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An Integrative Approach for International Student Support Programs

Sui-Man Raymond Ting, North Carolina State University, United States

This presentation reports a support program for new international Chinese students at a major university in U.S.A., which integrates the Non-cognitive Model (Sedlacek, 2003), the ExCEL group model (Ting, 2008), advising, tutoring, and academic and cultural enhancement. The evaluation shows that the program students' posttest scores in study skills (e.g. revision, time management), and stress coping abilities were higher than their pretest scores. Implications for international student advising and services, theory, and limitations will be discussed. The presenter will facilitate a discussion about international student support programs in the world as well as brainstorm how the participants may take ideas from the presentation back to their campus.

Exploring Advising Complexities within an American-style University in the Arabian Gulf

Heba Mansour and Dalia Al-Mahmmod, The American University of Kuwait, Kuwait

American-style higher education is a rapidly developing trend in the Arabian Gulf region.However, little research has been conducted regarding student success within these institutions. As an institution within the Middle East, we can only borrow certain aspects of an American-style education. This paper focuses on four important areas in a young liberal arts university in Kuwait; diverse student body and faculty, policies and procedures, culture, and laws and regulations. As advisors, we are aware of the complexities of these areas and how they contribute to the student experience. In this presentation, we will use our current qualitative study to make recommendations on academic and extracurricular practices and as a result improve student engagement.

Measuring Cultural Awareness Profiles of Students Pre- and Post- Study Abroad Experiences

Dalynda Evans, University of Oklahoma, United States

You Can Go Home Again Just as Thomas Wolfe wrote, students today still experience culture shock when studying abroad. My research for the U.S. Department of Education Title IV captured data measuring cultural adaptation. Surveys document the shift in students cultural awareness pre- and post- international experience and their culture shock upon returning to the States. Electronic handouts include information on culture shock, copies of the grant, and effective surveys collected by the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education [CUIBE].

Spanning Boundaries: Academics and Professionals in Partnership to Foster Student Engagement

Sarah Parkes and Julie Blackwell Young, Newman University College, United Kingdom

Five members of academic staff from the School of Human Sciences at Newman University Birmingham, United Kingdom (UK), operate within and centralise the academic sphere of student engagement and success (Thomas and May, 2011) as SAST. They facilitate a pre-entry course that promotes a sense of belonging in participants; provide on-going academic development sessions; facilitate interaction between academic and professional colleagues in academic advising as well as between students and professional services to promote student engagement.
Presenting a case study of the Senior Academic Support Tutor (SAST) scheme, this session discusses the challenges facing such Third Space activity (Whitchurch, 2008) configured to enhance the student experience of higher education, as experienced by SAST and evident in other UK institutions.