“I will be recruiting for UIS in China, Vietnam, and Japan next month after collecting as much as admission videos as I could,” said Anna Bradford (Photo), one of the admissions counselors at UIS who sincerely cares about school recruitment and students’ wellness.
With over five years of experience with living abroad, Bradford used to be an English teacher in Japan. She taught pre-school during the daytime, after school classes during evenings, and classes for adults at nights. Bradford understood the difficulties of being an international student and how legal support is significant to these students.
“I remember the days how I miss my home and questioning my decision of living in Japan,” she said, “And I also remember the days I had to pay for the most expensive health insurance when I was earning very little money, because the people hosted me didn’t know about Japanese legal stuffs towards internationals.”
Before joining UIS, Bradford was a case worker at the Department of Child and Family Service (D.C.F.S) in Springfield, which taught her the appropriate method to protect people and provide assistance if needed. “However, when this job came up for the university, I wanted to do it because I miss internationals and being in the climate of cultures,” she said.
Bradford disclosed that her passion for helping international students came from her family, especially her father, who loves to meet people from different places and embraces diversity. Her father was so excited every time she brought international friends back home and “ask millions of questions about their particular culture”.
In the hopes of recruiting more international students in order to increase the cultural diversity at UIS, Bradford is devoting herself to recording videos of international students studying a variety of fields, who have come from a variety of countries. With this view of UIS, potential international students have the opportunity to virtually meet people and have a tour of the campus digitally.
“I took different videos in different places, such as the Student Union, the library, and University Hall Building (UHB),” said Bradford, “I want them to have the idea of how the campus looks like, and the idea of different students and different countries that are here, and to get someone’s personal experiences.”
If you are interested in helping increase diversity at UIS, please email [email protected]