Shelbie Harris
News Editor
Academic Affairs is restructuring the International Programs Office (IPO) in order to further diversify the campus, and improve recruiting efforts for the fall 2016 semester.
International programs issues and questions should be directed to Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, Scott Scholes, as former director, Maria Fletcher, is now the director of professional continuing education and international placements with the Division of Health Sciences.
“In terms of structure we’re going to have an associate director of admissions that’s responsible for the international admissions portion,” Scholes said. “This will help align the processes for domestic and international students alike, which is a fairly traditional move.”
According to Scholes, the university is making changes that support both a traditional model as well as incorporating less traditional methods. The nontraditional changes involve looking at partners or other schools utilizing outsourced recruiting systems.
“A company we’re looking at is called INTO [University Partnerships Limited], who have worked with schools such as Oregon State to enhance their outreach,” Scholes said. “It’s really about how can we enhance our international population, and by enhanced I mean make it well balanced so it best serves the campus community and the students.”
According to INTO’s website, Students enrolling in INTO programs at partner universities outperform both direct admit international students and in many cases domestic students as well.
International students from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait make up 77 percent of all international students on ISU’s campus. ISU hopes to spread the international population amongst many countries by utilizing these recruiting companies.
“The fact that we’ve gotten big numbers from a few different countries has increased the diversity on campus compared to not having them,” Scholes said. “The Kuwaiti student population has grown quite a bit, which is great, and nothing we’re doing is trying to reduce that number, but we’re looking to have that balanced with more students from Brazil, China or Europe for example.”
Scholes also said it’s difficult for institutions like Idaho State University to reach around the globe and create as well as maintain relationships with international partners. He is hopeful the changes brought forth will help this process.
Because Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti governments have recognized that populations of particular programs at ISU are largely made up of students from their countries, thus implementing a hold on new students enrolling in these programs, ISU will be working directly with other countries to improve the international population.
“We were recently approached by a group from China wanting to make some agreements so we’re working on that,” Scholes said. “We had some conversations with some individuals from India this summer and are looking at making some partnerships with a university there.
Additionally, the Communication, Media and Persuasion department is seeking partnership with Sweden which will facilitate an exchange of Sweden and American students.
According to Brian Sagendorf, the ISU director of Human Resources, the new position Fletcher accepted will coordinate all the continuing education efforts for faculty and staff within the division, as well as assisting students who go out on international rotations and placements.
“This is a new position that Linda Hatzenbuehler, executive dean of the vice provost within the Division of Health Sciences, has been working on for quite some time,” Sagendorf said. “She has been working with the Provost to try and identify the real strong need for strengthening the faculty and staff within the division.”
A vacancy on the organizational charts within the Division of Health Sciences was open, and according to Hatzenbuehler there has never been a person who was responsible for facilitating continuing education efforts.
“This was a vacancy position,” she said. “It was not created for [Feltcher]…the provost just informed me she was going to be leaving her position, and I thought that would be great for me.”
Changes of this nature are not out of the ordinary for universities, and with enrollment numbers for fall 2015 down 671 students, or 4.9 percent from fall 2014 it’s understandable to see ISU making as many administrative moves possible to rectify the situation.
“It seems like these changes may be happening at a weird time,” Scholes said, “but these changes need to be in place early on, so by next year we are in good shape.”
