Colleges and universities must begin to think of international students more as part of the overall student population and not as a separate group.
That was the message that Kent Hopkins, vice president of enrollment services at Arizona State University, delivered Monday at a U.S. State Department forum for professionals in international education.
“I think too many times we tend to think domestic students do this, international students do this, graduate students do this,” Hopkins said. “You should have a singular, overarching premise on how you serve students.”
At the same time, Hopkins also urged attendees to stay in regular contact with international students — particularly to allay concerns international students may have about their visas in light of President Donald J. Trump’s proposed travel ban — and to create special foundational programming to help international students get up to speed on how things are done in American higher education.
Part of making international students feel like they belong involves having campus facilities for international students more centralized instead of at some remote location. Hopkins recounted how when he first began his job at ASU more than a decade ago, the school’s international student and scholar center was located in a strip mall on the northwest side of campus, yet there was a big student services building that housed a variety of other programs.
“Imagine if you were an international student in 2005 and walked into the student services building and were told to go ‘over there,’” Hopkins said. “It’s not the right message that we should be sending. So we moved our international student and scholar center.”
