Question

What are 10 best practices for how leaders can better facilitate the inclusion of international students at higher education institution

Answer 1

Best practices for facilitating inclusion of international students at a centre of higher learning.

1. Inclusion of a mandatory refresher session on cross cultural sensitivity for all students during their induction.

2. Understanding the cultural differences between the host country students and those coming from outside to make their journey more comfortable by specially training the people who are most likely to interact with them.

3. Making arrangements to make them feel at home by creating multiethnic and multicultural environment, providing them with food of their choice and other necessities they might need.

4. Making provision for students' religious needs for the ones who practice their religion diligently,

5. Forming a policy of maintaining cultural bonhomie and comnunicate to all staff and students. Adherence should be ensured and a zero tolerance for violation be enforced.

6. Arrangements for counseling sessions for the students who have left their homes for the first time and find themselves in psychological turmoil.

7. Establishment of a foreign students cell, which would have members from different nations for helping out the newcomers with their day to day needs both within and outside the university, help them acclimatise and settle themselves in.

8. Organising informal events involving students from different ethnicities and races to help them intermingle and get along with.

9. Designing the class composition in such a way that there is a balance of race, nationalities, gender and other factors of diversity.

10. Maintaining communication with parents of new students to keep them assured that their ward is doing well and is being taken care of, particularly the ones who are thousands of miles away and have sent their ward for the first time for studies.