International students will soon have new pathways for engagement in the Binghamton University community.

The Student Association’s vice president of multicultural affairs (VPMA) recently announced an initiative that will seek to grow the participation and engagement of international students. New programming and stronger outreach initiatives will be a core part of the plan, according to Erica Juarez, the VPMA and a junior majoring in human development.

Based on admissions statistics, Juarez named the BU Japanese Association (BUJA), Korean American Student Association, Chinese American Student Association and Indian International Student Association (IISU) as organizations the initiative will focus on.

This latest initiative was first planned out from Juarez’s interactions with international students in her classes, after she noticed how they often didn’t engage in the University.

“So basically with that I realized I would engage with them, and I would just talk to them about how campus life is for them,” Juarez said. “A recurring theme was that they basically just don’t feel as involved in the community because, one, they are kind of shy — two, they just don’t know what is going on around campus and three, they feel like they should just go back to home and that deters them from actually seeking out programming events in like the after school hours.”

A primary focus of the initiative is reaching out to international students at the places where they live to encourage them to become comfortable with engagement, as detailed by Juarez. Partnerships with Hillside Community alongside the Off Campus College Council would be a part of this, as the VPMA’s office would plan tabling and events to introduce international members of these communities to opportunities at the University.

As a member of BUJA, Juarez also described how she saw less international student involvement in multicultural groups post-COVID-19.

“We want to bring back that engagement that there was before in terms of their involvement in e-boards, and [general body] events and stuff like that,” Juarez said. “So one thing that I want to do is speak with some multicultural groups first, and then bring up this idea of an International Student Outreach Chair on the Executive Board position. I believe that this would then allow for them to be a leader within these groups, because what happens most of the time is that international students are juniors and seniors — they’re a little bit older, like in their upper years — and their English proficiency might not be 100 percent which is completely fine.”

Juarez expressed hope that this new position would then produce an outlet and space for international students to feel more included, as most multicultural groups often look to recruit underclassmen compared to older international students.

Eugenia Woo, president of BUJA and a senior majoring in English, described how, despite interacting with international students, long-term involvement has been tough to foster.

“Unfortunately, these interactions usually fail to yield any follow-ups or conversations,” Woo wrote in an email. “However, this initiative has the ability to take the connections with international students a step further. By hosting tablings, social mixers, mentor matchings and more, I believe that this initiative will be able to facilitate friendships and relationships between students from different cultural backgrounds.”

Other plans Juarez described include tabling and posters at international student orientation to give international students an early introduction to engagement in the University community. Plans to create new positions for international students within the SA itself have also been discussed.

Neha Patel, public relations chair for IISU and a junior majoring in biology, said she supported the initiative’s plans to encourage international students.

“It encourages more engagement from international students as well as letting them know that we want them to attend these occasions,” Patel wrote. “Opening up the new position of International Student Outreach chair will aid in this initiative because you will have someone who can solely focus [on] increasing international student awareness and engagement.”