The workgroup was created after outcry from Ohio State students and faculty following the U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement announced July 6, 2020, that international students could not return to or remain in the country if their universities adopted online-only course models for the fall semester. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Time zone issues, Carmen inaccessibility and isolation — international students studying abroad reported these issues and more, according to a November 2020 report from Ohio State’s International Students Online workgroup. University colleges and offices have implemented changes to address the challenges Buckeyes face abroad.
Jacob Chang, a third-year in psychology and political science and member of the workgroup, said the workgroup was created following outcry from Ohio State students and faculty after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced July 6, 2020, that international students could not return to or remain in the country if their universities adopted online-only course models for the fall semester. The International Student Council at Ohio State created a petition that received more than 12,000 signatures.
Even though ICE rescinded the policy just more than a week later, Chang said Ohio State decided to establish the workgroup in August 2020 to discuss the unique challenges international students face during the pandemic.
“I know ideas, no matter how diverse, how different they are, when they are heard in the public, they are uplifted by the university,” Chang said. “I can see that once again, when we sent out the public letters for the ICE policy change.”
Gil Latz, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs for the Office of International Affairs, said a small workgroup was created through the Academic Program Advising Committee in March 2020 to identify issues unique to international students taking online courses from their home countries — such as internet connectivity issues and finding courses online.
Latz said the Office of International Affairs website was updated to address the emerging needs of international students abroad. However, he said he and Beth Hume, vice provost for student academic success and dean of undergraduate education for the Office of Academic Affairs, decided they needed to dig deeper and created the second larger workgroup — the International Students Online group — that met from August to November 2020.
“There really has been an unprecedented, in my experience, amount of attention to the international student needs under these extraordinary circumstances, and we have an ever-improving approach of how we’re going to do this better,” Latz said.
The academic affairs workgroup, which highlighted 15 academic recommendations for Ohio State to be more accommodating of international students abroad, included university administrators, undergraduate students and advisers from Ohio State’s offices of Student Academic Success, International Affairs and Distance Education and eLearning, the Graduate School, Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning, Undergraduate Student Government’s International Student Council, the colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education and Human Ecology, and the Fisher College of Business, according to the report.
Chang said the workgroup looked at surveys conducted in spring and summer 2020 from the offices in support of the group. The surveys showed that students suffered from the lack of support by advisers, office hours and tutoring. Students also stated they felt isolated from the rest of the Ohio State community, had a hard time connecting with classmates and felt unwelcome because of micro-aggressions about COVID-19 from domestic classmates.
During the fall semester, 1,800 students were located outside of the U.S., mostly from Korea, China and India, according to the report. Chang said many of these students were first-years because the state department pulled employees from embassies, making it difficult for students to obtain visas and come to the U.S. for classes.
The report also focused on challenges international students faced with synchronous courses because of the difference in time zones and accessibility to Carmen. International students in China, for example, were required to access Carmen through a virtual personal network (VPN) because the program was banned in the country — but the network was unstable, and students reported missed assignments and discussion posts because of it.
The International Students Online workgroup’s recommendations included creating a website specifically for international students studying in their home countries to access university resources, assigning first-year international students a student mentor and improving the course scheduling process for international students dealing with time zone differences.
The report also emphasized the importance of informing instructors how to best meet international students’ needs and teaching students the academic misconduct regulations they are less familiar with and sometimes violate — such as plagiarism.
“It’s important for students to know that self-plagiarizing is plagiarism too,” Chang said. “That gets many students into trouble, and when they go through the hearing process for academic misconduct, they have to speak in English to defend themselves.”
The report has been distributed to colleges across campus. Chang said that with these recommendations, he hopes to see a change in how international students are treated and perceived.
“In the past five years, I’m confident to say that there has never been a report or any kind of written system to address systemic issues international students face at Ohio State,” Chang said. “Other communities always are seeing us as monolithic. People oftentimes talk about international students so that you should be centered around immigration and cultural adaptation, but it’s a lot more than that.”
Hume said since the report’s submission, colleges across the university have reached out to international students individually to check on them. The Office of International Affairs’ website was also updated to direct students to the right office depending on the issues they experience.
Latz said the office also hosted events to help students with the challenges of working in isolation and with class groups in different time zones and countries. Ohio State’s international offices in Brazil, China and India were also told to check on students abroad and provide information and resources for mental health and advisers.
“The role that we play is to try and make sure that what resources are out there can be connected up with people who need them,” Latz said.
Roaya Higazi, Undergraduate Student Government president and a fourth-year in city and regional planning, said it is up to the university offices, including USG, who supported the report to follow through and ensure these recommendations are implemented.
“We know that online learning is definitely going to have a presence in our lives for who knows how long into the future, so this is just willing to ensure that online learning and virtual learning will be somewhat easier than it was this year for a lot folks,” Higazi said.
Chang said the potential creation of an International Affairs Committee within the University Senate, initially introduced five years ago, has recently received positive support from the university. The committee would address the university’s collaborations with universities abroad, improve technological access for those abroad and help voice the issues international students face.
“It feels like, for me, a good moment to know that my experience and my identity and the path I walked at this university will be represented in the university government system, which is something that never happened in the past,” Chang said.
