Supporting International Students

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As the work of student affairs unfolded in the history of American colleges and universities, deans of students were active participants in the educational mission, charged first with campus discipline as an extension of the office of the president, then later with overcoming the damaging separation of nineteenth-century student life from the educational enterprise of the campus (Jackson, 2011). With the increasing prevalence of international students, it is necessary for student affairs professionals to be aware of the needs of these students. This requires that programming activities and policies be created to make sure the students are served. My goal with this paper is to make students and professionals aware of the differences between international Chinese students and Chinese American students. This subtle difference will aid professionals in assisting this population of students. In order to successfully create these programs, understanding of the differences and thinking from a multicultural perspective becomes integral and necessary. Gargeis (2012) states that there is a global demand for higher education to increase internationally mobile students. While the United States has more international students than most countries that population only makes up 3.4 percent of the total population while in Australia international students comprise 20.6 percent. Arguing that international students increase cultural experience for domestic students, Gargeis (2012) believes that study abroad programs not only help those students traveling but those in the host country as well.
A 2012 USA Today report stated that he number of international students enrolled in U.S. colleges jumped 6% to about 764,495 in 2011 (). They attributed this...

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...st of American and their unwillingness t engage in friendships were in contrast to Chinese students’ cultural values (Gargeis, 2012). Because East Asian students are from cultures that value close relationships with friends, not doing so creates feelings of isolation (Gargeis, 2012).
At a curricular level, the authors suggest small, interactive group interactions, stating that Chinese students prefer small groups as these groups encourage friendships based on completing course work (Longerbeam, DeStefano, & Lixin, believe faculty should look at strategies to effectively assist Chinese students in class these strategies can be learned through staff development opportunities. Yan & Berliner (2011) state that many U.S. colleges and universities are not prepared to satisfy the needs of international Chinese students few have focused on understanding their differences.

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