UC Davis currently hosts 1,400 international students and 1,200 international scholars,

Previous Issues New Software Web Site USA Patriot Act Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act Immigration and Naturalization Services Banner Student Information System FsaAtlas from NewFront Software Communication Resources Services for International Students and Scholars EDUCAUSE The Chronicle of Higher Education New Software Web Site

and those numbers are growing every year. Beyond financial contributions to the campus, international students and scholars enhance both the academic and cultural atmosphere on campus, raising the level of teaching, research and learning on campus.

In order to guarantee the place of these international students and scholars at UC Davis, the campus must comply with new federal laws. The USA Patriot Act, passed just shortly after September 11, 2001, introduced changes in the way the nation’s campuses are required to track international students, scholars, and exchange visitors.

Even prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, the federal government was concerned with keeping a database of visitors to U.S. Educational Institutions. In 1996, when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, the federal government mandated the creation of an electronic database that can track international students and scholars to ensure that requirements of their visas are being met. Prior to and since 1996, campuses nationwide collected information on their students and reported it to Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) only upon the INS' request. Campuses gathered this information using their own preferred systems and processes, many of which involved completing and maintaining paper-based forms and records. Now with the new requirements in place, campuses will be required to automatically report their information and use the information-tracking system preferred by INS, called SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System).

By summer of 2000, a federal task force had created SEVIS for the INS. SEVIS was designed to centralize student-tracking information from all institutions at the INS. It is a Web-based database to which campuses can either link their own student information systems, or directly manually enter such information. SEVIS changes the types of information campuses must track; now records of visitors' spouses and children must be kept, as well.

The system was still in pilot version when Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in fall of 2001. The Patriot Act ordered that the INS coordinate all educational institutions to use SEVIS for student tracking by January 31, 2003. Even with a recent deadline extension to February 15, this has been a tall order for many colleges, since the new information system has not yet been perfected. For example, SEVIS initially did not allow campuses to interface their own information databases with the federal system, which, given the relatively rushed deadline, creates significant administrative and monetary demands. As a result, the INS has been working to ensure that individual campuses would be able to leverage their existing database technologies to satisfy the Patriot Act.

UC Davis Acts Quickly
In the past year, the campus has worked carefully to establish an infrastructure capable of tracking students in the way the government requires. UC Davis began its process of compliance in the summer of 2002 when a workgroup was formed by Vice Provost John Bruno, Vice Provost William Lacy, and Assistant Vice Chancellor Jan Gong. The workgroup examined the new federal rules, the UC Davis information systems already in use (such as the Banner Student Information System), and the amount of data currently collected by those systems. To accomplish the task of reporting information to the INS, the workgroup made every effort to leverage the technology already in use on campus and worked with other campus units in proposing the changes to campus business processes, policies and systems necessary for meeting the new federal mandate.

Getting the Technology in Place
In the process of weaving campus data into SEVIS, UC Davis considered immigration information system products and eventually settled on one called FsaAtlas from NewFront Software in October 2002. The FsaAltas system was selected because it successfully manages the information the campus must collect, and it also provides a buffer system that allows designated campus officials to verify accuracy of that information before transmitting it to the INS. “The FsaAtlas system is also easy for end-users to navigate,” says Kent Kuo, Associate Director of Communication Resources, IET, who was instrumental in choosing the new immigration system and installing it in the central campus data center.

This newly-installed system will provide the support necessary for managing all of the visa-holding populations on campus. It will also manage special processes necessary to support the tracking and reporting of SEVIS reportable events (such as a change in address, academic status or employment status) to the INS.

The project team expects that all existing student, scholar, and exchange visitor information will be converted over to FsaAtlas by late April. Anne George, Interim Co-Director for Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS) on campus, says that SEVIS will eventually make administrative demands easier, thus making it easier to welcome our campus’ valuable visitors. “Once SEVIS is fully operational,” she explains, “applications for work authorization, change of status and new or replacement documentation will be handled electronically resulting in faster processing of applications.” This will help UC Davis attract and retain international students and scholars that are so integral to the success of this campus.

For a thorough background about the USA Patriot Act as it affects college campuses, search the article archives at EDUCAUSE and The Chronicle of Higher Education, both publications that have covered this issue closely, and from which this article borrows.

Kent Kuo (IET) and Anne George (SISS) contributed to this article.