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“Their style is based on a rote system with not much creativity involved. My teaching work helps me to understand some of the difficulties students have adjusting to the American education system,” she explains. “We discovered, too, that most Chinese students find colleges through agencies. The most important part of my job is directly communicating with students and making sure the information gets to admissions correctly.”

After students reach academic admission standards, then begins the intense business of preparing for immigration with background checks, medical procedures and other normal visa requirements mandated by the U.S. government. Rick Lane, UIS director of international student services, steps in as the intermediary during this process. Lane comes to Springfield from Tennessee after living in Costa Rica and Spain and traveling through much of Central America and Europe, plus stays in South Carolina and Kentucky.

“Immigration rules change constantly.

Just this past week special instructions for students from Iran and Afghanistan changed. It’s a constant challenge,” he says. “The government follows students very closely. Students know it’s very important to keep their status updated.”

Lane works alongside Jonathan GoldbergBelle, the UIS director of international programs, to manage and help the growing global community on the Springfield campus. Both directors work out of the UIS International Center, with a good deal of interaction and overlapping tasks a daily occurrence. Basically Lane works with international students coming to UIS and GoldbergBelle deals with UIS students studying abroad and international faculty visiting here.

“We are a home base for our visiting students. They come here to the center first, usually because they’re familiar with us, then we direct them to other services on campus,” says Lane. “We’ve organized bus trips to St. Louis and Chicago and host campus activities. Our newest initiative is the International House, to open in the fall of 2011.”

An interesting and experimental notion, the “House” offers anyone attending UIS and living on campus an opportunity to be housemates with other students from various foreign countries in campusprovided, adjacent townhouses. Lane hopes the intermingling of cultures will offer advantages to international and U.S. students interested in gaining experiences in global diversity. Other offerings include the International Week campus celebration and the popular International Festival (to be held Nov. 11 in 2011), now in its 34th year, making it the oldest student-started organization at UIS and clearly showing the depth of the international community at the university.

Hailing from the Liaoning province in China, bordering North Korea, Pingjing Qzao (she goes by Zoe) came to the United States several years ago with her husband. They’ve spent time in Hawaii, Seattle, Los Angeles, D.C., Chicago and three years in Tucson, while her spouse worked on his doctorate. She was attracted to UIS for many of the same reasons other students applied, namely, lower fees, smaller classes, graduate program benefits and the overall friendliness of the campus, both in the student body and the administration.

“The International Office was very efficient and helpful in getting through the complicated paperwork for the visa process,” she says. “I really appreciate the good service. It influenced my decision to come here.”

UIS benefits from the added campus diversity, but also by padding the university coffers. International students pay roughly 2 ½ times what an Illinois resident pays to attend the state-sponsored university. As state funding shrinks, every dollar counts, and as more and more college income is derived from tuition, recruiting overseas becomes a viable option to increase the financial health of the university. But even at the increased rate of tuition, international students feel they’re getting a bargain and are happy to be getting a fine education in the United States at a decent price.

“I was looking for a good public administration program and UIS came up in my search,” says Seham Ataullah, a graduate student from Lahore, Pakistan, with an MBA from her native country, scheduled for a May 2012 graduation. “The faculty here is excellent and the fees are quite reasonable. I work at the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs in the GYPSI program (a graduate assistant program that places students in a workplace outside the university). I’m learning a lot, enjoying my work and planning on studying for my doctorate after my master’s degree.”

As with other students interviewed, Seham hopes to remain in the states by using federal work programs like the OPT, while planning to achieve permanent status, then possibly moving toward American citizenship, citing better opportunities for women to work and participate in society in general, as her primary reason for exploring avenues to remain.

Seham enjoys excursions to downtown Springfield, visiting the historic sites and checking out restaurants, especially supporting the local businesses, but has yet to try a horseshoe. Hyejeong heartily admits to liking Café Moxo and enjoying a ponyshoe at D’arcy’s Pint. Both students credit the speedy and friendly response of the UIS admissions office for bringing them to Springfield, as well as the intimate class size, first-name-basis instructors and the comparative bargain of the tuition and living costs.

If all goes according to plan, this process of actively recruiting international students, referred to in the business as “Comprehensive Internationalization,” is destined to succeed. As the university administration begins implementing measures recently addressed by the UIS International Planning Coordinating Task Force and with hefty reciprocal benefits on both sides of the equation, steady growth will likely continue for the international student community at UIS.

Contact Tom Irwin at [email protected].