Nov 3 - 4 | Denver, CO | Crowne Plaza Denver

Study Abroad and ISSS Boot Camps will be held in correlation with the NAFSA Tri-Regional this Fall. These basic training workshops guide you through exercises that teach core features for building your site and completing daily tasks and processes. As a participant, you will receive access to your own Terra Dotta software test site for 30 days. You will start with a blank copy of the software and wind up with a complete site similar to those used in real-world applications.

Learn more and register today!

April 16 - 18 | Pittsburgh, PA | Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square

The 2018 Terra Dotta Global User Conference (TDU Global) will be filled with many new and exciting activities. Here is a sneak peek at what you can expect:

• Keynote Speaker at the Opening Plenary on Monday, April 16
• Tech Talk - a 2 hour open room session with TD executives Brandon Lee (CEO), Brendan Haggerty (CTO), & Garrett Christian (CSO)
• Table Top Exercises on risk situations with risk experts from iJET (TD’s partner for the new AlertTraveler solution)
• TDS Guru Sign-Ups for one-on-one Q&A with a TD professional to answer your burning questions

Excited for more? We are too! The TDU Global Conference innovations don’t stop there. Our general agenda of sessions is changing gears. We are putting a core focus on idea exchange with real world examples, interactivity, panels, and roundtables. Pre-conference workshops are the best option for hands-on training opportunities. There will be categories for you to find the workshop that fits your needs.

• Risk in Real Life: Using TDS to Manage Emergencies Abroad
• Permission Management
• Scripting & Styling Your Site Like a Pro: Beginners Can Code Too
• Program Proposals and Faculty Orientation
• Creating AlertTravelers with TDS
• Incident Reporting
• Itineraries: Tips, Tricks, and Tools
• OneStep vs. Traditional Registrations
• I'm Live! Now What?
• Onboarding Best Practices
• Prospect Inquiry - Use Cases
• Queries and Query Watches: Creative Client Uses

We can’t wait to see everyone in Pittsburgh April 16-18, 2018!

Save the date now & look out for registration & call for proposals to open in September!

AlertTraveler is Terra Dotta's system to help keep your travelers safe and to provide you with tools to act during times of crisis. Because AlertTraveler is integrated with Terra Dotta software (TDS), it is the only service of its kind that can directly access the itinerary information already stored in TDS. Combined with GPS information from the AlertTraveler mobile app, you have the opportunity to view where your travelers are supposed to be, and where they actually are during a crisis.

AlertTraveler allows you to send alerts and check-in requests through push-notifications, email, and beginning in September, SMS text messaging. These multiple modes of communication greatly increase the chances of getting your message through.

AlertTraveler is an add-on subscription service for Terra Dotta clients and is designed to fill a central role as part of your emergency preparedness plan. We are still offering an introductory discount price that can be locked in for three years, but this offer will end soon.

If you would like to see a demonstration of this powerful system, email services@terradotta.com!

The first half of this year has been anything but calm for our colleagues in international admissions offices. A season normally suspenseful as they await students’ enrollment confirmations, has had that suspense exacerbated by events at home and abroad.

By now, most of us are familiar with the statistic: “Nearly 40 percent of U.S. colleges are seeing declines in applications from international students….”¹ That statement, according to a joint survey by AACRAO, IACAC, IIE, NACAC and NAFSA, spread like wildfire this past March. It was picked up by numerous international education publications, news magazines and major newspapers across the U.S.; overseas, the Hindustan Times and Times Higher Education picked up the story. A Google search on the basics of this quote brings up pages of results. Other findings of the survey were mere afterthoughts.

One month before, Science magazine ran a story describing possible doom due to a drop in foreign graduate applications in computer science and engineering.² The article appeared just a few weeks after the first travel ban issued by President Trump, although the drop was presumed to be more in reaction to candidate Trump’s “anti-immigrant rhetoric” than the bans. Either way, for departments increasingly dependent on international enrollments, the lower numbers admitted by several leading universities no doubt caused concerns in both administrative and academic offices.

Read the full article >

Susan Young is Terra Dotta’s new Chief Financial Officer. She is responsible for being the CEO’s business partner on strategic and tactical matters as they relate to the Finance, Legal, and HR matters for Terra Dotta. Her duties include the day-to-day finance and accounting management including forecasting, budgeting, and long-range planning. She also is in charge of maintaining and improving the Human Resources & Legal functions.

Prior to Terra Dotta, Susan was the CFO of MarVista Entertainment, the largest independent movie production & distribution studio. They produced movies primarily for television with distribution to Lifetime, Hallmark, Disney Channel, etc. Prior to that, she was CFO of Explorica, Inc., a global student travel company. And, before that, she held finance roles at Stryker Biotech, Kodak, EDS, and Xerox. At Kodak, she had a 3-year expat posting where she lived in the UK and Switzerland. Susan brings over 20 years of experience to Terra Dotta!

Susan received an MBA from Syracuse University and a BS in Finance from Clarkson University. As an avid traveler, Susan has been to all 7 continents (yes, that includes Antarctica!) and all 50 states. She loves adventure travel and her favorite trips include Antarctica, seeing the polar bears in Svalbard, and going on a safari in Botswana. One vacation spot she wants to add to her collection is Madagascar.

When asked about her enthusiasm for joining Terra Dotta, Susan replied “I enjoy being a part of an organization that enables students to experience life outside the US.”

Big changes have come to the directory. In this webinar, we will show providers what has changed and how they can make the most of the new funtionality available to them. In particular, we will cover program itineraries, the date management utility and a handy new batch-flagging feature. In addition, we'll show providers what things look like from the administrator's perspective, including a greatly enhanced preview of program updates and an option to randomize program listings.

AUGUST 16 3:00 PM EDT

During this webinar you will learn how to implement tabbed program brochures in TDS. Covering the process from beginning to end, we will set up the tabs, test their look and feel, and explore their functionality once added to program brochure pages.

AUGUST 23 4:00 PM EDT

Your Terra Dotta software is the repository for your key data. Learn how to get the information you need by using Terra Dotta's built-in reporting capabilities. This session will look at the types of reports you can generate and give pointers on how to create, save, modify, and share them. We will also review common helpful reports.

SEPTEMBER 13 4:00 PM EDT

Learn how an advisor can quickly take a few simple steps in TDS to initiate SEVIS updates such as terminations, cancellations, and other administrative SEVIS actions that do not originate with a student or scholar. This can also come in handy, for example, if you have an advisee who might not initiate a request online in TDS.

SEPTEMBER 19 11:00 AM EDT

Click here for a list of all upcoming webinars.