Loveness Schafer

Loveness Schafer is the 2024 Region III Academy Coach. Schafer is associate director of international services in the Office of International Programs at Louisiana State University and A & M College in Baton Rouge. She has worked for LSU since August 2000. She manages LSU’s Exchange Visitor Program, including visa process and cultural programming. She manages LSU’s employment-based immigration programs, including H-1B and permanent residence. Prior to coming to LSU, Loveness worked for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for two years as an assistant legal officer, in Malawi. Here she interviewed asylum seekers and provided legal services for refugees. Loveness has a bachelor of laws degree from Malawi, and a master’s of comparative law from Indiana University, Bloomington.  Loveness has served in various leadership positions in NAFSA. She is a former NAFSA Trainer Corps chair and Professional Learning Services liaison; a former member of NAFSA’s Employment – Based ISSRP Subcommittee; former chair of NAFSA’s Prevailing Wage Working Group; and former Regulatory OMBUDS (for scholar issues) for NAFSA’s Region III. Loveness is a recipient of the Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminar Award, France, 2019; and a recipient of the Louisiana State NAFSA 2018 award for “contribution to the field of International Education through long and outstanding years of service in the local, academic and/or professional community.” In her free time, Loveness enjoys gardening and cooking.