Aria performs a Zimbabwean dance during the performance part of the Culture and Food Festival along with other member of the Unity Drum and Dance Company. (Eric Oravsky/Montana Kaimin)

UM celebrates diversity on campus for International Week

by Carmen George | March 16, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

International Week is under way at the University of Montana and will continue with free events and presentations until Friday to honor diversity on campus.

Highlights include Ethiopian professors visiting UM this week and a firsthand account of conditions in Haiti following the devastating earthquake there.

The week kicked off with The International Culture and Food Festival Sunday in the University Center, involving several thousand participants, said Mehrdad Kia, UM associate provost for International Programs and director of the Central and Southwest Asia program.

UM has nearly 430 international students this year from 75 different countries, said Kia at the week’s opening ceremony in the UC Monday.

Effie Koehn, UM director of Foreign Student and Scholar Services who spoke at the ceremony, said having these international students on campus adds to UM’s cultural, educational and financial well-being. Along with those students, approximately 200 international scholars come to UM each year as visiting professors, researchers and speakers, Koehn said. International Week is about appreciating the differences between cultures to become better citizens of the school and world, she said.

Presentations this week feature countries such as Haiti, Ethiopia, Panama, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq and Germany.

One of these presentations, “Ethiopia: A Land of Diversity,” begins at noon today in UC 332. Two professors from Ethiopia, who arrived at UM Friday, will talk about their country and collaboration possibilities between UM and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. They are also meeting with some UM classes until their departure Wednesday to speak more specifically about their disciplines in medicine, forestry and environmental science, Kia said. UM is currently particularly interested in working to strengthen and increase collaboration with many African universities and is sending a delegation to visit universities in southern Africa in May, he said.

“Flight to Crisis Mission in Haiti” begins noon Friday in UC 333. The presentation will discuss observations on the past and future of the devastated country by Thomas Sullivan, a UM adjunct assistant professor of geography who recently returned from Haiti, where he helped with recovery efforts.

Along with these presentations and many others, information sessions about study abroad opportunities will be offered in the International Center today at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday at noon and Thursday at 4 p.m. These sessions are available every week. Exchanges are available in 39 different countries. A study abroad table will also be set up in the UC this week, where interested students can pick up information.

A Peace Corps information session will be available Thursday at 3 p.m. in UC 332.

Koehn said the number of international students on campus is about the same as last year, although there has been a significant drop in the number of Japanese students at UM, probably due to an announcement from the Japanese ministry of education warning parents not to send their children to this region due to the swine flu epidemic. Nationally, this year has seen a huge rise in the number of Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean students, with a 46 percent increase in Vietnam’s case, she said.

Koehn said that above all, she hopes International Week encourages students to reach out to international students more throughout the year, not just during this week.

One way to do this is through The UM Global Partners Program, organized by Foreign Student and Scholar Services, to provide foreign students with friends to help them navigate around campus and the community during their first two months at UM, she said.

Lifelong friendships emerge from this program, giving students the opportunity to really get to know someone from a different culture, Koehn said. If those kinds of friendships occurred more across campus, she said, UM would see a huge positive transformation.

While it’s great to educate yourself about another culture through events like those during International Week, it’s not the same as what you learn by trying to get to know international students in places like the dorms, dining areas, and classes, she said.

“What we really want to encourage is everyday effort,” Koehn said. “Reach out. The one-to-one interaction is more significant than any other activity.”

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A complete list of International Week events is available through UM’s International Program Web site at http://www.umt.edu/ip/newsevents1/internationalweek.html.ut the Global Partnership program is available through the Foreign Student and Scholar Services web site at http://life.umt.efu/fsss/stresources/globalpartners-um.php.

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