2021 Recipient

Kristen Hagen
Florida State University

“Kristen is the type of colleague and mentor young and seasoned ISSS professionals look up to for her knowledge, kindness, and patience. Her commitment to our field has been immense and her retirement, while a loss for us, is well-deserved.”

“In my 25 years in the same field, I have not met anyone who has better exemplified the true spirit of international education better than Kristen Hagen, and always demonstrating it with the kind, calming and cheerful attitude so characteristic of her. She has dedicated her entire career to serving international students and faculty and supporting the internationalization of our campus.”

2020* Recipient

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Allison LeClere
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Haslam College of Business

“Allison is committed, conscientious, and – in the most laudable of ways – tenacious. Her creative approaches to international student and scholar engagement were demonstrated many times over through her accomplishments”

*No 2021 recipient was selected for this award.

2021 Recipient

Gladys Belkis Ortiz de Moya
Mesón de Amor

"She represents the best of the values of Puerto Ricans who, like her, bet on the value of the students in the future development of our country and its outlook on the world.”

"Mesón de Amor is a community project of C.A.F.E. (Casa de Amor, Fe y Esperanza), whose purpose is to provide hot dinner and supplies, free of charge, to the low-income university population of the Rio Piedras area. The organization, led by Pastor Belkis Ortiz de Moya, offers services to students from various University of Puerto Rico campuses, as well as various private university campuses around the island. 

"In a regular semester, they offer between 100 and 140 lunches daily to students in the cafeteria they have had for years in a building very close to campus. International students have always been welcome. 'It is an extended family, and we are together feeding the future of Puerto Rico, who are our university students,' said Ortiz de Moya."

2021 Recipient

Christina Thompson
Barcelona SAE

“Her enthusiasm in finding ways to make different populations of students get information on programs that are available to them and how to access funds to take part in such programs is unparalleled.”

"She shines a mirror unto us all so that we can examine that which we can change and provides action steps to do so. Christina can do this because she thrives on taking on difficult challenges to create more equitable practices and policies that benefit the students that we serve, the colleagues that we work with, and global education as a whole."