SU steps up effort to recruit overseas
Southern University Chancellor James Llorens braved snowstorms and travel delays last month during a whirlwind, weeklong trip to Turkey — all in the name of increasing student enrollment.
With Southern’s student enrollment dipping from nearly 9,500 students to 7,000 students during the past several years, Southern is putting a new emphasis on international student recruiting as one means to make up the difference.
“We consider it a priority to increase our international presence,” Llorens said. “We already have a very diverse faculty.”
More international students at Southern, he said, means more cultural exchange and global awareness for the students from Louisiana.
One major foot in the door came when Turkey native Osman Kandara, a Southern assistant professor of computer science, approached Llorens about developing new partnerships with his native country. An added bonus is the support of the Atlas Foundation, formed by Turkish Muslims in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, to promote interfaith dialogue and cultural education.
“Thanks to Dr. Kandara, we weren’t going as strangers,” Llorens said. “We were welcomed as friends.”
In just a week, Llorens and Kandara traveled to seven cities — from the largest city of Istanbul to the capital city of Ankara — and visited eight universities, a private high school, elected officials, Southern international alumni and the two primary governmental organizations that oversee high education.
No state funds were used, Llorens said.
Turkish organizations funded the trip.
“It was a very ambitious agenda,” Llorens said.
For instance, they met for a rare Sunday brunch with Chancellor Zafer Gul of the 50,000-student Marmara University in Istanbul.
“It’s not very common in Turkey to just open the doors on Sunday,” Kandara said.
The partnerships in the works with multiple universities include the traditional recruitment of international graduate students and faculty exchange programs, but also “two-plus-two” and “three-plus-one” programs where students start at Turkish institutions and finish their bachelor’s degrees at Southern, Llorens said.
Also in the works is the opportunity with the Turkish higher education Measurement, Selection and Placement Center, called OSYM in Turkey, to allow students from high school to automatically test for enrolling at Southern. In Turkey’s “very centralized” higher education system, only about 20 percent of those tested get into universities. But Kandara also noted that the Turkish government is investing heavily in education and building several new universities.
Llorens said OSYM indicated the partnership could eventually grow to Southern enrolling 600 to 1,000 Turkish students.
“We have to match the curriculums,” Llorens said. “It’s something that’s definitely doable because it’s happening with other universities.”
Llorens mentioned existing partnerships with some campuses in the State University of New York system and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Kandara said he believes some partnerships could be in effect as soon as this fall.
“We have to act quickly,” he said.
Barbara Carpenter, Southern’s dean of international education, said the university is great for international students because it is “small enough to personalize the experience,” but large enough to offer the comprehensive university experience.
Southern currently enrolls more than 160 international students, she said. Most of the students are from India, African nations and China.
Llorens said there is no set goal in mind. “But we know the opportunity is there to significantly increase that number,” he said.
“It’s part of an overall strategy on our part,” Llorens said. “I don’t think we’ve made as concerted an effort as we could have in reaching out to international students.”
Carpenter also noted that Southern’s mission is to cater to minority students. “That’s one of the reasons international students enjoy coming to Southern,” she said.
Southern even brought a university pamphlet to Turkey that featured a Turkish poem.
The poem, which loses its poetic effect in translation is: “Knowledge is to know about knowledge; knowledge is to know about yourself. If you don’t know about yourself, then what is the point of seeking for knowledge?”