Students & Scholars

No simple equation exists for making a university campus international. Achieving comprehensive internationalization is a long-term process that must be a central part of the mission and identity of the institution over many generations. Success requires a commitment that is embedded deeply in the fabric of the institutional culture. Michigan State University, with its 3,000 international students on campus and with nearly 2,000 students participating in study abroad each year, seeks to augment the "global competence" of all of its 44,000 students. And the institution is apparently unique in having a unit whose primary purpose-as well as its name-is Internationalizing Student Life (ISL). Established in 1990, ISL is a shining example of how MSU continues to transform internationalization policy into reality.

While research shows that most international students are satisfied with their U.S. experience, many admit to feeling somewhat disoriented, marginalized, and misunderstood. Many domestic students feel uninformed about other cultures. ISL draws on the experiences of international students and returned study abroad students to address these problems at MSU.

To make its programs more visible to the entire study body, Internationalizing Student Life was established under the auspices of the Department of Student Life rather than in the Office of International Studies and Programs. Under this model, ISL's many programs and services successfully reach thousands of domestic and international students each year, not to mention faculty, staff, and the community beyond the university.

MSU's international students ordinarily become aware of ISL's existence as recently admitted incoming students: they receive a letter from ISL welcoming them to MSU and offering to match them up with a current student from their home country to facilitate their integration into their new university. As the new school year approaches, ISL engages in intercultural training at the university's orientation programs for new U.S. and international students, in orientation for international teaching assistants, and in the "Oh, No" to "OK" program ISL developed to improve attitudes and behavior of undergraduates toward international teaching assistants.

ISL is also involved in collaborations with many other MSU units in supporting programs and activities that bring about meaningful interactions between U.S. and international students, raise the level of intercultural competence of participants, and generally enhance the internationalization efforts of the university. Examples include working with the University Activities Board on international weekend programming for students, participating with International Studies and Programs on International Education Week activities, and collaborating with Community Volunteers for International Programs on the annual Global Festival.

ISL emphasizes an experiential learning approach to its programs. From training sessions for residence life multicultural mentors to the popular MSU Intercultural Communication Institute, from on-demand class presentations in courses such as Integrative Arts and Humanities to more informal fraternity and sorority house meetings, ISL facilitators are likely to employ role-playing and simulation techniques to bring participants to a better understanding of cross-cultural issues.

Oumatie Marajh is the coordinator of ISL. To meet ISL's goals, she relies on a small staff of graduate assistants and interns and a much larger cadre of both international students and internationally experienced U.S. students who have been trained as "cultural consultants" in another of ISL's signature programs, RAISE-Raising Awareness by Internationalizing Students' Education. Consultants participate in panel discussions of cultural and global issues and work with the Office of Study Abroad in pre-departure and re-entry orientations for study abroad students.

Marajh actively recruits and trains students and interns, participates in programming, gives presentations at conferences, and engages in other professional development activities. She has attended the Intercultural Communication Institute in Portland, Oregon, completing workshops on topics such as experiential learning strategies and measuring intercultural sensitivity. As a result, her office is now certified to administer the Intercultural Development Inventory, an assessment tool designed to evaluate the intercultural sensitivity of groups and individuals. In addition to her formal ISL responsibilities, she coordinates a five-week study abroad program every summer that takes students to Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, and Venezuela.

"What I find most fascinating and rewarding about an office like this," Marajh explains, "are the opportunities for working with students-whether they are study abroad participants living in a different country or international students arriving here for the first time-on building cultural bridges. Learning about cultures as a traveling student is about the best type of experience anyone can wish for."

Marajh is not one to sit back and be satisfied with the current success of ISL. A new cross-cultural program initiative, "Shockwaves," was recently launched by ISL in collaboration with Residence Life and the Office of Study Abroad. Through this new program, ten students were hired and trained over a two-month period to work with residence life staff, international students, and classes on an experiential learning approach to developing cross-cultural competence.

Internationalizing Student Life is a program that exemplifies MSU's multifaceted and multilayered approach to institutional internationalization efforts. With connections to units of various sorts across campus, ISL's impact is both academic and cocurricular as it serves faculty, staff, and student needs. In its training of a multicultural group of students as cultural consultants, it functions as a center of cross-cultural interaction itself, leading by example as well as by the effectiveness of its many programs.

For more information about Internationalizing Student Life, visit their Web site at http://www. studentlife.msu.edu/isl/