Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Foreign students look to Tech to feel more at home
By Matt McGowan
Daily Toreador (Texas Tech)
04/02/2008

(U-WIRE) LUBBOCK, Texas — As international students settle in for what will be years of study in a surreal and foreign West Texas world, they look to Texas Tech University to help them find their place, feel at peace and receive the education for which they traveled so far.

As international students pursue their educations at Tech, however, they may take comfort in knowing they are not alone. Hundreds of others walk a very similar road.

When compared to the fall 2006 semester, Tech's international student enrollment for fall 2007 increased by 13 percent, according to statistics from Tech's Department of International Students and Scholar Services.

Last fall's international student enrollment was the highest it has been in nine years, according to the statistics, and comprised approximately 4.4 percent of the university's total 27,567 member student body, an increase of approximately 0.5 percent from the year before.

According to statistics from the Institute of International Education's Web site, www.iie.org, Tech ranked 117th in the nation for total number of international students during fall 2007.

The University of Texas at Austin, however, ranked 7th, while Texas A&M University ranked 18th, according to the IIE statistics.

As part of Tech's effort to accommodate its growing international student population, Tech's Office of International Affairs and the International Student and Scholar Services program reach out to international students to help them feel comfortable at Tech.

International student organizations, too, offer members a chance to find other students who come from similar countries, cultures or backgrounds.

Though international student organizations create opportunities for homesick international students to take solace in the company of compatriots, some fall through the cracks, said Saif Haq, an associate professor from Bangladesh who attended Georgia Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1990s as an international graduate student.

Haq recalled an encounter he had with a group of second-generation Indian and Bangladeshi Tech students several years ago. Because they were born in the United States, the group wanted to start a student organization for those with mixed cultural identities.

They asked Haq to be the group's adviser.

"They are as American as any of you are," Haq said. "They have an identity, through their parents, to a particular country. So, some of them are Indian - but really, not Indian, because they were born and brought up here. Those students really cannot get anything out of the Indian Student Association, the Bangladesh Student Association.

"Those students tend to keep within themselves," he said.

As a local accountant, Marion Bryant spends her free time volunteering to help international students file their tax returns and organizing events to make them feel more at home. For many students studying far from home, Bryant eventually assumed a role as their "mom" in Lubbock.

Now, drawing from her observations of dozens of her international "children," Bryant believes Americans withdraw from opportunities to interact with foreign students, which drastically hinders the creation of any would-be multinational friendship.

"I think there is just an arrogance of Americans, and it is never going to be fixed," she said. "I mean, what can you do?"

Though social events potentially could bridge the nationality gaps between groups of students, Haq said, nothing guarantees attendance and participation. It is up to individual students to traverse the cultural divide.

"Is there an American student association? No," Haq said. "I know the International Cultural Center tries to put these things together, but when they do, what do you see? All foreigners. Honestly, I think some sort of effort needs to be made, but I'm not sure how."

One possible solution lies in housing, Haq said. Students who live in the same dormitory tend to interact with each other more than those who live off campus, but, because Tech does not have graduate dormitories, the vast majority of students opt to live under more isolated conditions off-campus.

"One of the issues here is that housing is going to get tighter and tighter as we grow to 40,000 people," said Tibor Nagy, Tech's vice provost of international affairs. "That's going to be a real issue. We are extremely seized with that because, to have a successful environment for internationals, you have to welcome them properly. You have to integrate them properly into the university system. You have to house them."

A college education is often incomplete without diversity, said Bob Crosier, director of International Affairs at Tech, because it provides manifold perspectives. He believes a graduate is at a disadvantage without this type of experience.

For this reason, Tech owes it to its students to not only recruit international students, he said, but also to foster an atmosphere of interaction.

"It enriches the mix of students, of backgrounds that are here, just the range and possibilities that are here for you as a student at Texas Tech," Crosier said. "What types of folks are you going to be able to meet at school and interact with on a student-to-student basis?"

If university officials intend to increase international recruitment and improve the relationship between American and international students, they should focus on implementing as many programs as possible that will foster an atmosphere of interaction, said Surya Yadav, a professor in the Rawls College of Business Administration who came to the United States from India to pursue graduate work.

An example would be community outreach programs that introduce international students to members of the Lubbock community.

Beyond the university's administration, he said, individual student organizations - groups with international and American membership - must assume some responsibility for interactive outreach programs. It is up to individual students to make inroads, not just administrators.

Once international students begin working more closely with the local community, Yadav said, all involved parties benefit, including the university.

"All these things will not only be good for foreign students, but also would be good for Texas Tech to attract more foreign students," he said. "Whether we like it or not, the economy has become global. Texas Tech has to compete with other U.S. universities to get better students."

For Tech's administrators, it is more important than ever to recruit international students, particularly in the case of undergraduate enrollment, Nagy said, which has a very small international constituency.

The goal, he said, is to increase the number of foreign undergraduate students to represent half of the total international student population.

"It's the undergraduates who really get involved in the university and meet other people," Nagy said. "The graduates are here, but they work. They're kind of already on their treadmill."

As of now, he said, international enrollment strategies employ a two-pronged approach.

"One is to take Texas Tech out into the world, and the other is to bring the world to Texas Tech," Nagy said. "Bringing the world to Texas Tech means maximizing the amount of international students who come here, especially undergraduates."

Additional recruiting stations abroad, he said, partially will accomplish the task of drawing a larger international crowd to Tech.

"And another thing we haven't done a very good job of is, once they leave here, stay in touch with them, cultivate them as alumni," Nagy said. "No one recruits better than alumni."

While it is true many international students learn of Tech through friends returning home, Yadav said, they sometimes choose Tech after months of personal contact with a particular professor or because the price is right.

As Tech's tuition increases, he said, its competitive edge proportionally decreases.

"Most of these (international) kids come in to study, and they're paying their own way," Yadav said. "However, to attract high-quality students, you have to offer some scholarships, some assistanceships. Otherwise, they're going other places."

Additionally, he furthered, the U.S. government's current admission policies for international scholars lack practicality and inhibit U.S. academics, which is not to say they are completely flawed, but merely in need of reexamination.

"What we have is still very much a work in progress," he said. "There has been, probably, an overemphasis on security, especially in relation to students and scholars, probably because they are easier to deal with. There are other types of international activities that are not as easy to control."

Some university programs, however, have caused controversy among students who have come to Tech from other countries.

In the spring of 2006, Tech's administration implemented a new program requiring international students to adopt a health care insurance plan chosen by the university. The program, which also is available to non-international students, requires international students to pay $625 per semester for health insurance through the university.

The health care service, provided by the health insurance company Academic HealthPlans, Nagy said, fulfills legally mandated health care requirements for students who come from abroad to study in the United States.

University health care requirements frustrate international students, he said, not because it is ineffective or grossly overpriced, but because the American health care system in general drastically differs from what they were used to at home.

As a result, Nagy said, foreign students do not realize the importance of having health insurance in the United States after an accident or illness.

"Think about health costs, especially in the United States," he said. "They can be a huge burden, so an international student comes here, they get into a car accident. They don't have health insurance. They run up $5 million worth of bills. Who pays?"

Before granting visas, Nagy said, government officials insist visiting foreigners prove they have the means of paying medical costs. The government diligently investigates this issue to make sure no visitors end up becoming a burden on taxpayers after an accident.

"Our system of health care coverage in the United States is just very unexpected and new to (foreign students)," said Evelyn McPherson, managing director of the university's Student Health Services. "A $2,000 bill after just a couple of hours in the emergency room is a shock to somebody who's used to socialized medicine, being treated and going home with no bill, so what we try to do is talk to the students about, 'This is a benefit to you. This is to help you.'"

Luis Cabrales, an employee at Tech's International Textile Center from Tampico, Mexico, who recently received his master's degree in chemical engineering, said many international students have no qualms with having medical insurance.

Because multinational students have no choice in the selection of exactly which plan they adopt - because the university only accepts its pre-approved plan - they wonder if perhaps they could find a better plan through other companies, he said.

"We had to take a girl from Turkey (to the hospital)," Bryant said. "She couldn't afford what the Tech insurance was going to make her pay."

Overwhelmed by accruing co-pays and deductibles, she said of the incident, Bryant decided to take the girl to a community clinic where the cost of treatment was more manageable.

"I would just say they're providing very poor service for what they're charging," said Heinz Fast, a former Tech student who returned with his wife and children to Paraguay in February after receiving his doctorate in music.

During the process of the plan's selection, administrators paid careful attention to cost, coverage and service quality, McPherson said. The selection panel chose Academic HealthPlans, among other reasons, because it offered the best balance between the three criteria.

Now approaching its fourth year with the company, she said, her office has not heard any complaints from students that Academic HealthPlans did not pay for a claim to which it was obligated.

Complaints about the insurance requirements have dwindled since the university began enforcing the plan's adoption, said Kathryn Quilliam, Tech's ombudsman for students, but students recently have come to her about their medical coverage.

While she understands the university's perspective in requiring health insurance, she said, there have been complaints of poor coverage, particularly for allergies, which should be remedied the next time Tech chooses a provider.

"It's not like the university does some sweetheart deal with an insurance company," Nagy said, referring to the competition between companies vying to provide Tech's insurance. "I used to do procurement for the U.S. government, and you can't go out and hold a gun to these service providers and say, 'You are going to bid on this policy.'"

As a Tech graduate who worked his way though school, Nagy said he knows the cost of education can be a burden, but administrators have to take many things into consideration before they make health care decisions.

"I would love nothing better than to have the lowest possible cost for health insurance," he said. "I know we need it. I understand that, but, at the end of the day, we also have to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the law for internationals who get a visa and study in the United States. You have to do everything possible to keep them from becoming a public charge."

Looking ahead at Tech's programs for making international students feel at home, Nagy said he would like to implement a program much like that at the University of Oklahoma, which pairs international students with American students to give them a personal friendship to aid them in their studies during college.

The key to feeling at home at a university is personal friendships, Fast said, and the key to multinational friendship is empathy.

Of course, the key to empathy, he said, is first-hand experience.

"I think people who have gone to study abroad programs from here, they all of a sudden realize there is more than the United States out there," Fast said. "I would 100 percent support something like that. They should do that more. It makes us aware that the world is a lot bigger than Lubbock and the shape of Texas."

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