International Education Week bigger and better than before

The Robert Morris Center for Global Engagement is preparing for their first major celebration of International Education Week.

International Education Week will be recognized nationally Nov. 16-20 and is a joint initiative between the United States Department of State and the United States Department of Education.

The concept is to promote programs that help prepare Americans for their international experiences with people and cultures. It also aims to attract future leaders from study abroad, learn and exchange experiences according to eca.state.gov.

In years past, Residence Life would do a lot of the planning while working with the CGE Office, but now they are able to take on the event themselves.

The CGE Office has also been working with other offices, faculty, staff and student groups to plan this event. They also find it very important to get all of these other groups involved in the planning.

“It’s easy to say we have a bunch of international students on campus. But to actually work with those students…planning other events to celebrate those students, it gets more people involved in general,” said Rick Molsen, manager of international support services.

Now that CGE Office has added several new positions, which allows for a larger staff, they can finally put more time into this event. Though International Education week is Nov. 16-20, RMU will be extending the celebration to last Nov. 12-18.

The Center for Global Engagement is still in the process of finalizing all of the events for the week. However, the kick-off event will be the faculty-led study abroad session at 4:30 p.m. in the International Suite for all students interested in learning about all of the FLEAP trips offered this year.

Saturday is the Three Rivers Re-entry Conference for students in the region who’ve studied abroad. The conference is free for students to attend. There will be speakers and workshops for working abroad, information on how to get back abroad and how to include the experience on a résumé.

Students that will be going abroad for the full spring semester will have a pre-departure meeting to help prepare for going abroad.

Tables have also been reserved in the Nicholson Rotunda all week for different informational booths. Study abroad opportunities, international clubs, the International Women’s Association of Pittsburgh, FLEAP information and the Council on International Educational Exchange will be some of the different tables throughout the week providing information.

The CGE Office will be having an open house on Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The Global Diplomats, a student group on campus, will be hosting a melting pot that will feature different foods and will be an informal gathering for students, faculty and staff. The Global Diplomats hosted a melting pot last year that was very successful.

The Rooney Scholar, Majid Hashemipour, will also be giving a lecture during the week and Victoria Snyder, director of multicultural student services is holding a Guy/Girl Talk that will have an international theme.

“We just really wanna highlight how international our campus actually is. A lot of these events were going to happen anyways, so it’s really nice that we can tie it all up and just kind of normalize and show what a role that international cultures play on campus,” said Jesse Phillips, manager of international, exchange, and study abroad programs.