CHICAGO — October 13, 2017 — IES Abroad, the leading not-for-profit study abroad program provider, announced the recipients of its 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, Professional Development Award, and Volunteer of the Year Award last night at its Annual Conference Awards Dinner in Chicago.
The IES Abroad Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Jacqueline Levine, Assistant Dean and Director of Special Projects at the Dean’s Office at the University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. She studied French linguistics and literature at the Universite de Nice before completing her A.A. in Liberal Arts at Monroe Community College. She earned both her B.S. in Humanities (French and German) and her M.A. in French from the University of Rochester. She also speaks five languages including English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. She served as the Assistant Dean and Director of Study Abroad at the University of Rochester for more than 30 years before transitioning into her current role as Assistant Dean and Director of Special Projects at the Dean’s Office. Since 2016 she has worked with the university’s advancement department focusing on alums who studied abroad. Levine has been active as a member of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), NAFSA: Association of International Educators, and as the institutional representative from the University of Rochester for close to 30 years. She has presented at numerous conferences including AIEA, NAFSA and the IES Abroad Annual Conference. She has also served as an ex-officio voting member of the IES Abroad Academic Council. For her contributions to the field, she was recognized with the IES Abroad Professional Development Award in 2001.
The IES Abroad Professional Development Award was awarded to Kelly O’Sullivan Sommer, Director of Study Abroad at the University of California in San Diego (UC San Diego). She received her B.A. from UC San Diego in Literature with an emphasis in Russian, and her M.A. from San Diego State University in Educational Leadership. She has worked for more than 20 years at UC San Diego and in their International Center since 2004. Throughout her career, O’Sullivan Sommer has shown deep commitment to expanding access and affordability for students underrepresented in study abroad, including those in underrepresented ethnicities, majors, and gender. This is evidenced by her early partnership with Diversity Abroad; her innovative outreach efforts to STEM majors, transfer students, and athletes; and her commitment of UC San Diego to the Institute of International Education (IIE) Generation Study Abroad initiative. Additionally, O’Sullivan Sommer has increased study abroad scholarships for UC San Diego students from the student government committee who, as a result of O’Sullivan Sommer’s appeal, approved $150,000 for study abroad scholarships in the past three years. She successfully advocated for the Office of Institutional Research at UC San Diego to conduct time-to-degree studies, which consistently demonstrated that students who study abroad have a much better on-time graduation rate than those who do not.
The IES Abroad Volunteer of the Year Award was given to Stacey Shimizu, Director of the International Office at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Ill. She has dedicated more than 20 years to the field of higher education. She began teaching English, Women’s Studies, and Environmental studies at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1995. She simultaneously served in multiple other roles through her years at the university including a semester as the Assistant to the Director at Illinois Wesleyan University’s London Program, six years as Assistant Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, and 11 years in her current role as Director of the International Office. Through participation in IES Abroad Familiarization Trips to Barcelona, Madrid, Salamanca, and Dublin, Shimizu has demonstrated her deep level of interest in IES Abroad programming, and has cultivated a thorough understanding of study abroad programs in order to provide excellent advising to Illinois Wesleyan students. Shimizu has been very active in IES Abroad on both the Program Planning Committee and the Nominations Committee in 2010, and on the Institutional Membership Committee from 2015-17.
IES Abroad presents these three prestigious leadership awards at its Annual Conference each year to recognize study abroad professionals’ substantial contributions and achievements to the field.
