Office of International Services

International Services

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⇒ About OIS ⇒ Mission and Goals

Mission and Goals

Mission Statement

The mission of the Office of International Services is to foster cross-cultural understanding and enable international students and scholars to accomplish their educational, social, and professional objectives at Indiana University.  We achieve these goals through a wide range of quality services including immigration and financial advising, on-going orientation, and cultural programs.

Guiding Principles

The Office of International Services (OIS) strives for excellence by shaping its culture through clearly defined guiding principles, which include:

• Employing a strategic planning process that engages all staff and aligns work effort, structure, and resources
• Ensuring effective internal communication and coordination of office operations
• Promoting international student and scholar access to U.S. higher education and ever-expanding opportunities to meet the objectives of their stay
• Ensuring that staff have the means to remain up-to-date in their areas of expertise, as well as appropriate opportunities to expand their knowledge, skills, and competencies
• Creating flexible systems and structures to enable all staff to be empowered and accountable in a team-based environment

2008-09 Goals

1. Continue to enhance the provision of programs and services designed to meet the unique needs of IU’s international students, faculty, and staff—at IUB, and on the other IU campuses where OIS has direct student and scholar responsibility.
2. Develop a comprehensive strategy to expand the IC’s educational programming and foster greater usage and participation by the international student community.
3. Extend the iStart online services and the OIS and International Center website presence for web 2.0 and new media technologies.
4. Review and assess roles and responsibilities of the OIS Administrative, Core, and Advising teams in order to most effectively utilize member strengths and improve overall functioning of the office.
5. Determine and implement new or improved financial and administrative processes in order to meet the office’s financial obligations, facilitate empowerment and accountability of area managers and staff, and ensure compliance with IU policies and procedures.
6. Develop and implement tools for non-OIS constituencies, both internal to IU (i.e. IEP, IUPUI, Overseas Studies, etc.) and external (i.e. iOffice client schools), in order to manage iOffice related services and products.
7. Develop an annual international student and scholar satisfaction assessment strategy that also allows for periodic in-depth review of a particular program or service.
8. Develop and implement a professional development and training planning tool for each team within OIS.
9. Explore establishment of a sponsored student staffing structure to better meet the needs of overseas governments and multinational corporations providing scholarships for undergraduate and graduate study in the U.S. for their highest quality students.
10. Expand, upgrade, and enhance the core iOffice software platform with major upgrades of underlying infrastructure components.