International Education week starts Monday
Utah State University’s sixth-annual International Education Week kicks off today, a weeklong celebration of diversity and understanding designed to showcase international students attending American universities.
“It’s kind of a culture exchange,” said International Student Council member Gayathri Samarasingha. “Every university in America celebrates it.”
International Education Week is a joint project of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, designed “to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide,” according to www.iew.state.gov, the official Web site of the project. This year’s theme is “International Education: Improving Student Achievement Around the World.”
The first event will be today at 12:30 p.m. in the Sunburst Lounge, where keynote speaker Anthony Andrady, who has been helping with the rebuilding effort in Sri Lanka after last December’s devastating tsunami, will be talking about his experiences.
Asiful Gani, vice president of the ISC, said he thinks USU students will have new perspective on the topic after hurricanes in the gulf coast brought the reality of natural disasters closer to home.
“After Katrina and Rita in Texas and Louisiana, it will show students that this tsunami was even bigger,” Gani said.
The week’s activities will also include a film festival with a film from a different country every night, panel discussions about international issues and a Mr. & Ms. International Pageant on Friday.
“The main idea is to share international culture and let the U.S. students understand international culture,” Gani said. “Also, it’s a way the international students can participate in some activities and show off their talents.”
A new event this year ISC members said they want to make a tradition is Thursday’s International Dress Day, when all USU students are encouraged to wear ethnic clothing to class.
“When it’s Halloween, everybody knows they’re supposed to wear something fancy,” Samarasingha said. “We’re hoping to get everybody to wear their international dresses.”
Samarasingha added that all students are encouraged to participate, not just international students.
“We’re trying to get a lot of people involved this year,” Samarasingha said.
“If they’re international students, we’re asking them to wear their international dress,” she said. “If they’re local students, a lot of them have been on missions, so they have international dress from other countries. Or, some of them might know students they can borrow something from.”
The film festival, which will show films from China, the Dominican Republic, India and Africa, will run Monday-Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Walnut Room on the second floor of the Taggart Student Center.
“It’s a free thing,” Samarasingha said. “We’re trying to get, instead of popcorn, traditional snacks from the country [that the movie is about]. It’s cool.”
In a statement released about IEW, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said, “We must understand what motivates those whose cultures and traditions are not our own. To achieve these goals, we must teach our children international education skills, which include the learning of other languages, cultures and traditions.”
“I hope students and teachers alike will have the opportunity to participate in an internationally enriching experience during [International Education Week],” Spellings said.? For more information about IEW, students can log on to www.oiss.usu.edu.
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu