CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — After months of waiting through uncertainty, Shuo “Erica” Wang, the associate director for Global Relations at Illinois International, assumed she did not receive the Fulbright International Education Administrator (IEA) Award.
She applied for the Fulbright International Education Administrator (IEA) Award to Japan, which happened to be incredibly competitive.
“The funny thing is, I knew all Fulbright awards are very competitive, but I didn’t realize that the Japan program only accepts seven applicants,” Wang chuckled. “When April rolled around and I still didn’t hear anything I figured it wasn’t happening.”
Wang was disappointed when she didn’t hear back by the time April came. She applied to the program because she knew it would help strengthen her knowledge on the higher education system in Japan as a global partner, something that is important to have in her role.
What Wang didn’t realize at the time was that she just had to wait for the end of April— that’s when she found out she won the award.
Wang spent two weeks in Tokyo this summer learning about Japan’s higher education system after receiving a Fulbright International Education Administrator (IEA) Award.
This award is a fully funded, two-week immersive seminar for U.S. higher education administrators that takes place in a participating country.
Wang was one of seven individuals who participated in the 2025 Fulbright IEA. Program hosted by the Japan-United States Educational Commission (JUSEC).
While in Japan she visited six different college and university campuses, including Illinios’ partners such as University of Tokyo and Waseda University, and networked with faculty, administrators, and leaders at those institutions. She also met with leading educational experts and government officials and visited several historical and cultural sites throughoutJapan.
Wang heard about this program from Global Relations Director Sammer Jones and Lauren Karplus, the assistant director of international programs inside the College of Agricultural, Consumer, & Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Jones is a Fulbright Liaison on campus and an alumna of the IEA program (she received a Fulbright IEA Award to Germany).
Karplus is also an alumna of the program, receiving the Fulbright IEA Award to India.
After hearing from Jones and Karplus about their positive experiences, Wang decided to apply.
“Sammer and Lauren were actually my two references,” Wang said. “They are the people who supported me and advocated for me, and I was able to submit my application with their support. I’m appreciative of that.”
There were several host countries Wang could have applied to, but she said she chose Japan
primarily because of the strategic partnership Illinois shares with Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, and the Fulbright IEA Program is a perfect opportunity to expand her knowledge of Japan’s higher education systems.
“I have never traveled to Japan in a professional capacity. I’ve kept hearing different things from colleagues in Kyushu about the staff rotation system, so I wanted to know how that works,” Wang said. “Both countries have similar challenges like an aging populous, gender inequality, and the internationalization of higher education, and all those shared challenges, those global challenges made me very curious and that’s why I wanted to learn from my peers in Japan.”
Wang arrived in Tokyo on June 15 and spent her two weeks completely immersed in new-found knowledge. She said one of the things that made the seminar so valuable was the variety of perspectives she, and her cohort, were exposed to.
"At MEXT, for example, I learned about how Japan is using digital technology to reimagine university administration and how staff exchange programs could build stronger bridges between U.S. and Japanese institutions. Visiting campuses like Sophia, Tsuda, and the University of Tokyo gave me a window into how they support students and approach internationalization in ways that are both similar to and different from what we do at Illinois," Wang said. "I also found the session on shukatsu, the Japanese job-hunting system, eye-opening, because it connected student career pathways with international education in a way I hadn’t thought about before. Even hearing from EducationUSA advisors about the current trends among Japanese students looking at the U.S. gave me new ideas for how we might better engage with them.”
She added that beyond the professional takeaways, she also saw the world from a different perspective — something she called an unexpected lesson.
“When I was there, I felt the world folding in and opening up at the same time,” Wang said. “I was reminded that the life I know is just one part of a much larger story, and that stepping into other people’s realities and seeing how they live and what they value can be hugely inspiring.”
She learned that both countries share common values and are tasked with similar global challenges. However, what stood out to her was learning how colleagues in Japan and at Illinois could find solutions together.
Moving forward, Wang said she hopes she can continue to share her Fulbright experience and stories with colleagues, leadership, and friends, serving as a true ambassador for Fulbright and an advocate for international education.
“There’s so much that we can learn from each other,” Wang explained. “We shouldn’t be stuck where we are and that’sone of the main takeaways I have. The world is vast. You have to be open to exploring it because there’s so many more possibilities of living, working, having fun, and internationalize your university… (the experience) was so eye-opening to me.”
And in the end, Wang said the long wait to hear whether she was accepted, was all worth it.
Analicia Haynes is the storytelling and social media specialist at Illinois International. She can be reached at ahayn2@illinois.edu.