International Student and Scholar Services

Abe Schafermeyer, Director
541-346-3206
333 Oregon Hall

International Student and Scholar Services provides advising to international students and scholars regarding visa matters, questions about the Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, academic English support services, admission inquiries, housing options, employment opportunities, tax issues, and scholarship aid. In addition, confidential academic and personal counseling is offered to help students adjust to life in the United States.

Each term, this unit organizes a comprehensive orientation event to help familiarize students with the university and community. More than 1,200 students participate in the orientations each year. The Friendship Foundation for International Students, a community organization that works in concert with International Student and Scholar Services, provides short home-stay programs for students participating in the orientation event. The office also helps coordinate the International Friend Program, which introduces international students to local families, and the Conversation Friend Program, in which students may practice their English skills one-on-one with a native speaker of U.S. English.

This unit also administers $1.6 million worth of scholarship programs for international students, among them the International Cultural Service Program. Each of the forty to fifty students in the program provide eighty hours per year of cultural and educational service to Eugene-Springfield K–12 schools, nonprofit organizations, and other community groups.