Ioana Costant supports international Tar Heels
The Massey Award winner helps students and scholars from across the world get to Chapel Hill and excel here.
Charles Kuralt famously called UNC-Chapel Hill “the University of the People.”
Ioana Costant ’03 takes pride in making sure that distinction transcends borders.
“Everybody has different experiences that we can learn so much from,” said Costant, Carolina’s director of International Student and Scholar Services.
Costant leads her alma mater’s efforts to bring “the best and brightest” undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, postdocs and visiting scholars to Chapel Hill and keep them thriving once here.
Costant, who speaks Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish, is in her 11th year working at Carolina and has served as ISSS director since 2019.
Her office’s services range from managing immigration paperwork for the University and advising international students and scholars about their status to introducing Carolina traditions and offering regular programming to ease the transition to a new country and campus.
For her role in leading this work and keeping the University compliant with rapidly changing immigration laws and regulations, Costant is one of the 2026 Massey Award recipients. The honor goes to employees who make “unusual, meritorious or superior contributions.”
Costant’s purview spans the University, and her nominations reflect that. Enrollment staff, researchers, lawyers, departmental heads, media relations professionals and human resources specialists all applauded her leadership.
- Costant is crucial in “enriching the University’s research, teaching, and cultural environment,” one nominator wrote.
- “She has a calm demeanor and is a professional in dealing with extremely sensitive subjects,” wrote another.
- “Her commitment to customer service is rare and should be a model for how all University support functions should operate,” added one more.
“It meant a great deal to know that I was nominated by so many valued colleagues,” said Costant.
Global citizen
Costant moved to Asheville, North Carolina, as a middle schooler after living in the Netherlands, Colombia and Brazil.
Her lived experiences give her credibility with the international Tar Heels she works with.
“This is initially going to be really hard,” Costant tells them, “but it’s going to be worth it and it’s going to change your life.”
She finds purpose in the work because it enables the scholarship, research and service of thousands of Tar Heels. Carolina’s international-student population has increased yearly since 2020, and the University had a record number (3,500-plus) this past fall.
Costant has led improvements making life easier for international Tar Heels and units across the University.
For example, she modernized the ISSS Portal, a case management system, by making it paperless and electronic. She also created the J-1 Playbook and visual workflows, valuable resources to support the University community in hosting international scholars.
Costant worked in immigration and family law before becoming an international scholar adviser at the University of Washington and later earning a master’s degree in psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
She returned to Carolina in 2015 to work as an immigration and faculty recruitment manager at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School before joining ISSS.
For Costant, coming back to Chapel Hill has been deeply meaningful and allows her to give back to the place where she had a “profoundly positive” formative experience.
Lawyering skills
Costant said having a law background isn’t a prerequisite in her role, but it’s become increasingly helpful.
That was especially true last year, when many immigration laws, rules and norms changed “at a very high volume, very quickly.”
Costant was forced to quickly interpret new information and adjust, working with campus partners to find solutions. Communicating with students and scholars in an accurate, timely and compassionate manner was critical.
Costant is proud of the way her team persevered and showed up for the community it serves when they needed it most.
“We stayed the course,” she said. “The level of professionalism of the team is really amazing, and so is their empathy and dedication to the work.”
Those who work with Costant will tell you that starts at the top.
