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Jennifer Ewald has been named the director of the center, which will consolidate services formerly provided by the Spain program office and the International programs office.
Mario Bravo, who will work out of the International Center, formerly led the Spain program office, while Dr. Young Kim, who retired in January, headed the international programs office.
"When Dr. Kim retired, a couple of other staff members left at the same time," said Ned Harris, associate provost for enrollment and academic services. "That gave us an opportunity to evaluate our structure, staffing and approaches to recruitment and services in these offices. After some analysis, we made a decision to bring these two departments together."
The new center will handle undergraduate international recruiting, foreign student advising for those coming to SLU from other countries, as well as serving domestic students interested in studying abroad.
"The idea of the international center excites me because it combines two sides of the same coin of international exchange -- those coming in and those going out," said Ewald, who sees definite benefits in overseeing both aspects. "An international center on a campus serves as a resource for not just the students but the entire campus because now you have one point of reference that everyone can use."
Harris said the new structure gives a new focus to international programs at SLU. "Now students, faculty and staff with an interest in things international have a primary focus on campus where they can get information they need," he said.
Ewald believes the consolidation of these services will facilitate the administrative side of studying abroad by providing a guided approach and eliminating duplication.
"If people have a question, they only call one number," Ewald said. "If students want to begin the process and don't know where to start, they can start here, and we can point them in the right direction rather than having the student run all over campus trying to take care of this."
Ewald also said the new structure allows the center to take a more proactive approach. "We can more actively support those programs SLU wants to support for study abroad because we are going to be aware of who is interested," Ewald said. "We're going to be promoting those programs actively around the campus rather than just assuming the student will find out if he or she wants to."
Ewald looks forward to building on a solid foundation.
"I think we have some really good programs, and people have been doing a good job, but you can always take something good and make it better," she said.
Along with keeping activities for both study abroad and international programming in view, Ewald lists attending to the needs of international visitors as a priority.
"It's really important to me that people embrace our international students and scholars, that they welcome them into the community," Ewald said. "We want our international visitors to feel that they truly have been welcomed and embraced by SLU, that they truly feel that they are a part of the campus and that their experience here stays with them long after they have left us."
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