U.S. Colleges Adapt As Numbers Of International Students Rise

Photo Credit: Matt Cline

According to Open Doors 2010, there are now nearly 700,000 foreign born university students studying in the United States. Included in this number is a rapidly growing number of Chinese students, who now comprise more than 18% of the international student population. Because of this increase in students coming from outside of the U.S., colleges must adapt in order to meet the needs of these students.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

"The foreign students on American college campuses today are not those of generations past.

They are younger, as undergraduate numbers surge. They are from more countries than ever and yet likelier to be from a single country, China. Many have the means to pay for an American college degree—more than 60 percent say their family foots the tuition bill—but a growing share are studying on scholarships sponsored by foreign governments. They are the product of a burgeoning middle class in places like Shanghai and Seoul, Delhi and Taipei, as studying abroad becomes less the exclusive privilege of well-traveled, well-heeled elites.

This changing profile presents challenges both academic and cultural to colleges across the United States. International-student offices are dealing with issues as varied as plagiarism, poor language skills, country-specific cliques, and cultural taboos against counseling. They are being called on to provide sex education to sheltered undergrads, to respond to religious conservatives unsettled by opposite-gender instructors, and to contend with helicopter parents a dozen time zones away.

"It's a culture shock not just for the students," says Ivor Emmanuel, director of the international office at the University of California at Berkeley, "but for the campus."

As a consequence, many colleges are taking a closer look at their foreign-student services, re-imagining and recasting them to be more responsive to this new breed of student's academic, social, and emotional needs. Colleges are rethinking orientation for international students, sometimes stretching it into a semester-long introductory course in American college culture. They are making use of social media, so students can begin their adjustment before they even leave their home countries, and enlisting upperclassmen from overseas and study-abroad veterans to serve as peer mentors. They are hiring counselors with specific cultural or linguistic expertise. And they are reaching out to faculty members, to better prepare them to work with pupils whose previous classroom experience is fundamentally foreign."

You can read the complete article here.

(h/t to Trae Vacek for the article link)

My Co-Workers

One of the privileges that I have in my work with The Impact Movement and Campus Crusade for Christ is the individuals that I get to work alongside of on a daily basis. The picture to the left is of our Impact Campus Ministry team, a group of individuals that coach, resource, provide direction and encourage student leaders with The Impact Movement across the country.

Our mission of Impact is to take the truth of Jesus Christ to the campus, community and world by producing leaders of African descent who are spiritually focused, financially responsible and morally fit. One of the ways that we do this is by hosting a national conference which helps to equip the next generation of leaders in the black community and beyond. If you'd like to learn more about Impact 2008 Mission:Possible or register for the conference, please visit the conference website at http://www.impact2008.com/.

Another group of people that I get to lead with is the national leadership team of Ethnic Student Ministries of Campus Crusade. This is a team made up of regional and national directors committed to reaching each American ethnic minority and international students with the gospel. I get the opportunity to meet with these friends a few times a year and it is always a good time to hear how God is working in the lives of students throughout the U.S. This photo was just taken this past week at our meetings in Breckenridge, Colorado.

To learn some more about each of the strategies of Ethnic Student Ministries, check out these links:

Destino (Hispanic & Latino students)
Epic (Asian American students)
Korea Campus Crusade (Korean American students)
The Impact Movement (African American students)
Nations (Native American students)
Bridges International (International Students)