Student Centered, really?

The new academic year is underway and campuses are buzzing with energy as some students settle into new classes and others prepare for Midterms. Students make campus a thriving community of learners. 

Colleges and Universities pride themselves as being “Student Centered,” students are core to their mission. This is good news for the more than 250,000 international students entering US institutions each year and the approximately 56% of domestic learners who are 1st-generation university students, according to a report issued by Forbes Advisor. 

Combined, international and 1st-gen students are an enormous and incredibly influential group of learners. The tendency in US discourse on higher ed is to disaggregate large groups into so many “minority” subsets where individuality is illuminated, student needs are revealed, and appropriate support can be administered; this approach can be very useful. However, shortcomings in access, support, and a sense of belonging persist and universities are baffled. Viewing this sensible strategy through the lens of various ‘isms’ – racism, sexism, ableism, cronyism, nepotism, classism, etc. – that plague and so define US society, exposes the very real structural barriers in place and the many ways in which such small groupings are ill equipped to tackle complex barriers to access and support. Coupled with the bureaucracy that commonly frustrates large institutions; “minority” designation and small individual groupings reveal the power distance between students and the institutions in which they are enrolled. Instead of being acknowledged as a strong, dynamic entity pulsing with life that makes university a rich, global learning experience, students tend to be defined by their weakest parts and deemed “less likely” to take advantage of campus opportunities and “historically marginalized” enrolling in “lower-cost, less selective” universities due perhaps to “disadvantaged backgrounds. Essentially alone to navigate the behemoth that is higher ed and its labyrinth of policies and procedures, students – particularly international and 1st-generation students – are entangled in the myth of “Student Centered” colleges and universities. 

Viewing international and 1st-generation students as central to the core mission of universities and also as members of a powerful, dynamic global network places these learners at the center of strategies for institutional (societal, national, etc.) advancement. Using today’s trendy terms, such learners feel “seen, heard, affirmed” and develop a sense of “belonging” in academic spaces and/or far away from home when their value is understood and affirmed through policies and procedures that liberate them from webs of institutional red tape. Affirming the humanity of students, recognizing them by their strengths rather than defining them by their weaknesses, can change the way support is administered and delivered. Instead of expecting students already unfamiliar with the US and/or university culture to identify and seek the help they need, those who know – based, at least, on all the data collected identifying reasons students don’t get the help they need – can seek students and deliver support and services necessary to carrying out the mission of learning institutions. “Change the way you see things and the things you see will change.”

Global-Ed Immersion (GEI) fills the void between resources and acces. Driven by the powerful dynamic and enduring connections only culture can create, GEI is changing the student experience by building community, mutuality, and trust in the international and 1st-generation population, providing “student support – as it should be.”