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Recent News - Spring 2025

This spring we have a lot of news to share! In addition to to winning an award from Travel Portland (see the full article elsewhere on the page), our team has been and will be traveling all over the world to create new partnerships and bring more types of students to our programs! Our Director, Karin Tittelbach was able to travel to Mérida, Mexico along with a cohort from English USA to meet various universities and high schools. She has also been traveling across Turkey to meet with many types of schools, Education USA staff, and various agencies to recruit students both for International Special Programs and Portland State University degree programs. In addition to travels abroad, Paul Braun, our Program & Marketing Manager, will be attending the NAFSA (Association of International Educators) conference in San Diego to meet with new and existing partners and catch up on the latest news and trends in the field. While Paul was not able to attend the 2025 TESOL conference, our colleague Monika Mulder from the Portland Center presented on behalf of the PSU team (which also included Julia Tillinghast, a regular ISP instructor) on “Exploring, Not Ignoring Social Issues in the ESL classroom”.

 

Karin with students at a Turkish High School


 

Featured News

On May 8th, 2025, International Special Programs was officially awarded the 2024 International Impact Award from Travel Portland for our significant contribution to Portland’s international visitation, appeal or profile. According to Travel Portland “This year's award winner is making inroads in the hearts and minds of international students who want to delve into all that is Portland. Beyond providing language building opportunities and excursions, this program engages in community building that is baked into the DNA of Portland. Volunteer work at places like Oregon Food Bank, Blanchet House and Children's Book Bank and PDX Restore, infuses Portland spirit into these curious scholars. They learn from nonprofits, entrepreneurs, sustainability experts, and locals alike. Packing up and transporting the ideas of Portland back home to share and inspire others to come and learn.”

Our team was honored to receive this award, and were thrilled to be joined by Michele Toppe, Vice-Provost for Student Affairs, who accepted on behalf of Director Karin Tittelbach who was recruiting abroad during the event.  (Photo credit to Kim Nguyen, Photos by Kim)

Michele Toppe accepting the award