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            In March, Rita Haider, director of Shawnee State University’s Center for International Programs and Activities traveled to Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX), administers of the Global UGRAD (Global Undergraduate Exchange) program for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
            IREX requested that she send a resume to them to work with the UGRAD program because of SSU’s affiliation with the program in the Central Asian countries. Haider was selected to go to join a panel to interview students for the UGRAD program. She, along with a Fulbright scholar and other UGRAD students, traveled to review all the applications and make recommendations for the program.
            “We had close to 30 student applications in each country,” Haider said. “After all that, more students were eliminated and we ended up with 11 from each country.”
After the final selections are made, the panel then conducted face-to-face interviews. The final scores go back to the American Embassy and they make the final determination of the students who will study in the United States.
            Most of her days were filled with reading applications and interviewing students and after traveling to both countries and completing the interviews, she had one day to sightsee out of the 10-day trip.
           “It was a whirlwind,” Haider said.