Hi ISSA family,
We hope that you are doing well! We would love to update you on what the International Students and Scholars Association (ISSA) has been working on since our kick-off in July this year!
- In late 2022 and early 2023, some School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD) grad students met during multiple social mixer events organized by GSS (Graduate Student Society) and other affinity groups. We found out they have been facing similar issues as international grad students, and the status quo has been the same for a long time and has yet to be improved.
- We conducted focus groups before July 2023 and discovered that these issues are not isolated but instead faced by most international students.
- We reached out to ISSAB (International Students and Scholars Advisory Board). We participated in their Listening Luncheon and found that international postdocs face similar issues.
- We noticed a need for space for international scholars (including grad students, postdocs, and other research scholars) to discuss their hardships, build a community, and collectively vocalize their needs and advocate for them. We applied for SMD GEPA funding for such a space, and ISSA was formed.
- The initial board of members agreed that for the first year, we would focus on gaining traction within the international community through small events with significant impacts where we gather community concerns, collaborate with other allied groups within campus, and long-sighted advocacy efforts. This choice was mainly driven by the fact that ISSA was just born and allocated our limited (human and financial) resources for the long run rather than a short burst. We hope that, over time, more members will join us who would like to work towards the betterment of the U of R international community show initiative and drive ISSA forward.
- We had our kick-off on July 25, 2023: More than 30 folks from SMD, AS&E, and Warner Schools showed up. We introduced ISSA and conversed with them over lunch. We collected a lot of key concerns from them, as almost everyone in the room resonated with these concerns. We also introduced our three core teams: 1) Community building, (2) Advocacy and communication, and (3) Professional Dev to work towards these concerns.
- In August and September, we participated in fairs/orientation events in AS&E, SMD, and ISO. We introduced ourselves to incoming and current students. Our member counts went from less than 5 to 130 over this duration.
- We started our monthly coffee hours on September 13 to build a space for community gatherings. We sold out of tickets at 49 RSVPs and had participants from AS&E, SMD, and Warners ranging from Master students to PhD to Postdocs. We collected many concerns and decided to create action items.
- The executive committee met on September 15, joined by other ISSA members. We made a list of concerns and decided to send advocacy letters to concerned people in power within U of R to know the status quo and their plans to address these concerns. The rationale behind this approach is to inquire about the status quo from their perspective and see the student's experiences with respect to the efforts of U of R.
- Our first advocacy letter was sent out to the ISO Director with two chief concerns : (1) Minimal to no transparency regarding what's happening with the international students' fee that the community is paying every semester and (2) a decrease in quality in some of the services from ISO over last couple of years: Mainly focusing on Tax, SSN, and Shuttling of international students between their departments and ISO since there's seems like a confusion between both parties about each other's responsibilities.
- We received a response from ISO after two reminders, and we shared this response with ISSAB, where international student leaders from different schools met to gather their opinions. We will also discuss this response letter in our next coffee-hour/General Interest Meeting on October 26 (1–3 PM, Carlson Library Room 310). Please feel free to join us. You can read the advocacy response letter we got from ISO here.
- We are also working with other affinity groups within the U of R community and collaborating with them. One such effort with MyHub in SMD resulted in a Career Panel discussion on November 1, where we are bringing 3 SMD alumni back and learning about their careers. Please feel free to join us.
24 October 2023