh Schoonover: And if I can just jump in here for a second, I just absolutely love how we’re getting the same questions and we’re just having different answers coming from different sides because I think it’s just, representative of how big this field is and how important it is to have these discussions because she’s looking at advising questions.
[00:20:27] Josh Schoonover: I’m looking at post graduation and all of this is true and that doesn’t even take into account the nine other things that we could have answered this question with. So I, I’m loving this conversation here.
[00:20:38] Coach Kwan: We can spend an hour on this question.
[00:20:42] Josh Schoonover: Let’s do it. I’ll come back at two o’clock. Let’s do it.
[00:20:45] Coach Kwan: Let’s do that. Cancel all appointments this afternoon. Yeah, I, I do agree. You know, it’s like students life cycle, right? They arrived on campus. And the university does not only deal with [00:21:00] that F 1 visa or J 1 visa, it’s about the ongoing support, even post graduation. Help them plan that post OPT work authorization is important as well, and also have soft skills to support them too. Love it. Thank you. Thank you. Now we’re almost at the end of this episode today. Is there anything else that you would like to share? About your work or any insights into supporting international students that we haven’t covered today. Josh, anything else that you would like to talk about?
[00:21:38] Josh Schoonover: Yeah, I just want to bring to light that obviously we’re living in a divided time. And as we’re airing this, there’s elections going on and everything. And one of the things that I’m seeing more and more is that international students disproportionately carry a large load in keeping the American dream alive.
[00:21:56] Josh Schoonover: And. The American dream isn’t something that I hear discussed in [00:22:00] my peer group. It’s not something that did staff coming out of college, that this is their first job. It’s not something that they’re talking about, but international students are so passionate about it. And they’re the ones that are keeping the American dream going.
[00:22:13] Josh Schoonover: And so. Don’t get me wrong. I got an education to serve people and I really hope that a lot of international students come here and they get their American education and they go back to their home countries and they do amazing things, but selfishly, I want them here. Because the United States is better with international students.
[00:22:32] Josh Schoonover: And if you’re an international student, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
[00:22:36] Coach Kwan: Cool. That is so important. What about you Kayla?
[00:22:41] Kayla O’Donnell: Yeah, I would say for anyone who’s thinking about getting into this field professionally, I highly encourage you to do so. It’s a field where every day will be different. You will wear many hats. You will get many different experiences. And most importantly, you’ll meet some truly incredible students from all different walks of life who have all different kinds of [00:23:00] goals.
[00:23:00] Kayla O’Donnell: And they’re really just so so dedicated to that mission and for any students who may be listening, please reach out to your DSO anytime you have a question because in my experience, DSOs across all institutions, they’re there because they want to help international students. They are your biggest advocate.
[00:23:17] Kayla O’Donnell: They’re in this day in and day out. So don’t hesitate to reach out to your DSO if you have a question. They really wanna help support you and make sure that you have a successful time here while you’re a student and beyond, right? Once you’re on OPT or STEM OPT or even after that. I always love hearing back from former students what they’re up to now.
[00:23:36] Kayla O’Donnell: So please do take advantage of everything that your school and your DSO has to offer you. What, during your time here,
[00:23:43] Coach Kwan: That’s amazing. Yes. Don’t hesitate to reach out to your DSO for questions. You can , you know, use all the social media, but the person will know your status very well and give you the right answer is your DSO. Kayla. Like, [00:24:00] if our listeners today want to follow your work and get in touch with you, what would be the best way for them to follow your work?
[00:24:07] Kayla O’Donnell: institution has an Instagram at you, Albany ISSS but you could also reach out to me directly at K-M O-D-N-N-E l@albany.edu. I’d be happy to hear from any listeners.
[00:24:20] Coach Kwan: That is so kind of you. And what about you, Josh? I know, you know, not all students receive enough support from their DSO. What about students that need some additional support? Do you have any resources for them?
[00:24:36] Josh Schoonover: Yeah, absolutely. And to Kayla’s point about asking the DSO, it’s so important that I literally named my company, ask a DSO.
[00:24:42] Josh Schoonover: And so you can visit my website, ask a DSO. com for information about how to get added to my, Free weekly newsletter. I have a online community that’s specifically dedicated towards international students.
[00:24:55] Josh Schoonover: So you know, to go on Facebook or on Reddit subgroups, you can go to a community [00:25:00] that’s housed by A DSO, somebody that can give you a regulatory based answer. So that’s called the American Dream Society because to my point, you know, this is what our international students are here to do. And I want to help.
[00:25:12] Josh Schoonover: So ask a DSO. com. You can also find me at LinkedIn at Josh Schoonover
[00:25:17] Coach Kwan: perfect. And I will leave all the links, and your website in the caption of this podcast episode so that the listeners can follow your work. Awesome. Well, I learned a lot from our discussion today and also get so inspired, by your work and your dedication to supporting international students. Thank you again for your insights today. It’s such a pleasure having both of you on the show.
[00:25:42] Kayla O’Donnell: thanks so much. It was great listening to you both and hear all your insights as well. I learned a lot myself.
[00:25:48] Josh Schoonover: Pleasure has been all mine. Thank you for having me. Coach Kwan. It’s been awesome.
[00:25:51] Coach Kwan: If you enjoyed this episode, follow our channel and share your positive thoughts with a review. Your support helps others find [00:26:00] us. Thank you for tuning in and being part of our ICAway community. Have a great day and I will see you next time. Think big and live your dream.
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