My turn as the rock star

As I have mentioned before, the International Student Office is NOT my favorite entity on campus. They made a series of mistakes for my student, Udara, regarding his ability to take an internship (CPT). In July, they said it was okay. In August, they approved it (and he moved his wife and family to SLC). In October, they told him there had been a mistake, but that they would just "go forward". The contention was the the CPT was not integral to his degree as he had finished his coursework and was, therefore, illegal. They didn't tell him they wouldn't approve the internship for another semester. They didn't tell him that to change his status to an pre-OPT (rather than a CPT) would take four months. In January, he asked to have it extended, and they approved it. Then, the end of January, they tell him he is out of compliance, he needs to quit working, he needs to move back to campus.

They took no responsibility for their mistakes. In their view, it was his fault that he didn't understand what he should have done. (Even though our secretary, who is brilliant, didn't understand their messages either.) They didn't care that he would lose $25K in salary. They told me there was nothing I could do to alter his status. Udara told me it was the worse thing that has every happened to him. He had planned to move back to Sri Lanka so his kids wouldn't be in danger of being outside the law.

I actually lost a lot of sleep over this. Literally. One night, I read "The Chosen One", about a girl who needs to escape from a very bad situation. I finished the book and kept being flooded with the thought, "That is Udara. He is in a very bad situation. He can't resolve it without someone else to help me. That is my responsibility." I kept replaying the events over and over in my mind. Each time, it was even harder to believe that there was nothing that would make a difference.

So I met with ISO to see what could be done. They told me there was nothing I could do. In the course of the discussion, however, they told me if he took a masters as an intermediate degree, he could apply for OPT (which is done after completion of a degree). We made plans for that to happen. Normally our PhD students don't get a masters degree, even though it is common elsewhere. Anyway, as I looked into getting him the intermediate degree, I discovered something. If we gave him a degree, we could put the CPT credits as a requirement for the masters degree, and voila, the CPT was integral and he was back in compliance.

They weren't happy with me for finding the loop hole, but Udara was magically back in compliance and could go back to work. He was one happy fellow.

I came out looking like a rock star. ISO came out looking like jerks.