A One-Stop Shop For International Students
ALICIA ALVAREZ
THE SIGNAL
UHCL is preparing for the admission of freshmen and sophomore students beginning fall 2014. With the new student population, comes change; with change, comes restructuring and reorganization.
Beginning Sept. 1, two offices have a name change. The Office of International Initiatives is now the Office of International Admissions and Programs (OIAP), and the Office of Intercultural and International Student Services is now the Office of Intercultural Student Services (ISS).
The idea was to streamline the process for international students from application to admission to enrollment, a one-stop shop concept. The international admission requirements and documentation process is very different from the national admission process.
“What we did was look at the entire process, and we said OK, there are a lot of things that are exclusive for international students,” said Sameer Pande, executive director for OIAP. “It’s scattered all around and they won’t understand how our university structure functions, so it would be easier if there was one office that would fulfill all of these things that are exclusive for international students.”
Once the student has applied and enrolled, OIAP continues communicating with the student to make sure he or she follows a specific set of guidelines, rules and regulations exclusive to international students.
“We orient them to the new educational system, to the new country, to the new culture and what the expectations are, and then we funnel them into the rest of the university,” Pande said.
As part of its international admissions responsibilities, OIAP will monitor immigration rules and regulations exclusive to international students. International students will work with OIAP to consult with their international advisers regarding jobs, travel and questions about their enrollment, among other things.
“We are not pulling functions out of different offices; what we are doing is, we are consolidating our services so that our students – who at the end are the ones that matter the most – get a seamless experience when they are coming to UH-Clear Lake,” Pande said.
Another service that was moved from ISS to OIAP is airport pick-up for international students coming to UHCL for the first time. This is part of the process to introduce and transition students into the university.
A new service OIAP started is an online presentation using Wimba Classroom for newly admitted international MIS and Computer Science majors, which includes a faculty member, a current student and an alumni student, who come in and talk about the program and answer questions or concerns students may have.
“Initiatives like that have really helped us grow and tell the students that we are a university that actually cares for our students, not just our current students but also our prospective students. We are there to answer their questions,” Pande said. “I am really excited about this new initiative. It speaks volumes about our leadership, in terms of the president and the provost, that they do take internationalization of the campus very seriously. And they are willing to make the changes that will make UHCL the international destination for everyone, and when I say everyone, I am talking about students as well as faculty.”
OIAP plans to expand this type of communication to include other programs.
After completing the orientation process and successfully enrolling at UHCL, international students will need the same services as the rest of the student population. Those needs will continue to be met through the Office of Intercultural Student Services (ISS).
In order to avoid confusion, the Office of Intercultural and International Student Services was asked to remove the word International from its title.
“The main reason was to try to make a more efficient and effective process for prospective students so, then, the prospective student would only have one office to deal with instead of three,” said Darlene Biggers, associate vice president for student services.
The growing number of international students and the complexity in international student advising was a key motivating factor behind the plan to move international student orientation from ISS to OIAP. International enrollment has doubled to approximately 460 new students this fall.
“This is an important point; there are two ways of looking at orientation,” Biggers said. “Orientation can be viewed as the last piece in recruitment, and I think with the model that they are creating that is the emphasis. Whereas in Student Services, we were seeing it as the beginning of student success and retention, and we were looking at it as a time when we could connect students to the resources and services that would be available to them when they got here.”
Many services affecting international students will remain in ISS.
“Student Services will still be responsible for major portions of services for international students,” Biggers said.“Certainly, we will be the ones responsible for the health and wellness of the individuals, safety and security issues, involvement and engagement, and academic success. Those are the key issues that we will still be involved in, and certainly the involvement and engagement also includes celebrations of the various cultural events.”
Since international orientation will no longer be the responsibility of ISS, it frees up time for the office to review its services and look into the other student needs, something they had not had time to do before.
“We are looking forward to being able to expand some of the programs that we already have, revisiting and, if it’s still working, expanding it; if it’s not working, examine what do we need to do to make it work,” said Linda Contreras Bullock, assistant dean of student diversity. “It is going to free us up to do some re-evaluation of our strategic goals that we had in place and move forward to new programs that are inclusive to all students.”
ISS plans to expand the First-Generation Scholars, Latino, African-American, Women’s and LGBT programs.
