UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A group of doctoral students in the Penn State College of Education will discuss their work to assess and address the needs of international students in their home department at an upcoming event.
A milestone in a year-long project, the Department of Education Policy Studies (EPS) and the College of Education will host “Bagels & Brainwaves” on Monday, April 22 in 221 Chambers Building on the University Park campus. The featured speaker will be Christina Yao, associate professor at the University of South Carolina College of Education. Bagels and coffee will be served at 9:30am, with presentations running from 10 to 11:15 a.m.
Yao will join graduate students from the EPS International Student Inclusion Initiative to discuss current efforts to enhance equity and inclusion for international students within EPS. Members of the initiative will briefly present current activities within the department designed to enhance academic inclusion for international graduate students. Yao will then help the audience explore the current landscape facing international students in the U.S. more deeply and will offer an equity-driven framework for internationalization.
The EPS International Student Inclusion Initiative was spearheaded by EPS doctoral students Ghadir Al Saghir, Annie Everett, Dajung Sohn, Suyoung Park and Julian Prieto. The idea for the project took root in fall 2022 when the team members were enrolled in the "Qualitative Methods in Education Research" class taught by Kai Schafft, professor of education (education and rural sociology).
The course required a final project, in which the group conducted a qualitative study centered on the international graduate student experience at Penn State. It was largely a “labor of love” for the team, they said, as four out of the five current team members are international students.
“We came up with the idea that we wanted to learn more about how Penn State views inclusivity for graduate students and how international students view this inclusivity,” Al Saghir said.
The team analyzed policy documents, interviewed administrators, observed classes and conducted interviews with graduate students with international backgrounds enrolled in policy-focused graduate programs. Based on their findings, the team members developed a student toolkit with a proposed set of activities and recommendations for EPS.
The beta version of the student toolkit launched Sept. 20. On Jan. 31, Everett presented on the team’s research at the Council for Higher Education Accreditations 2024 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
“Our goal is to approach the international student population not with a deficit lens but one of collaboration and support,” Everett said.
Attendance at the Bagels & Brainwaves event is limited, so an RSVP is requested by April 15. For more information, contact Everett at aeverett@psu.edu.