This past week in class our topic of discussion was: Student Topics. I thought maybe what we would do was decide as a class on one or two topics and then have a class discussion of these topics. What we ended up doing was asking President Ericson questions for two hours. There were a lot of good questions asked and a lot of good answers. Our questions were wide ranging, talking about food in the dining commons to the student debt crisis.
One topic/question that was addressed during the Q&A session was about International Students at PSU. Penn State now has the 10th largest international undergraduate student body in the US. Something that surprised me from our discussion was that having international undergrads at Penn State is relatively new to the university, as 10 to 15 years ago it was fairly uncommon. Having undergraduate students from so many diverse backgrounds at PSU is really enriching to the university. It inspires curiosity and encourages students to learn about different cultures, languages, foods, religions etc through their peers. Many student groups have formed to celebrate and represent these different cultures and countries at Penn State. I personally love meeting students from different countries and getting to know them and learning about their culture and experiences, which are different from my own. However, through these experiences I have noticed that there is a divide between American students and International Students at Penn State and I find this really troublesome.
It seems to me that in general (of course there are exceptions) American students hang out with American students and International students hang out with International students. What I want to know is, why is this and how do we change it? What can we do to bridge the gap between these two groups? After all, we are all Penn State students and we make up one community.
President Erickson gave a good explanation of why there may be this division. When it comes down to it, we all have a comfort zone and for the most part we like to stay in it, especially within a big community like Penn State. So maybe the question is, how do we expand our comfort zones? Would expanding our comfort zones help to lessen the gap between the two groups?
At Penn State there seems to be resources that could help change the dynamic but they are probably not used as frequently as they should be. Some examples brought up in class where student organizations within certain majors. These organizations help bring students together who are in the same field of study and are composed of both American and International students. Another tool is the office Global Studies who puts on programs like “GELE” or “Global Engagement Leadership Experience” which is a weekend long retreat with 20 American students and 20 International students that focuses on cross-cultural understanding. The Hub-Robeson Cultural Center was also mentioned as another tool.
There is no one, clear-cut answer to this. I can’t really come up with a good proposition of my own at the moment (it’s Friday afternoon and it’s been a long week) but I would really love to hear about what you guys have to say on the topic.
Is this an issue that Penn State should pay more attention to? Is it an issue at all? If so, how could we go about solving it?