By Ashlyn Kennedy | Reporter
Center for Global Engagement ambassadors provide resources and mentorship for international students all year round. Ambassadors help put on initiatives and events for international students and are focused on welcoming them and connecting them to the Baylor community.
Katie Klingstedt, coordinator for international programs, said ambassadors are integral to the running of International Student and Scholar Services.
“They are the face of the Center for Global Engagement — or at least for ISSS,” Klingstedt said. “They take initiative and are incredibly eager to participate and care for our students.”
Ambassadors are selected in the spring and begin their yearlong roles by helping with Global Bears Week — a version of Welcome Week for international students. Each ambassador is given a small group of international students, whom they help settle into Baylor and live in a new country.
“Ambassadors continue to check in with them and invite them to the different events that we do,” Klingstedt said. “They serve as a main contact that a student knows.”
International Student and Scholar Services organizes several events each semester for international students, including monthly field trips. In March, they hosted Waco Discovery Day, where they got a tour of Waco from a historian. In April, they will be going to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Klingstedt said ambassadors serve multiple roles when helping with field trips and other events. She said they are there not only to help with logistics but also to support international students.
“A big part of their job is to just be there and be a friendly face for people who are maybe coming to the event to make friends because they haven’t met anybody,” Klingstedt said. “The ambassadors will introduce themselves and connect them to another student.”
Ambassadors also help put on an international snack break every month. They pick a different country to feature each time, and they work with students to find out which snacks to get.
Of the 20 ambassadors selected each year, about 75% are international and 25% are domestic. Klingstedt said many students apply after having positive experiences with the program and wanting to improve it for others.
India junior Jishnu Patel came to Baylor as an international student and has served as an ambassador for two years. He said he applied to the program because of the support he received from ambassadors while adapting to a new school and a new culture.
“I felt like it was my responsibility now to serve other people who are coming in the next few years, because if I didn’t get that help, it would have been so much harder to settle in,” Patel said.
Patel said ambassadors are integral to helping the international student population adjust to college in a different country.
“When you come from another country, you’re not aware of the education system, about the customs and about the school,” Patel said. “This program helps us get access to everything we need, like basic things to settle in.”
Klingstedt said the program is a “mutually beneficial program” for international students and ambassadors, as ambassadors can get experience in leadership and event planning. She said all program members have a global mindset and a heart for welcoming people.
“To have 20 students who are having the same experience as the people that we are trying to care for and can really speak to the student experience in a way that I can’t is huge,” Klingstedt said. “We just could not do what we do without them.”
