International Affairs Meeting Minutes

Meeting Details:

Fiscal Year: FY2022
Date:
Time:
Location:

Attendance—

Attending Members

  • Haiying Long (Chair)
  • Whitney Baker (faculty)
  • Kwangok Song (faculty)
  • Julius Kyakuwa (faculty)
  • Sunita Gandhi (Staff)
  • Hollie Hall (voting student, International Student Affairs council member)
  • Humberto Salina (voting students; International Student Affairs council member)

Absent Members

  • Aramis Watson (staff)
  • Charlie Bankart (ex officio)

Approval of Previous Minutes —

Minutes for the previous meeting were approved. Whitney made a motion to approve the minutes, and Sunita Gandhi seconded. The committee approved the minutes for the previous meeting. 

Unfinished Business —

Chair Updates

Bannon would be invited again in January.  

Chair contacted Vice provost Jennifer Anderson; chair would meet with her next week and invite Dr. Anderson.  

Discussion on Charge #5

  • Extra town hall meetings for international students would be helpful so that international students could be heard.  

  • The guidelines for travels and differences of guidelines by different countries can be confusing to international students.  

  • Mental health support is necessary for international students.   

  • Majority of the therapists are white, monolinguals; International students have difficulty in expressing themselves properly.  

  • There has been a communication gap in that the messages to the graduate students may not always be inclusive of international students or could have been carefully structured in a way to address international students’ unique situations.  

  • It is critical to expand our understanding of international students and faculty members’ unique challenges and to look for additional ways to support international students and faculty.  

  • Limited resources for international students to use when they encounter difficulties, particularly related to mental health.  

  • No clear support from the university  

  • Messages that can be interpreted differently to international students.  

  • A sense of belonging: International students may not feel fully integrated into the KU community  

  • Additional financial burden: International student have to pay toward something that domestic students don’t.  

  • A suggestion was made to provide DEI training on how to support faculty and students from different cultures and how to negotiate different ways of interacting on campus.  

  • A suggestion was made to invite Dr. Graham to ask for ways to include con  

  • The International Affairs committee may not always be included in the university’s discussion on issues related to international students and faculty.

New Business —

The next meeting will be scheduled in January. The doodle poll will be distributed.  

IA - Dec. 8, 2021