International Education Week at Wright State to kick off Monday

Jeffery Selingo, contributing editor for The Chronicle of Higher Education and professor of practice at Arizona State University

Learn more about study abroad scholarships, meet the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Jeffrey Selingo at a brown bag seminar or participate in a potluck with tastes from around the world during International Education Week at Wright State University.

The campus events run from Nov. 17 through Nov. 21.

Headlined by a visit from Selingo and his seminar, “A World Unbound: The Changing Nature of Higher Education and Internationalization,” the week’s events promote the benefits of global education worldwide and are part of the university’s on-going effort to create a more international experience for students.

“International Education Week is an opportunity both to prepare interested American students for a global experience and to attract talented international students to Wright State,” said Michelle Streeter-Ferrari, director of the university’s Center for International Education. “It’s also a lot of fun.”

It also helps students get jobs.

Data from graduates from six months to a year after graduation show that students who participated in study abroad are more likely to get a job.

Employers see students who’ve gone abroad as fast learners who are open-minded, adaptable, confident and independent. Students get extra credit in the minds of employers when they have acquired a new language, particularly by immersing themselves in a foreign culture.

(left) Wright State student Hannah Dos Santos, studied abroad in Morocco in the fall of 2013. Dos Santos is an international studies major who went abroad to study arabic.

“International education is now part of a national and statewide conversation for how to prepare college students for the global economy,” said Streeter-Ferrari. “And students who go abroad tend to return and do well academically too.”

It’s led the university to commit 400 Travel Assistance scholarships, worth $800 each, in an effort to get more students abroad.

Now more than ever, there’s a growing interest by students from all disciplines seeking international experiences for credit, and employers from more fields are wanting it from their future employees too.

The number of international students studying at Wright State and across the country is also on the rise. This fall Wright State increased its enrollment of international students to 1779, up 20 percent from last year. A record high of 886,052 international students were enrolled in American universities in the 2013-14 academic year.

Foreign students help build bridges of understanding and goodwill between nations, foster partnerships with foreign institutions, serve as models for the study of foreign languages, help internationalize U.S. students and curricula and provide universities with a source of revenue and prestige abroad.

Jeannette Horwitz, LEAP director and English lecturer, listens as students in her Learning English for Academic and Professional Purposes (LEAP) 4 Advanced Academic Success course discuss current news topics.

“This has become a big priority for our students and our campus — to have more of an international experience,” said Streeter-Ferrari. “Whether it be a chance to come to the U.S. for a first-class education and the opportunity to learn English or going abroad to round out their college experience, more and more students want these opportunities.”

International Education Week is a joint initiative of UCIE, the State Department and the U.S. Department of Education.

For a detailed schedule of the week’s activities, visit: http://www.wright.edu/ucie/resource/iew.html?utm_source=www-homepage&utm_medium=slider&utm_campaign=internationaleducationweek2014