By Mckenzie Oviatt | Reporter
Baylor is celebrating International Education Week on campus from Monday Nov. 18 to 22, partaking in events and offering resources for the Baylor community to promote diversity and inclusion.
International Education Week is an event initiated by the State Department of Education, which tells campuses around the country about the dates set for the week and encourages schools to celebrate educational diversity.
Baylor will have 16 events offered throughout the week for students and faculty alike and two events solely dedicated to faculty members.
These campus wide events connect different departments to host events for students. Most of the events will be held in the evening to make it easier for students to participate.
Holly Joyner, Global Baylor program manager, is in charge of marketing the events next week. She said there will be events ranging from informing students on international scholarships to creating information sessions with Baylor and Beyond. She said some events are more informational-based and some are more activity-based.
“Baylor and Beyond is a part of the Living Learning Center that is really supportive of international students and has a large number of them living there,” Joyner said. “They are going to do a panel education of their country where students can learn what education is like in their home country and the comparisons and differences.”
Ghana graduate student Paapa Nkrumah-Ababio is working on his master’s in higher education and said he plans on attending as many events as he can next week.
“The whole goal is to get more international students more involved on campus… this would be a good way to get their foot in the door,” Nkrumah-Ababio said. “I feel like the world is becoming a global place, and I would just like to position myself to be ready for when that happens.”
He said he is particularly excited about the UBreak event Friday in the Bill Daniel Student Center, which is providing food from different regions of the world.
“I want to be there so I can talk to international students and get them connected to Student Activities,” Nkrumah-Ababio said. “And so they know that this is something they can take advantage of. Since they are paying tuition, they might as well take advantage of all the opportunities here for them.”
UBreak is partnering with Aramark to offer food and setup tables for people to mingle.
“Food is always a great starting point in terms of getting people to think about other places because it involves multiple senses: it involves taste, it involves smell and it involves conversation,” Nkrumah-Ababio said.
Brandon Hoye, international programs coordinator, is in charge of reaching out to Global Engagement to help them participate in various ways.
One event that he is helping with is the international coffee and tea hour from 2 to 3 p.m. Monday in the Cashion Building Atrium. Coffee and tea from India, Brazil, Colombia and China will be provided, and students from those countries will attend to come and talk about the culture towards coffee and tea in their country. They will also talk about the different ways to prepare the coffee and tea.
“This is a year where we are really trying to particularly highlight international students and being able to celebrate the global community that is here at Baylor,” Hoye said.
