EducationUSA Helping Canadians with their educational goals EducationUSA is a U.S. Department of State network which promotes U.S. higher education by offering accurate, comprehensive, and current information about opportunities to study at accredited postsecondary institutions in the United States. EducationUSA also provides services to the U.S. higher education community to help institutional leaders meet their recruitment and campus internationalization goals. Throughout the 2021 fiscal year, EducationUSA ran all programming and advising remotely. We ran nine EducationUSA virtual Showcases to highlight diverse U.S. study opportunities, such as arts schools, historically black universities and colleges (HBCUs), community colleges, health sciences, and hockey programs. In total, 70 diverse U.S. higher education institutions (HEIs) to 746 students. Additionally, EducationUSA embarked on new community partnerships to present to diverse communities including an HBCU presentation to the Vaughan African Canadian Association and bilingual Mandarin and Cantonese webinars to the Chinese community of Vancouver. EducationUSA Adviser Jenika Heim icollaborated with EducationUSA colleagues internationally. Jenika Heim represented the EducationUSA network at multiple virtual conferences (EducationUSA Forum 2020 and 2021 and IC3), held two regional training sessions, and assisted with the promotion and organization of regional webinars. One-on-one advising remains central to EducationUSA activities. To facilitate the ever-increasing number of student contacts, Jenika Heim launched a peer mentorship program in July 2021, matching 18 former EducationUSA students with students currently applying to U.S. universities. The program has successfully fostered peer relationships and we look forward to expanding this program in 2022. EducationUSA continues to support to two student interns through the U.S. State Department’s Virtual Student Foreign Service program. These two interns have worked diligently on maintaining strong social media presence and website updates while also continuing to improve these channels. Most notably, our website intern used her graphic design skills to refresh the look and flow of our website.
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