By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
The Center for Global Engagement will host International Education Week from Nov. 11-15. The week will consist of a variety of events, lectures and experiences put on by departments and organizations for faculty and students to attend.
Holly Joyner, associate director of global engagement and marketing for the Center of Global Engagement, said this will be Baylor’s fifth year hosting International Education Week as a large-scale event.
“We started making it more of a large-scale event out of our office in 2019 when I was hired as a bigger push on just trying to make Baylor a little bit more [of] a global university in terms of things they want students to be interested in,” Joyner said. “Our office basically asks all the different academic units and student orgs if they’re interested in hosting an event, and then we coordinate it from our office in terms of the marketing.”
Joyner said there’s about 27 events listed on their website from Monday through Friday. Some are hosted by the colleges themselves, while others are hosted by student organizations within the colleges.
“Obviously, nobody’s going to go to everything. Hopefully there’s so much going on that you might end up attending things because it’s part of something you were already doing for a club or org or because a faculty member made you aware, but we do have signature events,” Joyner said.
Joyner said she started recruiting departments and organizations back in late September and let them submit events until about mid-October. There was the opportunity for organizations to receive a grant of $250 if the student org needed funding to host an event.
“I think it’s important that we put it out there to all the academic units and all the student organizations to say, ‘Hey, if you’re interested in global education, this is your global awareness, we want you to submit an event so that we can showcase it and hopefully get more people to connect and be excited over global opportunities,’ Joyner said. “So that’s why we do it.”
Yoshiko Gaines, senior lecturer in Japanese, said she decided to have her class participate in International Education Week for a third year so they can share the culture with others.
“The students have done a Japanese business case study. … they did this research using their Japanese language skills, so the information they acquired is in Japanese, but they are presenting in English so that they can share what they learned beyond the classroom,” Gaines said. “By sharing their research, they’re sort of contributing to the cross-cultural difference with the people in the community.”
Gaines said by participating in International Education Week, her students can connect the language study with career exploration beyond just the language learning world.
“I think having a week dedicated to outside of just your country or your community … and [trying] to be exposed to different mindsets, different perspectives and different practices is very helpful and hopefully enriching their lives as college students and also beneficial to their future,” Gaines said. “I think that’s why it is important and why I enjoy being part of this International Education Week.”
Joyner said it’s important for students to recognize that a part of Baylor’s mission is to contribute to the world with worldwide leadership and service, not just stay in a bubble.
“We need to recognize that Baylor is just a very small piece of a very large world,” Joyner said. “It’s in no way just about international education in the sense of international students coming or educating themselves; it really is about celebrating all things global.”
