Intentional education

Before you say anything, let me tell you that the title is not a mistake. Yes, it's International Education Week, and yes, "intentional" is what I meant to say.

Last week was Dialogue on Race Week, a fitting prelude to this week and its theme of international education. Before we can learn more about the differences among us, we must learn to respect that diversity. A lot of open communication took place last week--the panel in the Common Grounds, and discussion after showings of "The Color of Fear" and "Crash"--to prepare the campus community for this time of discovering, understanding, and appreciating the variety of cultural backgrounds in our midst.

In the Campus Center stands a display featuring profiles of international students at EMU. The display, up all week long, also has a "World Travelers" map on which we can pin up places we've been. This is a great opportunity for us to see how far our campus has extended into the larger global community.

That display is not the only opportunity we have to learn about international issues. In addition to the Tuesday night cross-cultural sharing time in the Common Grounds, tonight there will be a multi-cultural simulation game led by Krista Martin, Cross-cultural Programs Assistant, and Moira Rogers, Associate Professor of Spanish. Friday morning's chapel, sponsored by the International Student Organization, will be a time of sharing from around the world in song and scripture. Don't feel like getting up early? No worries--the International Fashion Show isn't until 7:00 p.m. Friday night. And then there's the International Potluck Dinner on Saturday night; it's even free for students who bring a dish to share.

Why am I talking about all of these events? So that it's clear that we have no excuse not to take a little time to educate ourselves when there are so many ways to learn about other cultures happening right here, in the span of just a week. How often do we make an effort to learn something about another culture when we're not being forced to? Education does not happen without intention on the part of the learner. Part of the reason it's so good to have sharing times like those in the Common Grounds is so that we can make the choice to go and either participate or just listen. And maybe, just maybe, something we hear there will motivate us to pursue further education on something we haven't thought about before.

We need to ask ourselves when the last time was that we went up to someone we didn't recognize and struck up a conversation. This isn't just about international education, it's about educating ourselves on a grander scale than EMU and educating each other to live in the larger arena once we move on from this place.

According to the EMU website, this campus has about 40 international students studying here each year. Although that is not a large number nor a big percentage of the overall university population, it is still significant. It's enough to fill a two-wall campus display, and it should be enough to motivate us as a learning community of students to intentionally find out more about the make-up of our community.