Program Name
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International Students Center
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Description of Program
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Results of your previous Program Review’s action plan
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2b. Program coherence and effectiveness: Explain any curriculum changes since last program review, including SLO alignments
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| The new weekly international student newsletter provides students with regular updates about academic counseling, student services, campus engagement opportunities, and the transfer process. An "Important Dates This Week" section tells students exactly where to look to find "real-time" information about services needed. In addition, the collaboration between our Office Assistant, Retention Specialist and the new International Student Counselor allows students to access retention and counseling services all in a "one-stop" location - The Center for Global Engagement. Extended hours in the Center for Global Engagement now provide evening access to Center for Global Engagement staff on Tuesdays and Wednesday. The "F1 training for new counselors" workshop provided resources for other counselors who may see international students. | |
2c. Student success and equity: Discuss what your program has done to address equity gaps between student populations and between modes of delivery (online, hybrid, and face-to-face), describing your successes, works in progress, and/or ongoing challenges.
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| Committee members also submitted feedback on the proposed college mission statement and an IEP staff member collaborated with the CSM Multi-Cultural and Dream Center to submit feedback to Classified Senate on equity gaps in the proposed campus mission. International Program Manager, Danni Redding Lapuz facilitated the International Student Task Force to gather faculty feedback which resulted in a task force report presented in Spring 2018 that will inform future equity discussions. We successfully added a pre-arrival orientation abroad to further address student equity gaps in understanding of the requirements of the U.S. education system and College of San Mateo. | |
2d. Provide an update on any long-term plans that are still in progress (if applicable).
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| We are now investigating an online pre-orientation module to allow for a self-paced orientation experience accessible to all new students. Along with pre-orientation we hope to incorporate pre-registration for new international students and continue to collaborate with assessment and counseling on equitable ways to assess international students.
In addition, we have long-term plans to use the SalesForce system more extensively for prospective and current student data.
Finally, campus internationalization is, of course, an ongoing effort; starting with branding the Center for Global Engagement as the campus home for international students, the broader county non-immigrant student community, domestic students and faculty interested in study abroad, all students interested in global internships, the international student ambassador program and collaborative globally themed programming. | |
Student success indicators
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3b. Discuss what your program has done this Program Review cycle to address achievement gaps between student populations, describing your successes, works in progress, and/or ongoing challenges.
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| Along with the targeted work we are doing with students in probation and dismissal status, we are connecting new international students to the international student counselors upon arrival at orientation. All new students meet the counselors at orientation and make an appointment to complete their student education plan during their first semester. We hope this early intervention will result in fewer students in probation and dismissal status in the future.
Staff also collaborated with UC Berkeley to offer high achieving international students transfer application and personal statement workshops. The workshops were designed to bring the information to the student by providing general information about the transfer application and international student specific advice about personal insight questions in the Center for Global Engagement. The UC Berkeley collaboration was highly successful with two days of one on one appointments and a workshop filled.
Getting probation and dismissal students to engage with resources remains an ongoing challenge. | |
3c. Discuss what your program has done this Program Review cycle to address achievement gaps between modes of delivery (online, hybrid, and face-to-face), describing your successes, works in progress, and/or ongoing challenges.
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| Launching SalesForce as the sole application method provided an online admissions resource accessible to prospective students worldwide (even in countries where Google is not available). In addition, the new admission system provides document upload capability, removing the requirement for applicants to email or mail hard copies of documents. The SalesForce CRM allows all international admissions information and documents to be housed in a single cloud-based location. Homestay and scholarship application information is also included in the SalesForce application.
We recently imported information for current students who were admitted prior to the SalesForce rollout and will soon be able to capture transfer information in the SalesForce system as well. We have yet to fully utilize the SalesForce reporting capabilities but have included this as a long-term goal.
As wonderful as SalesForce is, it is not fully integrated with Banner or SEVIS (the government recordkeeping system for international students). We continually seek to improve the SalesForce to Banner data integration process but manual intervention is still required on a regular basis. In addition, software to facilitate migrating admissions documents into Banner/WebXtender was not purchased so that remains a time-intensive manual process. Finally, because SalesForce does not include SEVIS integration, all student data must be entered manually into the SEVIS system. | |
3d. Program Efficiency Indicators: Do we deliver programs efficiently given out resources? Summarize trends in program efficiency. Discuss no-shows, group vs. indvidual delivery, etc.
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| The International Education Program continues to grow in the number of international students served, types of services provided, breadth of activities and campus-wide engagement. Our ratio of staff to students has increased over the past several semesters. In Spring 2018 we reached the highest ever student to staff ratio that we have experienced at 156 students per staff member. This compares to 87 students per staff member at Skyline College and 65 students per staff member at Cañada College.
As a result, we have worked to find ways to scale our services to large numbers. The weekly newsletter is one example of a way that we have extended our reach with limited staff. We have also incorporated group counseling (when needed) and group registration at our international student orientation to accommodate a large number of new students all arriving at the same time. Our model curriculum provides students with a registration guide for their first semester allowing us to most efficiently enroll students in the required number of full-time units.
The COUN 111 course, required for all new international students, also provides an efficient method of disseminating information and connecting students to resources. Course attendance is required which prevents the issue meeting/appointment "no-shows" or poor workshop attendance. | |
3e. Reflect on recent Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) and/or Service Area Outcomes (SAO) assessment results for the program. Identify trends and discuss areas in need of improvement. Specify how SLO/SAO assessment informs program development and changes to the program.
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| Keeping F-1 students apprised of and knowledgeable of the SEVIS/immigration regulations for maintaining their F-1 status will remain an ongoing focus of the international education program. The “no error standard in SEVIS reporting, record maintenance, and database management” increases the importance of both staff and student knowledge and staff monitoring of compliance with F1 rules and regulations. Providing this information as early and as often as possible is our primary focus.
Current immigration trends have resulted in the need to process more applications to generate the same number of enrolled students.
Familiarizing students with the U.S. education system and academic integrity guidelines is will be another focus area. We believe that including information both pre and post arrival and in a variety of delivery modes will increase student understanding and success. We will pursue including information in an online pre-arrival orientation, continue to include information in the post-arrival orientation and College Planning course and create a plan to highlight issues in the weekly newsletter. We will also establish methods of knowledge assessment around the issue of academic integrity.
Mental health is also a focus for international students struggling with culture shock and a new academic system. Finding ways culturally appropriate ways to connect students to mental health resources is another area for improvement. | |
Description of Planning
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4b. What will your program do to increase student success and promote student equity in the next two years? What kind of professional development and institutional support will be engaged and enacted to meet these goals?
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| 1. Align the International Education Committee Mission and Goals with the new campus Mission, Strategic Priorities and Educational Master Plan.
Will require the work and support of the International Education Committee.
2. Create a pre-arrival online orienation.
Will involve IT resources to determine the most effective format.
3. Assess student knowledge of academic integrity policies.
4. Collaborate with counseling and assessment to create pre-registration capability for international students.
Will require the support of counseling, assessment and faculty.
5. Train staff on best practices when addressing student mental health issues.
Will require collaboration with Personal Counseling and Wellness.
6. Integrate staff into training, committees and events that impact the International Education Program. | |
4c. Describe other professional development activities and institutional support and collaborations that would most effectively ensure that the center achieves its goals and plans.
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| Dominant Themes and Trends
Program and Resource Need - Because of this rapid growth we have been struggling to keep up with programmatic demands. Our current staffing issues are directly related to this growth and must be addressed very soon to enable us to continue to provide excellent admission and student support for this high-need population.
Collaboration & Professional Development – Collaboration with academic departments is crucial to delivering the best possible educational experience for our international students and faculty. Pre-orientation and pre-registration are becoming imperative. Additionally, faculty professional development opportunities on topics such as international
education, supporting English language learners, internationalizing the curriculum, and cross-cultural communication will continue to be important to ensure that the faculty is supported and creating successful learning environments for all students. | |