Hosting and Employing Foreign Nationals
Foreign nationals are invited to the University of Illinois at Springfield for many reasons:
- For permanent or temporary employment;
- As a guest speaker or artist;
- As a visiting scholar, either paid or unpaid;
- As a symposium or conference participant;
- Or for short-term collaboration.
Regardless of the reason visa problems may arise which can cause travel delays, problems with payment and even the cancellation of plans. For example if your guest speaker arrives without the appropriate visa you may not be able to pay them. Or the visiting scholar you’ve invited to campus experiences difficulties at the U.S. embassy or consulate in obtaining his/her visa and arrives late. Or the faculty member you want to hire for a tenure track position is in the states on a visa that makes the hire difficult or even impossible.
In order to head off these and other problems you need to contact the Study Away Program before you extend an invitation or offer. We can’t eliminate all problems but we can help with most.