Page 49 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

is boosted by having friends from both home and host countries (Bochner, McLeod, & Lin, 1977; Furnham & Alibhai, 1985), student associations and institutions must work collaboratively to facilitate this (Pérez Encinas, 2015), through, for example, orientation events, buddy programs, and educating domestic students on the benefits of cross-cultural friendships. Likewise, there are social integration benefits to sharing accommodation with other students (Ward et al., 1998), presenting an opportunity for institutions to foster this through housing policies. Organized social activities can help students develop social capital, establish friendships and create a support network, which in will positively influence academic outcomes and integration (Russell, Rosenthal, & Thomson, 2010; Severiens & Wolff, 2008), and in turn satisfaction.
Curriculum can be used to leverage the diversity on campus to benefit both domestic and international students and encourage interaction. The power of curriculum is so strong, in fact, that if it does not promote understanding, students working in multicultural groups can have negative stereotypes reinforced rather than diminished (Briguglio, 2006). Strategic and informed interventions grounded in research and evaluated comprehensively have been shown to improve engagement and interaction. To do this, both informal and formal curriculum must be aligned, and faculty and staff must be committed to the task (Leask & Carroll, 2011).
Research suggests that experiential learning can help students acquire intercultural communication competence. One example is ExcelL, an experiential learning and leadership program that teaches cross- cultural communication and encourages international students to step outside their usual communication techniques (Mak et al., 1999). Evaluations of ExcelL indicate that both domestic and international participants gained increased confidence, and international students report increased interaction with people from different cultures (Commons & Gao, 2011). Programs such as this demonstrate that curriculum and teaching strategies can play a role in facilitating integration and positively influencing the student experience.
2
The Role of Integration
47