#28- Importance of collaborative effort in supporting international students with Wendy, Cassie and Danielle
Keywords: support, collaboration, international students, job search, career service, challenge and support
Importance of Collaborative Effort in Supporting International Students by Wendy, Cassandra and Danielle
Global Connections – CGDSD (00:14)
Hello everyone, welcome to Global Connections podcast channel. I’m your host, Karren. Today I’m delighted to have three guests to touch on the importance of collaborative effort in supporting international students. Before we dive into the topic, I would like to have the guests introduce themselves. We will start with Yu. Go ahead and introduce yourself first.
Yu(Wendy) Wu (00:40)
Hi everybody, this is Yu Wu. Also, I always go by Wendy because my Chinese name, especially first name, it’s a little bit hard to pronounce. I am currently serving as the Assistant Director of the Peabody Office of Student Life at Vanderbilt University. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Global Connections – CGDSD (01:01)
Danielle, would you like to go next?
Danielle Lewis (01:04)
Sure, Happy to be with you all. So I’m Danielle Lewis. I’m the associate director of Peabody Career Services. I’m specifically supporting master’s students in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development.
Global Connections – CGDSD (01:15)
And Cassie.
Cassandra Goodpaster (01:17)
Hi, everyone. I’m Cassie or Cassandra Goodpaster. I’m an associate director of enrollment and student services, also at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, working entirely with graduate and professional admissions. So our master’s in PhD and EDD students.
Global Connections – CGDSD (01:33)
Thank you so much for introducing yourself everyone. Okay, we’re going to dive into the first question. I recognize all of you are from different, supporting grad school, grad students, but different offices. So what is the typical interaction of your role or your offices with international students individually?
Yu (Wendy) Wu (02:00)
I can go first. Go ahead, Cassie.
Cassandra Goodpaster (02:04)
I was going say, I’m happy to start as we’re typically the first contact for international students in the admissions office. And we get a lot of international applicants. They make up a very large portion of our full applicant pool and a large portion of our student pool as well, in terms of students who actually matriculate and arrive at Peabody. We work with them.
on every level, the personal level, when they have specific questions and they email our admissions account or they email me or my colleague or my students directly. A lot of our international students take advantage of the Zoom sessions that our student ambassadors offer to get more insight on what student life is like at Peabody, on what the application experiences like, questions about process, about testing requirements, those types of things. We’re also really careful to host international student specific webinars and events online of course at timing that works best for folks who are not in the United States to make sure that students have what they need going into the process specifically because there are English proficiency requirements, there are additional transcript requirements that can be a little confusing and daunting for an international student especially if they’ve not engaged with the US education system or have been to the US before or have family or friends who have studied or applied to study in the US. So that is the very basics, we can dive in more, but I’ll let Wendy or Danielle kind of take it from there.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (03:34)
Sure. I can go next. Since after, you know, student get engaged with Cassie’s team and it’s kind of like the time when they are preparing to arrive on campus through the summer, you know, transitions or the enrollment process. That’s where I starting to step into to providing this like a mentorship for them. So they can match up with the second year get to know what to prepare before they arriving on campus. And then once arrive, that’s where all my services is starting with my office, which is like providing the student life care supporting system for the easy students, whether it is helping them transition to Vanderbilt and Peabody navigating all the university resources, or We’re helping them to deal with any life crisis or matters. We’re looking for this and that information. We especially having a lot of students you can see from different levels, some with their families over, some are just graduating from an undergraduate. So they go through a various level of a transition. And then my office also, and also one of my role is leading a transition class called EDUC classes for the first year international students who has not been in the United States before. So I will be the leading instructor for that, creating the curriculum so they can get exposed to various of the resources. And we also host different events, especially cultural event. I’m also the advisor of a student organization that forms primarily by the international students at the Peabody College in the master level going on with that. That’s my student affairs part of the work. And one more additional is I do have a heavy job on individual kind of like a checking point with international students who are experiencing challenges. All right. I will pass it to Danielle.
Danielle Lewis (05:38)
Yeah. Great overview. And so in our work in career services at Peabody College, we support international students through a lot of different ways. But the best way to describe our support is a bookend experience with Cassie and the admissions team. And so she supports everyone, kind of like onboarding and matriculation. And so we help students land their full-time jobs or continued education as many of our students will apply to PhD programs afterward.
And we also support with internship search at Peabody. also call these experiences practicum experiences. So really just gaining hands on experience in their industry related to their academic program. But we’re very intentional and proactive with our student outreach. So they’re receiving correspondence from us really as soon as they accept their admission to Peabody. And so once Cassie and Wendy have their conversations, we really just take over from there right away and letting them know that we’re here to support them with wherever they’re at on the career development spectrum. So I always say during orientation that a big misconception about supporting graduate students and professional students is that they have it all figured out. You’re going through a master’s program and you know right away what you want to do. But that’s really not the case. And I used to support first year students in my previous office. And so there are some parallels to that exploratory kind of perspective that students come into our office with. And it’s OK. I just want to affirm that. We have ongoing individual appointments with students. And so I have my frequent flyers who I just love and adore and how do they want to meet with me and others who just want a quick check in every blue moon and that’s great as well. And then we also do a ton of programming and events, mostly with our fabulous alumni who were always gracious in giving back their time. And then from an international student perspective, especially important to hear as most of the advice I feel is for our domestic students. But we know that there are some special considerations with work authorization and networking that play a really big role in the ways that international students find success in the job search.
Global Connections – CGDSD (08:13)
Thank you so much for sharing. personally am like thinking like, my gosh, if I have this office when I was going through grad school, guess coming in would have been easy. Going through like student life would have been easy and like finding a job would have been easy, I guess.
Danielle Lewis (08:32)
I appreciate you saying that. And I don’t want to speak for just my office, but we hear that quite a bit at Peabody of, I wish I would have had this resource or this office of my undergraduate institution. And so I always take that as like the biggest compliment. So thank you for that.
Global Connections – CGDSD (08:50)
I resonate with that because I remember like, especially you telling like a lot of graduate students know like what they’re coming into. To be honest, like I went to undergrad in the US and then go to my grad school in the US too. I realized, did not realize how hard grad school is. No one prepped me for it. was not really an orientation to even understand what is it like being a grad school, grad student in the US. definitely resonate with what you say. You know, it’s really important like for offices, most offices to connect with them and understand where they’re coming from. So I appreciate y’all doing the work that all of you are doing.
I think my follow up question to that was I understand like admission and then like Wendy, you come in to support them in the middle of their college life and then career service also. What challenges do you think they face when they come in and then they transition throughout their time here and then when they graduate? What do you think your students are facing, especially international students? What kind of individualized support then is given to them?
Cassandra Goodpaster (10:13)
Yeah. I know from the start of their time perspective, right? And I know Wendy and I will talk about this for a later question around our transition team and some of really cool collaboration that we do for the start of an international students experience at Peabody. Housing is probably one of the biggest challenges on both on individual level, truly like for all of our international students, whether that’s navigating, finding housing from another country, whether that’s figuring out kind of when they arrive in Nashville, how to do banking and all of these pieces. We see kind of from the start of their time at Peabody, really the biggest challenge is housing. Some students in the past, and I think every year we have this situation arrive, land in Nashville and aren’t necessarily sure where they’re going to sleep that night. They have to figure it out that day and they have to go find an apartment that’s available and they have to sign up for it right then and then they might have a place to sleep but do they have a bed or a pillow, right? So housing certainly is one of the biggest hurdles that our students have to kind of overcome and it’s something that we work really hard kind of on multiple levels to make sure that they have as much information as possible, that they have as much support, that they have as much knowledge and kind of understanding of general American kind of rental markets, but certainly the national rental market, which is its own kind of intense beast, given the way the city is growing. So that’s kind of the first, I would argue the first big challenge our international students really face when they arrive as a student at Peabody.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (12:00)
Yeah, I can go along with that. I said, Cassie and I collaborate pretty tightly, closely at the beginning of their overall transition, where the lifespan overall, besides the housing, really specific and larger problems, I think in general, navigating the system and also going through this entire transition is pretty hard because being an international student, other than getting to know what is the enrollment process look like, they have additional layer of getting situated with their documents from the international scholar and student services office. And also,know, school is a different areas. It’s not like undergraduates. You have everything along together, but grad school, grad school itself is one thing. And I, SSS office is another thing. So it’s basically you’re handling both and simultaneously is another challenge. So I guess like where does the information coming from and who is a contact person? and how do I effectively communicate my situation? And sometimes it’s just through multiple offices, but do we have one point of contact that like one team like will help me to kind of like gather all the information moving forward. So that’s one. And then another thing I would say on the personal level, because I personally was an international student and now I’m serving international student working closely with our IMAP leaders and also mentors. I think the other challenge is like personally, how do I adjust my transition mentally, having the mentality and then, you know, being able to accept new information and also at the same time has the courage and then to change my deficit mind of, I have a cultural barrier, I have language barriers. How do I change that? We’re framing this in like positive ways about.I am a one asset for my colleagues here because I bring in the global perspective. That’s another thing that we’re dealing with all the time. Yeah, and then that’s where like Danielle and I collaborated quite closely about, you know, pushing them out to that, like, you know, positivity’s ongoing. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (14:38)
Yeah, then I’ll just wrap up with the biggest challenge for sure is just securing your job. And so just a couple of things here. We provide a lot of guidance and work very closely with our International Student Scholars Office regarding the curriculum practical training or CPT or the optional practical training or OPT, which is supporting their full-time job search. But the work authorization and sponsorship is really tough to secure. And so when you think about it, students meet with our office. And that’s just one challenge they’re going through, which is a really heavy burden. But with what Cassie and Wendy shared about the other significant problems that really weigh on the mentally, it poses so many challenges. And that, I think, speaks to the ways that we work collaboratively with one another in terms of the holistic support that we provide each student. But with the job search itself, I think from my experience in recent years, actually speaking to one academic year, I feel with the portfolio of programs I support, I saw nearly double in PhD applications. And so I think that it’s signaling something much bigger, which is that many international students will proceed to apply to full-time jobs in industry, but really want to apply to PhD programs for continued research, but to really secure additional opportunities. And so it’s alarming and I just want international students to know that with persistent search there are a lot of opportunities but I think sometimes many students are just kind of limited to surface level options and so in Career Services we want to make sure that we’re serving as educators as well to really inform students on all the possibilities with their major instead of just the very linear options and we always say to that career paths are not linear in any way shape or form and and our office, we joke about it all the time and we’re living proof of that. But yes, the work authorization and other challenges with a very turbulent job market is understandably tough for international students right now.
Cassandra Goodpaster (16:52)
Can I add something on that? Danielle might not be putting herself and her team on the back enough, but they also work really hard to educate employers on work authorization for international students and that it is not this massive hurdle or this massive cost. And I think that is just as or nearly as important is that Danielle and her team that she works with and the folks in Career Services are working really hard to make inroads also for international students and to kind of myth bust for employers, whether those are alumni that we connect with or employers that we’re regularly working with. Obviously Danielle can speak to it more than me, but I think it’s important to shout out because I don’t know that there’s every career service office that’s thinking about international student careers from that perspective. I think sometimes they’re thinking about, how do we prepare the students, but maybe not necessarily how do we educate the employers.
Danielle Lewis (17:54)
Thank you, Cassie. I so appreciate that. And that’s a big part of our work as well. You’d be surprised that so many organizations do not know policies related to hiring international candidates. And then once we do explain that process, you see that light bulb moment go off where it’s like, OK. And they realize perhaps a sense of deep regret that there are so many years that they’ve gone on overlooking international candidates simply because they didn’t know the procedures and processes for doing so. But our support for international students, our placement rates are high because of my work in collaboration with our amazing offices. So there’s plenty of time for all just contact Wendy and like, do you know where so and so is located? I heard that they moved to Texas or wherever. And so that way we all have close relationship with our students and we can easily know their job details.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (18:56)
I want to also echo with what Cassie says about Danielle’s office’s work. It’s really about a personal touch point with the students. Like sometimes I will reach out to them if I know anything about a student, whether they change their problems or whether they have this thought or others. Like it’s just like really quickly Danielle and her office will follow up right away and then being able to having this like proactively reaching to the international students because sometimes like it takes a moment for a student being able to proactively reaching out back to the office. So this kind of like touching point is really important. And also I have to say, she got really emotional when a student graduated. So that’s how much the connection is.
Danielle Lewis (19:49)
So Wendy’s referring to, We held an alumni graduates reception in May. And that graduating class I was particularly close with. And so it’s just like the waterworks were definitely there. Graduation day for the reception. But it was so fun planning that event with you, Yeah.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (20:13)
We’ll do it again.
Danielle Lewis (20:14)
Yeah, we will.
Global Connections – CGDSD (20:17)
Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate all the work that you’re doing. Once again, I will still say this. I wish, wish that I was a student in this, working with all of you for sure.I think you raise up such a good point, Danielle and Cassie. A lot of employers don’t know what sponsorship means. think going through the job search myself, a year ago, I realized how much I had to advocate for myself because people around me do not know what to do. So going through multiple jobs interview, I decided to tell like, know what, this is so time consuming and I only have 60 to 90 days to get a job post-graduation, right? So telling them like, you know what, I need sponsorship. Are you able to sponsor? As much as I love the job that you have there, like I cannot interview for this. So like, I appreciate you for doing that job of like educating employers because no matter how much skills and international students have at the end of the day it’s on the employers hand to like employ them or sponsor them. That’s the, that’s probably most of the international students goal to get sponsored. So yeah, thank you so much for doing the work all of you are doing.
Moving on to our next question, what are some innovative ways that all of you have collaborated to provide a more holistic support to our international students during their time at your institution and post-graduation. If you could give some examples that would be great.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (22:06)
Do you want to do dual and dual?
Danielle Lewis (22:08)
I like that idea, yes. I’ll let y’all go first.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (22:13)
Cassie, leading the way.
Cassandra Goodpaster (22:15)
I was purposely being quiet because I didn’t want to feel like it was always like start of transition for students to end of transition for students. But no, I’m happy to. The thing that admissions and that we collaborate on with the Office of Student Life and particularly Wendy and a couple other of our staff and actually academic services as well. There’s something that I’m really, really proud of. Something that I don’t know that a lot of other schools are doing because we meet with our peer education schools and something that I’m admittedly a little scared to put out there into the either because I don’t want everybody to copy us, but I want every student to be supported. Two summers ago, we developed something kind of affectionately known as the Peabody Transition Team and it’s a group of staff that work with students kind of at every stage of their transition to arriving and matriculating into a program at Peabody. So again, it’s a member, it’s me, a member of the admissions team, it’s two members of our student life team, both Wendy and our colleague who takes charge on orientation pieces. And then it’s our colleague in Peabody Academic Services. And we essentially have collaborated over the last two years to put together what is essentially an entire summer curriculum for incoming students, supporting them through the transition, helping them to understand all of the things that they need to be doing, whether that’s paperwork and kind of that like tangible piece, or whether that is the, two months before you wanna move in, you need to start looking for housing.
We host bi-weekly webinars, so eight webinars over the summer for admitted students that we record so they can watch later. We engage Brightspace, which is Vanderbilt’s kind of learning tool that accompanies classes and link every and any resource we possibly can there. It’s really like a fully formed and fledged, at this point, to summers in transition guide, if you will.
We have a separate email account that students who have submitted their enrollment deposit and are planning to come to Peabody can reach out to so that they know they have direct support as an enrolled student. We have email communication plans so they know what they’re getting emails every two weeks about things they should do. They’re getting reminders about deadlines. We’re trying to really, I would argue, demystify all of the stuff that previously, as I mean, We didn’t even say this. All three of us are on the call, are Peabody grads, demystify the process that three of us went through that was not maybe great. When I matriculated to Peabody in 2019, there was no communication. was, I submitted my deposit and then in late July, it was like, here’s an orientation. But I figured it out the rest of it by myself and not very well, mind you, because I’m also a first-generation student and the only person in my family to ever go to grad school. So I was just winging it.
And many, many of our students are in that same place. So we’ve done things like develop a checklist of all of the possible things we could think of that they would have to do. And we’ve highlighted specific international student items on that, right? So that they’re called out and very kind of obvious to our international students because they have more to do. And that’s the reality as well is they have a visa process and they have additional items that they have to complete to really feel comfortable and confident when they arrive. Wendy, what am I missing?
Yu (Wendy) Wu (25:55)
Yeah, you basically covered all. I think our collaboration in that transition period is really going to be like for one, we creating some specific session or information that intentionally just for international students. But two is we integrate those information with like a general student body because sometimes the international student came in and listened to two different sessions, one for all and one for them. However, they’re supposed to be listening to one for all first. And then if they have a specific question that was tailored to international student, we can follow up on that. So the way how my interaction with Cassie was able to integrate all the information together. So Cassie know at a certain point of the time in the webinar or she will continue to mention, hey Wendy, this is something we can do specifically for international students. So there was a piece of inclusion of all information altogether and then there was also the piece of we care specifically for our student bodies who need additional support. So I think that’s really important. And then the other information is I think sometimes the international student has a specific request coming through me and then I was able to articulate that to Cassie and Cassie realized, well, this is not just like international student problem. So it might be a really beneficial information that applied to all other students who might be like, you know, like a hidden within the general body, such as we have international students coming in, taking their entire families, moving to a new country. So they’re looking for information about local schools or public school systems. So that information, when I articulate that with Cassie, Cassie was able to, sharing this information out to the general student body. So for any student parents, they’re able to receive that. So this kind of like reciprocal conversations back and forth, back and forth, are something we’re able to making our transition team more kind of a tailored to two different areas of the cares for the students.
So that’s like one thing we are really proud of. And that’s why we build a really comprehensive, bright space. Then also in the same time, we do have, Cassie definitely helps me out of reaching to an international student individually through the IMAP, which is our international mentor team. And also, the information I curated from Cassie was able to pass on to the mentors and the mentors can pass on to the students as their peers. So that kind of a level of a different level of supporting system over there in case a student feeling more comfortable about asking us or asking for a particular student representative.
Cassandra Goodpaster (29:03)
Yeah. There’s a lot of tracking on the back end too. Wendy and I are going back and forth on a Google Doc or via Teams or whatever that might look like throughout the entire summer. I feel like by the end of the summer, I know every incoming student’s name because I’ve seen it at some point on some sort of spreadsheet. But we’re following up on individual students who aren’t keeping up essentially with the process because that’s a huge indicator that they’re not going to arrive and that they’re going to melt and they’re not going to matriculate. And certainly we don’t want that at all. Like that’s not great for us. That’s also not great for the student.
So we’re doing the backend checkpoints where Wendy and I are collaborating specifically on international students. She’s kind of our go between admissions and IEEE and she’s checking in with them about what they know. And it’s really allowed us to improve our processes. It’s allowed us to work with our data analyst and for him to push and for us to get more international student data in our admissions, communication and record management tool. We’re also, like Wendy said, now we have resources for families that we didn’t have for every student, right? Not just for international students, but it was driven by a need from an international student who was bringing her children with her. The average age of our students is 26. So that’s not something that from an admissions perspective, I’m always thinking about of like, what do our students or families need? But it’s exciting to get to create those resources and for them to benefit all of our students kind of from a specific need. And it’s also exciting to work with people that want to do that. I’ve been in offices where it’s like, well, that’s just one person. We’ll just send them a few things and they’ll figure it out or they have to figure it out. And instead, it’s really cool to be part of an office or a collective building or collective dean’s office that has folks who say, no, this could actually really help many people and we should create a larger resource that’s available to all students based on this one person’s questions. So yeah, we’re really proud of the transition team. Yeah, and it’s lot of fun.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (31:06)
Cassie definitely keep me on the data part. You know, like I was the only one who wasn’t doing data on my end. I was so frustrated and then I realized, OK, I have a partner who also likes to do data so we can do that together. You know, it’s really fun.
Danielle Lewis (31:25)
I want to give you all a shout out. I noticed a significant difference since the transition team was implemented just in terms of the way students feel more confident coming to campus and like navigating campus life and the thousand one resources we offer at Peabody and at Vanderbilt. So kudos to the team. It’s been great to witness from afar and support from afar.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (31:53
Thank you. Yeah, and then I guess we can take that to my collaboration with Daniella. I really want to say like working with Daniella is really like enjoyable because sometimes like you know doing the work for the students pushing them to the career paths like they’re anxious so having a partner who can work with me on ease their stress and also put them on the right track is super important. And also because we have a different level of comfortable, like feeling comfortable about talking to different individuals from the student perspective like the kind of the passing me to Danielle, that progress is really helpful.
In our work, would say I’m really proud of for us being able to have the mentor, two different kind of mentorship connecting with each other. As I mentioned, I have international mentors who are the second year students matching with the first year international student. They are all international students. And then once they’re done with the summer transition, that’s where Danielle’s mentor team, Peabody Career Mentor pick up. And what we do is we kind of matching the names- Who are the mentors on my team are becoming the mentors on her team and who are the mentees already matched up will be continue that kind of a mentorship on her part. I think that’s like a of like a continuity and also coherency is really helpful for the student to establish that long relationship.
Danielle, do you want to talk more about that?
Danielle Lewis (33:49)
Yeah, I totally agree with you that the extension of IMAP to peer-career mentors has been great in terms of streamlining communication and support. And same thing goes for Peabody career mentors and the PALS program. So Cassie oversees the Peabody admissions liaison program. And so it’s great because sometimes I’ll have a peer-career mentor that’s also a PAL or peer-career mentor that’s also IMAP mentor.
I think it’s great to have both perspectives, that students serves up in dual roles. But I think a big part of what Wendy’s alluding to in terms of the apprehension of students coming to visit us, it’s just like, okay, well, I don’t really know what I’m gonna talk about. I have some ideas of my career, but I’m not entirely sure. Also, is the office just like stuffy and we’re just gonna talk about resumes and whatnot. And so I think just a part of that is just really like breaking that illusion of we can really talk to you about whatever concerns you have or ideas that you want to explore. And so we’re grateful for the class time with the class that Wendy mentioned, the transition education concepts and communications class. We’ll come in and facilitate activities about networking, for example, which networking is not exclusive to just like international students, but I think many students just really don’t enjoy networking and feel it’s just this forced communication as a means to land an internship or a job. And our approach to this is we understand the concerns of the forced conversations, but it goes beyond just having a conversation with a hiring manager or an alum. Like it can really help you long-term. And honestly, many of the jobs that I’ve had, it’s been because of networking. And so I share my own story with them to say that it’s going beyond just surface of conversations, but when you are open about your career aspirations or just some elements of what you want to do, you’d be surprised at how far it can take you. And so we’ll do an activity around that and other career topics specific to international students. So we’ll partner with ISSS for CPT OPT workshops exclusively for international students. The alumni career panel that we talked about just for a little bit was so successful. The room was full of folks and we knew that it was going to be like, you know, good attendance, but we did not expect it to be just, you know, stand. I feel like it was almost standing room only, but And then the great thing about that is we have folks coming up to us literally volunteering for next year and the year after that. Like please tell me you have to be a panelist. I feel like we already have our panelists good to go until we turn 30. But that has been great just to see that we’ve also through our offices been able to create a culture of wanting to give back and sharing our own testimonies of what we’ve gone through to ensure that the next cohort of Peabody graduates have a meaningful experience with lessons learned along the way.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (36:59)
Yeah, I want to piggyback to the Career Alumni Panel. I think it’s really powerful to have graduated international students who are, last year we had those panel who are the international students graduated from Peabody but was able to land a job in Nashville. So they came to this panel discussion in person. And then a lot of international students sitting there like a first year and a second year watching them as like living examples about international students who are still in Nashville who land a job and whether they are transitioning out to a new job next or they have been in that position for, five years already or so, where just a fresh league just got the position. It was like a really powerful to hear their story. And then I think like Danielle and I both got a response from the student is it’s not just the experience that students are sharing. It’s just their presence there. Being able to like in-person sharing, that’s like a really encouraging, especially in the spring. A lot of students are under huge pressure of landing a job right away and hearing those alumni it was like, yeah, sure. If I don’t get my job right at this moment, it is okay. The opportunity will come along. And also there are more ways I can tag into, rather than just throw my resume to millions of the employers. And also they talk about their relationship with Danielle. A lot of them were like, whoa, I visited Danielle for so many times. At the point, like, I think I’m bugging her, but she’s so patiently. So that’s also like encouraging students to reaching out to them more.
Cassandra Goodpaster (38:49)
Yeah. From an outsider’s perspective, I want to call out something specifically. That panel that Danielle and Wendy are mentioning did an incredible job of creating an energy and like an excitement for our international students and even probably some hope and Wendy mentioned it a little bit and I feel like I’m experiencing it more closely for the first time ever because one of the students I directly supervise is an international student, very much wants to stay in the US, very much would like to go straight into work but also feels as though she has to get a PhD for someone to want to sponsor her. And she went to the panel and I think that was her first thought of like, maybe I can go straight into work.
But there’s this very big reality for our international students that feels significantly more pressurized around the job hunt, but also around continuing education than our students who have no concerns about being able to stay in a certain state or in the country, right? That I just think is important to name for folks who are listening who work with international students that I don’t know if I’ve ever considered because my work is so start of cycle and start of experience focused and not always out the door focused like Danielle and sometimes Wendy. So that pressure that our international students are feeling of like I have a student applying to like six PhD programs and she’s already looking at jobs. And I’m like, I was stressed out graduating as a master’s student knowing that I was absolutely going to go into the job market and that I would one day get a job, but I didn’t know when and the student is simultaneously trying to do both. That was really eye-opening for me. So I just think it’s important to name that and to kind of note and remind you both that the work you’re doing is really important and it’s like planting seeds for our first-year students and it’s also really empowering for our second-year students and really important because it’s not, again, it’s not something I had like individually and personally come across in my work previously.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (41:01)
Thank you.
Danielle Lewis (41:03)
Yeah, thank you for that. And I just want to say that I’ve had students who verbatim have said, yeah, my search, I want to work in higher ed. I want Cassie’s job. How do I go about doing that? I want to do exactly what Wendy’s doing
Cassandra Goodpaster (41:12)
They might not actually want it.
Danielle Lewis (41:15)
And so I think just having like fabulous staff and mentors for our students to see like what is possible and like, like I too can help students I think makes Peabody special because we have this magic I think that really pulls students into wanting to work into higher education student affairs specifically. And so I think it’s cool just to see over like the last few years like that emergence at least in our employment outcomes that our international students are really looking forward to careers in higher ed.
Global Connections- CGDSD (41:55)
Thank you. Once again, I echo with Cassie, like all of you are doing an amazing job for sure in supporting the international population. You brought up like PhD, six PhD programs. That’s like a lot of money.
Cassandra Goodpaster (42:11)
Yes. I mean, this student had 10 programs on her list and I said, “you don’t want to go to grad school”. She was like, “no, that’s not my first choice”. I said, then why are we planning 10 programs? You’re a student too. And that’s the reality is like, they’re still taking a full course. She’s holding down multiple jobs. She’s preparing for, she did her practicum over the summer, but she did a poster presentation and presented her learning and her fine. Like she’s doing all of the things and still feels like she needs to apply to six to 10 programs when that’s not even the thing she wants to do the most when she graduates.
Danielle Lewis (42:54)
Yeah, that’s our reality. Most of my appointments now, it’s been that, and especially in this fall semester. And I think a part of it too is, I guess I shouldn’t try to filter this, but I think many students, that’s all they know is just their identity and that’s been their career of just being a student. And so it’s this bubble that I think unfortunately will need to start popping in terms of the realities of that in itself feels like a full-time job of just applying to the PhD programs, you know, to your point of how expensive the application fees are and then maybe having to retake, you know, standardized testing. But just to your point, Cassie, that there can be a balance of, maybe a few PhD programs, ones that you really are excited about and whose, you know, program curriculum aligns with your research interest but it’s a lot to see them spend hours and hours crafting these applications when in their heart they really just want to go straight into industry.
Cassandra Goodpaster (44:04)
Entirely. This student felt like she needed to apply to Vanderbilt because she was a Vanderbilt to Peabody, a program at Peabody. And I looked at her and I said, but this doesn’t even match your interests. Yeah. And she was like, but I feel like I’m supposed to. And I said, no one here, no one here wants you to spend that time and money.
If it’s not a fit, I said, we want fit for you. And the faculty here who are looking and reviewing those applications, they want fit as well. And they’re going to say, we love that you applied because you want to stay, but it’s not a fit. That was hard too, convincing her. I mean, it wasn’t convincing, but kind of talking through. I don’t know if Vanderbilt’ the right fit for you and for what you want to do with a PhD if you go that route. So the bursting of the bubble to Danielle’s point is. Very true. Like very real.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (45:34)
We also had recently just had a session in a EDUC class in my transition class is the panel discussion with the program directors who are all faculty members who gained their PhD eventually and becoming the faculty. And then one of the questions we asked for them is, do you start as becoming with your wish or aspiration to become a faculty member. And all of them were like, no. So it was like for a student being able to hear from them, it’s like go along with the line about even before they start talking with Danielle right away, they hear from the faculty member who are their program directors. Like I didn’t plan to see that for becoming a faculty. I was planning to be an economist, or I was planning to be a teacher in a K-12 schools. And I did that. And I gradually becoming a program evaluator. And all of this, like, bring the opportunity back to me to a certain extent, where I think I can go along for the PhD program, or I can be becoming a faculty member. And also, I think the reality of academia. It’s a different realm or different like community doesn’t speak to students from their top of their mind. Did they say like, so like it’s such a fancy world, but you know nothing about it so far. And then there are so many track of word of faculty. So yeah, just like, you know, being able to hear more and then definitely go back to Danielle’s point. She lands the seed in the orientation about networking is rally important, connecting all the dots in your life is really important to form what you want to be in the future. And it doesn’t stop there once you graduate. You can be more, you have a million paths even you graduate from now. So I think that’s like all important piece of information for international students. I think across all offices, we emphasize that it’s a gift to have international students at Peabody. Like we are so fortunate that they really make our campus a global community. And I think a part of our work is just instilling in them their own talents. Like to be an international student at one of the top schools of education in the country, like how cool is that? You were admitted into this program. You were hand selected for this program. And with that comes many gifts. And so we just want to teach them to share those gifts with the world in a really meaningful way and to not shy away from that. Yeah.
Global Connections – CGDSD (47:39)
Thank you so much for that. Think it makes so much sense, like in student affairs, how we say support and challenge our students, like supporting them, empowering them, like you are good enough. But at the same time, like challenging them, actually, you will not get rejected. Like I think the fear of rejection is so big in some of our students. Like that’s why I think like it’s there’s a need to like apply to like six different PhD programs and things like that. So sometimes like telling them, no, you don’t need to like, you need to know what you want to do to like, you know, prevent them from doing all these things that they’re doing sometimes. So I appreciate all the work and like, you know, bursting the bubble is sometimes really challenging, but I think sometimes they need it.
Going on to the next question is, if you wish to change anything at your organization to enhance the campus culture and encourage ongoing collaboration focused on success of international student, what would that look like?
Cassandra Goodpaster (48:47)
I’ve got an immediate answer, but I don’t want to go first again because I feel like I’m going first the whole time. So if someone else wants to go first, please let me know.
Danielle Lewis (48:54)
No, Cassie, you go first because I have a couple of idead I’m pondering upon.
Cassandra Goodpaster (49:00)
The thing that I think I see from, and again, this is speaking from a perspective of someone who is working in admissions and is working simultaneously with faculty and with prospective students and, our colleagues in the dean’s office like Danielle and Wendy. There are still very, I don’t know if old fashioned is the right word, but I’ll use outdated beliefs about whether international students can be placed in practicum or internship sites. There are still beliefs, and this is not across the board. Let me be very clear before someone at Peabody hears this and comes for me. There are still some faculty, right, who view our international students from a deficit perspective, truly. They’re going to be hard to place from a, well, they don’t matriculate at the same rate that domestic students will. Of course they don’t. They have significantly more barriers to overcome to get to and start their courses. There’s still very much that perspective, even down to, well, there could be challenges in placing them because of the language barrier, right? When in fact, all of our students are required to have significant English experience and proficiency to be admitted. So that is, I think, some broad education that certainly, and I’m sure it’s not just faculty, I’m sure there are staff right there with them, right? Luckily, it’s none of the three of us on this call. And luckily, it’s not many that I’ve experienced in kind of the administration of Peabody and the folks that I work with on a daily basis. There is still certainly a deficit belief around international students, even at the same time that faculty can acknowledge that they bring a global perspective and that they bring their cultures and their backgrounds and their experiences, which are really valuable in their classroom.
They can see that and yet they somehow also view international students from a deficit perspective. And in my experience, it’s been specifically in that professional experience area, in that internship or practicum space, in trying to get them placed outside of the university. And I don’t know where that comes from, I don’t know if that comes from they feel like academia is a safe space for international students, but maybe the working world. I put in quotations on the video, but you all can see that is not. I don’t know if it’s feedback from unhelpful career partners that they’ve taken to heart instead of pushing back on. I don’t know where that comes from. I’d like to think it doesn’t come from like intrinsic racism. But I’m not them and I don’t know. We’re not having at our level, mean, our Wendy, and I’s level, we’re not having those conversations with faculty that would probably not be very looked upon positively by the folks above us. Maybe those conversations are happening at an executive level at Peabody. I don’t know. I’m not privy to those. But I think that piece, that deficit mindset still very much persists specifically when it comes to our students in programs who need support in being placed in internships or practicum experiences. And the assumption that they will not get placed plays into the choices of whether or not to admit international students. And that’s frustrating. That’s my soapbox.
Danielle Lewis (53:01)
I’ll quickly go. I love that, Cassie. I would say my easy answer, I would just wave a magic wand and employers would hire international students with no significant barriers and red tape just to secure employment and having policies to reflect that. But I would love to see more collaboration with other main campus resources. So just contextually, Vanderbilt, we kind of operate like these little siloed islands in our colleges. Within the College of Education, sometimes we just feel like, okay, we’re in our own little bubble within education. And same thing for like the medical school or the school of engineering or the school of management or a business school. And so having more collaboration with these other colleges, I think is something I want to prioritize moving forward just because our students’ interests overlap with other academic disciplines. And so I would love us to be more strategic in the ways that we present programming, the ways that we bring employers to campus or other alumni engagement opportunities in the future.
Yu(Wendy) Wu (54:14)
I think like I would echo with both Danelle and Cassie and also I will answer this from my own experience in the perspective. If I, if we wanted to enhance the campus culture or our organization culture, I would say respect and value the global perspective of your staff and employees. And also really empower them to share their knowledge and the different ways of thinking and perspectives to change the system in a way that can benefit all. I do feel like being an international staff members in this overall Dean’s office, sometimes my thought is a little bit different than somebody else because of my background. And then also I would love to see there are more programming’s where there are more collaborations are done from these global perspectives. So that couldn’t be done just by one person. I need colleagues like Cassie and Danielle who understand me and who bear with me, hear my thought and also putting it into action.
So that will be my way of changing the overall climate and culture. And also the way how we demonstrating about I being respected and recognized and with my expertise in global perspective is a demonstration to our students that they can survive pretty well in the workforce when they graduate. And also that’s also a great example for our students that you’re able to change the environment and that you are empowered, you are encouraged to do so with your own perspective. So that will be my suggestion or my thoughts. Yeah, my wish. You two answered the question very well. I think I just ranted for a little while, but there it is.
Global Connections – CGDSD (57:02)
I think you did great, Cassie, to open the floor for that question. Once again, thank you so much, all of you. I think that’s a really great thought. Wendy, I definitely resonate with what you say from where you’re coming. I think action speaks louder than words sometimes. So when you are treated well, when you’re empowered, I think our international students can see that and will be like, if I will also be empowered when I go to the workforce. So I appreciate you for sharing that for sure. Any other things or questions before we part ways?
Cassandra Goodpaster (57:29)
I think we’re really lucky at Peabody that we work in a space dedicated for education and human development. And we’re in kind of a unique space. I just want to know I want folks listening who are like, wow, sounds like everything’s great. Everything’s not great. But we I want to also acknowledge that we are really lucky to work in a space where people are kind of intrinsically and inherently focused on human development. And it makes some of the collaborations that we’ve talked about today a little bit easier and it makes people often more open to them. And I might just offer like a little word of support if you are in a space that maybe doesn’t have that kind of inherent layer of support or engagement that you can still make these things work, but often it takes that really uncomfortable, like reaching out to a colleague to say, hey, like, what do you think about this? And is this right? And are we doing enough? It also takes talking to your students. Wendy, Danielle and I are all very closely connected with students at different levels and at different stages, right? Like me more so before they arrive at Peabody and Wendy and Danielle very much so when they’re at and sometimes Danielle even when they leave Peabody, but It really takes knowing your students and trusting their opinions and their experiences and affirming those. I think to make sure that you can then support future international students. So if you don’t know what the experience of your international students is, please ask them. Don’t assume. They’ll tell you, I’m sure. Give them some pizza. Maybe they’ll be more inclined.
Danielle Lewis (59:14)
Food always.But our website is https://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/. So if you want to connect with us for peer benchmarking, answer any questions about our office, our services, we’re happy to connect with you.
Cassandra Goodpaster (59:30)
I’ll leave it to Danielle.
Danielle Lewis (59:32)
I just want to make sure folks know our contact information and our website. That’s all.
Cassandra Goodpaster (59:39)
Great job, networkers. Great job. I love it.
Yu (Wendy) Wu (59:45)
Yeah, I would say the final word from me, thank you so much our commission to giving me opportunity inviting my colleagues to join this podcast call. It’s I just wanted to say like the collaboration I have with my colleagues, the close relationship and also all the programming and partnership we have. It makes me feel really good about the work that I do and I definitely want to share this out to everybody else. And then for anyone who is international employees at your institutions, try to reach out to anyone who trusts you and also wanting to collaborate with you and value your opinion from the global perspective. And then for anyone who is not international employee at your institution, trust your colleagues who are international employees and also value their opinions from different perspective and background. And therefore, we’ll have a stronger team. Yoo-hoo.
Global Connections – CGDSD (01:00:46)
Yay. Well, I appreciate you all taking the time to do this podcast so that our audience are able to have this perspective. Maybe someone is now trying to get this started, but they don’t know where, how to start this collaboration effort to support international students. Well, now they have a podcast to listen to. So I appreciate you all taking the time to sit in, think about what the amazing work you’re doing and like share to all of us here so that we can also do the same for our international student. So from our commission, we are so thankful for all your work that you do. To our audiences, thank you so much for engaging in our podcast so far. And if you’d like to connect with our guests today, the link, the website that they have shared just now will be in the website. So that is all from us today. So thank you so much.
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