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A Growing International Student Population
Published: Tuesday, 05 Mar 2013
Meeting the Needs of a Growing International Student Population at MSU
Like many college towns, East Lansing embraces the cultural diversity of its student population. With the arrival of a new academic year, Michigan State University welcomed nearly 6,000 international students, including an international freshman class of 1,400.
“Over the past several years the growth we have seen in our international student body has been led by the growing numbers of undergraduate students, primarily from China,” said Peter Briggs, director of the Office for International Students and Scholars (OISS).
This change has had a tremendous impact across campus and Briggs and his team are rethinking their role and services to support and prepare for such significant shifts in the student body.
Better serving this unique population means everything from posting bus routes in Mandarin to forming student advisory groups, and participating in social networking forums like RenRen.
In 2010, OISS created the Project Explore. Since then, the number of Chinese students on MSU’s campus has continued to rise as more and more Chinese students pursue higher education in the United States.
“We watched the number of Chinese students double every year from 2006 on, and in the summer of 2010, we felt we needed to do something extra to stay in touch with this special group. We formed Project Explore with Chinese students and administrators and invited all of our Chinese students to apply to serve on the advisory group. Seven students were selected to serve on our initial advisory committee,” said Briggs.
The committee has been very active, creating informational videos, establishing social network pages and conducting a survey to find out how to best satisfy the needs of Chinese students.
“Our initial focus was to meet their needs and to find out if they are happy here. I’m confident that we’ve asked the right questions, although I am not sure we’ve found all the answers. But I think we are on the right path as I talk to colleagues across the country,” said Briggs.
Created to give university officials an ear to the ground regarding how this population is feeling, the advisory committee now strives for more cultural understanding from faculty, students and the overall community. Briggs said that the East Lansing community is reaching out by erecting signs, publishing bus routes and medical information in Mandarin. There is also a campaign to help give Chinese students directions to shopping areas and provide volunteers to assist with newly arrived students at area airports.
“The Chinese students do a tremendous service to our campus—they give us all a chance to learn more about the Chinese people—you don’t have to leave our campus to have an international experience,” he said. “They also offer an insight to how international students experience life at MSU. We can and want to learn from that,” said Briggs.
Project Explore has worked with MSU Culinary services, helped to coordinate and deliver pre-departure programs in China for more than 400 new students, and established MSU on the social media platforms used primarily by Chinese students.
Additionally the group has taken on special projects to help raise awareness of the Chinese student experience in America. This project developed into a video series on the local public radio station, WKAR. “This was so well received it became part of U.S. Department of State’s program Voice of America and is now being used by other international education leaders such as Education USA,” said Briggs. “A journalism class has also adopted the idea and will be producing a documentary to share a 360 degree view of experience and impacts of Chinese students at MSU and the surrounding community.”
Other goals for OISS include: international student leadership development, internships and workforce development, entrepreneurship training and opportunities for friendship making.
To create a caring community OISS collaborates with dozens of offices across campus and numerous community groups that are part of East Lansing and Lansing. Signature events include the weekly International Coffee Hour, International Student Orientation Volunteer Program, the Globie Awards, International Student Essay Contest and the annual Global Festival.
Briggs said that his office first recognizes their role as educators and strives to help students from abroad to be academically successful. “Much of our work is built around helping students to establish a community and having the networks they need.”
Learn more about the work OISS is doing to help bridge cross-cultural communications on YouTube at www.youtu.be/rx_7nuowyMk
