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UW-Whitewater international students group is largest and most diverse

WHITEWATER — UW-Whitewater is getting a dose of diversity this year from 155 international students, the largest and most diverse group ever to study at the university.

The students hail from locations across the globe, from Britain, Burkina Faso, Macedonia, Nepal and Fiji and, for the first time, Afghanistan and Iran.

Some are exchange students for a semester or two, and others are students who will graduate in four years with a bachelor’s degree and in two years with a master’s degree.

UW-Whitewater’s reputation as a leading business school continues to draw a number of international students, said Harlan Smith, director of international education and programs.

“The business school is definitely a driver or the driver of our student recruitment efforts,” he said.

Yi Ju, a freshman from Suzhou, China, pursuing a business degree, said a lot of his friends applied to colleges and universities in the United States because they have more opportunities here.

“China has a lack of such elite (schools),” he said.

Ju said it’s no secret to those who do a little research that UW-Whitewater “is a good place to study business.”

Smith said the College of Business and Economics is a talking point in the university’s international marketing and recruiting efforts, just as it is locally.

While the push for more international students will continue, the university is working to make them feel at home in the United States, Smith said.

“Now we’re at a point, though, where we’ve stopped being overly concerned about the numbers and are now starting to really focus on them while they’re here,” he said. “We have to make sure they are welcome, they are affirmed and have a successful time here.”

It starts with bridging the gap between domestic and international students, Smith said. More than half of the degree-seeking international students who come to UW-Whitewater have never set foot inside an American home, he said.

International student advisor Jessica Harmatys said American students studying abroad often “stick out like a sore thumb.”

“But when international students come here, people don’t know they’re international unless they’d talk to them and hear their accents,” she said.

Harmatys said that without awareness among domestic students, faculty and staff, international students easily can become isolated.

She said international students are given a host family with which to spend time. The families often become a primary resource for them.

“When you come from a different country, there’s culture shock,” Ju said. “We need people to tell us the traditions here.”

Harmatys said the department also organizes activities to help the international students acclimate.

“As awareness is getting out there, more domestic students are coming and reaching out,” she said.

Silvanus Achia, a graduate student from Nairobi, Kenya, said the activities allow him to meet new people.

“There’s things that I would love to learn from them, and things they can learn from me,” he said.

Harmatys said the impact of such a large, diverse group of international students is significant.

“It’s wonderful to have the (international) students here because of the exposure,” she said. “It’s hugely important. It broadens perspectives, breaks down barriers and hopefully stereotypes and prejudices can fall away.”

UW-W professors use wiki to share ideas on diversity

How do professors at an increasingly diverse university effectively teach their students about race, discrimination and diversity?

How do they create a classroom climate that fosters honest and open discussion among diverse students?

How do they understand the challenges that minority students face?

Faculty and staff at UW-Whitewater are using a diversity wiki to discuss ideas, share teaching tools and better serve students. Its creator, Jim Winship, chairman of the social work department, said wiki allows professors to pool their knowledge and experiences.

“You figure out how to do something, and it works, but usually it just stays with you,” he said.

A wiki is a set of Web pages that focus on a central topic and can be accessed and edited by a number of people.

Winship said the wiki will help the university meet the goals set by the Equity Scorecard, a program piloted by six UW System schools, including UW-Whitewater, to achieve equity in educational outcomes for all students, especially students of color.

The wiki has four contributors from four departments in the College of Letters and Science. It is accessible to all professors at UW-Whitewater and others in the UW System.

The wiki covers a number of topics including teaching majority students about race, ethnicity and diversity, teaching diverse students and creating lesson plans that minimize conflict and encourage student participation.

Professors also have access to survey results from students at universities across the country as well as video interviews with recent Latino graduates of UW-Whitewater in which they discuss their time at the university, what steps have been taken and what steps need to be taken concerning diversity on campus. There are plans to add similar video interviews with black and Asian students.

Winship said teaching techniques are not universal, which means one technique might work for some students, while another might work better for others. He said the idea is for professors to take ideas from their colleagues and adapt them.

“Rather than starting from scratch, you just have to tweak it a little bit,” he said.