KSMU's Michele Skalicky talks with Brad Bodenhausen, vice-president for Community and Global Partnerships at Missouri State University and MSU President Dr. Biff Williams.
U.S. Secretary of State Mark Rubio said in late May that the federal government will aggressively revoke visas from Chinese students and increase scrutiny for future applicants. Missouri State University has an Office of China programs and maintains partnerships with universities in China. Joining me today to talk about that is Missouri State President Dr. Biff Williams and Brad Bodenhausen, MSU vice president, Community and Global Partnerships. Thanks for being here today.
Williams: Thanks for having us.
On average, how many students from China are enrolled at Missouri State University in a given year?
Williams: That's a moving target. I'll let Vice President Bodenhausen answer that.
Bodenhausen: Yeah, sure, it is a moving target. It's changed a lot through the years. As of last fall on campus in Springfield, we had 139 students from China. But that doesn't tell the full story because the vast number of our Chinese students are actually in China. We have a branch campus in Northeast China with Liaoning Normal University. Students there study general business, and we have an agriculture plant science program at Southwest University in southern China. And you take those programs together, we have over 600 students that are enrolled with Missouri State Springfield campus, but they're not on campus here. They're actually studying in China full time.
And I know that you have employees of Missouri State in China.
Bodenhausen: Well, it's kind of a complicated operation. We do have a couple of folks that are on the ground full time in China on a contract employment basis with Missouri State teaching English and communications courses. Then at the at the branch campus, we have international faculty that are employed by our partner university. So they are teaching Missouri State-West Plains courses. They're not Missouri state employees, but they are working on that program. Then we also have some faculty that travel back and forth for short term assignments to teach on the ground in China, both from College of Business, going to our branch campus to teach business courses, and from the College of Agriculture going to teach plant science courses.
How many international students are at MSU? How many countries are they from, and what percentage of those are from China?
Bodenhausen: Okay, well, I'll stick with the the answers here and then turn it over to President Williams here at some point. We have, as of last fall, we had just over 1,700 — 1,723 international students overall. Of those, about 1,075 were on the Springfield campus. Those represented 97 countries, so we have a lot of countries where we have just a handful of students from those countries. We have four or five that we have significant numbers of students from. In those, China ranked second of students on the Springfield campus. We have students from India in an even higher number than that.
What financial impact do international students have here at the university?
Bodenhausen: Well, I'll start and ask President Williams to to jump in on that. It's a significant financial impact because many of the students pay full out of state tuition. Some students are on a partial scholarship for international partners. They also, of course, many live on campus. They spend money in the community. So the economic impact is is very significant for international students.
Williams: Yeah, I think one of the biggest impacts of our international students is the value that they bring for creating culture on our campus, having our students understand a a global perspective to life and being global citizens and understanding people from other cultures and what it means to to work with them and to live with them and to interact with them on a daily basis.
Have any international students been impacted by what's happening at the federal level?
Williams: I can generally tell you, and then we can get into specifics. But yes, when when information comes out, we try to do our very best to answer that information. If there's specifics coming from the federal guidelines or if that students are going to be deported, etc. we have to do our very best to inform the students, make sure that they feel safe, make sure that we understand their situations, and our staff has done a really good job, especially early on when they were talking about student visas. And there was a few of our students that were informed that their visas were not going to be renewed. But we approached that — our staff did a great job of monitoring that, and in most instances, were the first ones to inform them that, you know, we need to address a few issues to help them stay.
How were those resolved? Are there some students who aren't going to be able to stay because their visas were revoked?
Bodenhausen: Well, there's several issues going on. So the the issue that President Williams was talking about occurred in April. That has been resolved, where we had a few students with their visa status terminated, but it was reinstated. One of those students, at least I know of graduated in in May. I was able to see him graduate, and that was a good resolution to that situation. But there were several other things that have been proposed by the administration in late May that are still pending. The biggest challenge for us is many times these are announcements that are made, but a lot of the details are not yet shared or not yet worked out. So the one that has the biggest potential impact on us right now is the pause that's still in effect, on setting appointments for visa interviews for students from all countries. This isn't China specific, but the delay has come at a very unfortunate time. It's going on about a month now of having that pause and setting visa appointments, and this is the time where students are seeking those interviews, seeking to have their visa approved for ultimate travel here to the US in August. And so we have a lot in limbo right now as we wait to see how that's resolved.
And these are people who would come and potentially start in the fall here at Missouri State.
Bodenhausen: Exactly. These are admitted students. We have about 188 admitted students at the graduate and undergraduate level from international locations. Some of those have had their visa approved. Others are waiting for that appointment, and we're hoping it gets resolved as soon as possible so we can encourage them and support them in coming here.
Is the university doing anything in response to, say, advocate for international students studying here in the United States?
Williams: Well, I think we're again, we're it's such a moving target. We're trying to figure out what that advocacy means. Right now our focus has been on the students as they hear information — advocating on their behalf, of getting them the information and the resources they need to have to react. We're like every other institution in the United States. We're hearing these executive orders and these statements, and we're trying to figure out what that really means. So I would say our advocacy is primarily making sure that the students feel like they have the resources and getting the information, and we are trying to mine down into that information just like everyone else.
What is MSU doing to maintain its partnerships with Chinese universities as the White House targets international students in the U.S. and, in particular it seems, students from China?
Bodenhausen: Well, that's that's been an ongoing challenge. And not just in recent months — really, over the years. I mean, you think about our partnerships in China, they've lasted for 25 years and that we've had to adapt a lot. Those have evolved over that time. We worked together through COVID, which was a complete disruption of travel for students and complete disruption in our operations. So our goal has remained to stay in communication with our partners, to stay committed to our goal of the mutual benefit of international programs, international education and global engagement but at the same time to be ready to adapt. And so right now in China, our focus is really on maintaining what we have established, improving those programs, making it a valuable experience for students that go there but also making sure that we don't focus solely on China because there are a lot of challenges in today's geopolitical arrangements and environment in terms of partnering with China.
Is there anything else you want the public to know as concerns about international students continue to be raised at the federal level?
Williams: I think it's important to know that it's a priority to serve all our students. And so as these students are hearing executive orders or new information's coming out, we are front and center helping them and being a resource to them. They're not alone. We have a great international program office. We do everything possible to support those students. They're a value and and an important aspect to our campus. And so we'll continue to serve them as as best as we can.
Bodenhausen: Michele, I would just add 1 or 2 points to to that. One is, in the recent announcement by Secretary Rubio, it was focusing on critical fields. And it is important, I think, to understand what Missouri State offers, what our programs are, what our connections are. Since we don't have a standalone engineering program, or these programs don't involve research and In technology, research at the graduate level. In that sense, and those are real concerns. Those are very real concerns that the administration has put forward, and we've taken very seriously our role in making sure we don't have exposure to that kind of espionage or other activity by Chinese students or others. So our programs are in business, they're in agriculture, and we think those are very low risk areas. The other point is to remember, we're talking about people, you know, these are students that come here with a lot of courage and with a lot of support from their family. And once — we found in our community, once people in our community get to know the students, they welcome them, they support them. And that's why we have so many international students is they feel supported and connected with the community. So we'd certainly encourage listeners and others out there to continue that effort and support these, these folks that come to study with us.
