The Office of Student Success at Arts & Sciences | Maxwell School provides an unmatched level of expertise in international student success model, integrated academic and career advising model and more. We offer the following customized, strategic, data-informed services to address challenges and opportunities individuals, teams and organizations seeking to develop. Contact Dr. Ling Gao LeBeau at lglebeau@syr.edu for any inquiries.

1. Professional Development Workshop

• Customized workshop development
  • Developing tailored content aligned with the needs in advance
• Interactive online delivery
  • Engaging participants through interactions, discussions, and live Q/A
• Workshop materials
  • Sharing templates, handouts, and other necessary resources to support learning and implementation
• Post-Workshop Consultation
  • Up to 2 hours of personalized follow-up to address questions and implementation strategies.

2. Program Design

• Comprehensive program design for a department/unit or an entire campus utilizing the concept and five pillars of International Student Success Model

3. Program Review

• Reviewing international student support programs at the institutional or the unit level and offering recommendations ranging from establishing, developing, or reorganizing support services and programs to providing assessment of services.

4. Programmatic Assessment

• Designing assessment methods and help an institution or a unit collect and interpret data regarding international student success programs.

5. Customized Service

• Providing any customized service to meet the needs and outcomes of an institution or a department/program/unit.

Testimonial

A professional development workshop was delivered to ten faculty participants from Rockford University in Illinois in 2025, titled “Facilitate ENL Students’ Learning at Rockford University”. RU’s self-assessment reviews that all faculty participants agreed that the workshop helped them construct strategies to facilitate ENL students' learning in and outside of the classroom and discover ways of creating an inclusive teaching environment. All participants agreed the workshop was well organized and would recommend the training to a colleague.

Our Trainers

Dr. Ling Gao LeBeau is Director of International Student Success at Syracuse University. LeBeau is a scholar practitioner in the field of international higher education and academic advising with years of experience in teaching, advising, research, and administration. Her work experiences range from teaching undergraduate and graduate students, advising international students and scholars, directing study abroad programs, developing international partnerships, to leading and implementing campus internationalization. She has served and currently serves on multiple leadership committees of AIEA, NAFSA, and NACADA, and frequently presents and publishes issues of international higher education and academic advising. LeBeau is the creator of the International Student Success Model of Syracuse University and the founder of International Student Academic Success community for NACADA.

Dr. Steven Schaffling is the Assistant Dean of Student Success for the College of Arts and Sciences and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Syracuse University. Dr. Schaffling has over 18 years of academic student support experience particularly focused in academic and career advising and its intersection with retention and student success. Dr. Schaffling is the strategic leader of an office of 35 academic and career advising professional staff that is responsible for supporting 5,500 undergraduate students, over 20% of which are international students. Dr. Schaffling conceptualized the idea of embedding an international student success expert within an office of academic advising. The goal of that position orientation was to implement high impact practices for students and for advisors within the academic advising unit. Dr. Schaffling serves on the leadership committees for NACADA.

Stephen LeBeau is an accomplished higher education administrator with over 25 years of experience in student success, online education, teaching and learning, and instructional design. In his current role as Director of Operations for the Office of Student Success at SU, he oversees multiple initiatives that directly impact student achievement, including initial orientation, readmission, and degree completion processes. Previously, LeBeau served as Associate Director for Kean Online at Kean University, where he spearheaded the development of groundbreaking online programs. At Western Carolina University, as an Education Developer and faculty he designed highly effective courses and provided consultation on innovative teaching methodologies. At Indiana University Indianapolis, LeBeau served as the Public Speaking Program Director, where he dramatically expanded course capacity, created an online Public Speaking course and founded a highly successful student support center. LeBeau holds Ed.S. in Higher Education and Master's in English (Linguistics) with a TESOL certificate from Indiana University.