It would be a difficult task to fully express how much IUHPFL has meant to me personally and professionally. I have witnessed up close how this work transforms the lives of young students and sets them on a path to greater opportunities and personal enrichment. It has been my honor to serve as Managing Director, and I will miss many aspects of this position, in particular the opportunity to meet and collaborate with so many terrific people here in Indiana and abroad. These years have been incredibly transformative for me, as well, and will be counted among the most memorable of my life.
A Word From Outgoing Managing Director, Loni Dishong
When I reflect on all that we have accomplished for IUHPFL during these past nine years, the list is long. However, a handful of achievements stand out more than others, such as:
- Our encouragement of students with wide-ranging proficiency levels – from Emerging to Heritage Speaker – to participate in our programs and our ability to accommodate their needs
- Our success in recruiting more underrepresented students than ever before in our history
- The addition of our Osaka, Japan program and Japanese as an IUHPFL target language
- Our move from Germany to Austria with the establishment of the Graz program
The formalization of Community Engagement as the 4th Pillar of IUHPFL with a variety of these kinds of activities now well established in all our current programs - The ongoing modernization and streamlining of our registration, application, and onboarding processes, and
- Our ability to withstand, through cooperation and effective strategizing with our IU partners, the unprecedented cancellation of programming for two consecutive years as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In light of all that we have managed to achieve in less than a decade combined with the strong leadership that continues at the helm, I have a great deal of optimism for the future of this wonderful and rare high school language immersion program. The enthusiasm and support it continues to receive from all of you is heartwarming, and it shows how dedicated you are to helping to ensure its longevity for future generations. THANK YOU for sharing this amazing journey with me. I will miss you all and I hope that our paths will cross again.
Warm regards,
Loni Dishong