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Administrator visit to China changes perspective

By Bonnie Meibers, Senior Staff Writer

Jayne Brownell, Miami's vice president of student affairs, traveled to China last summer to participate in a "preorientation" program for Chinese international students. She knew she would be teaching incoming students about attending an American university, but what she didn't know is how much she would learn from the international students and their country.

"I have a deeper appreciation for how brave all of our students are," Brownell said after attending the program in July.

Brownell returned from China with a new respect for international students. For her, and others that attended, this trip was all about understanding and appreciating Miami's Chinese students in their home country and building relationships with them and their families.

"I am so grateful that I got to take this trip," Brownell said.

Brownell said she took even more from the trip than she expected.

"I have been working with students for more than 20 years and I didn't think about some of those things before, even though I considered myself pretty culturally aware," Brownell said.

Some of the things that were made more evident to Brownell while she was in China were the vast divide between Chinese and American culture, as well as the language barrier.

"We are making pretty big assumptions on what they know and what they don't know," Brownell said. "Not just about their level of English, but about American culture and navigating day-to-day."

Americans assume that international students understand cultural nuances and the English language, she said. There was far less English influence in Beijing than she had anticipated.

Brownell accompanied seven other women on this trip. The group included Erika Dockery, senior director of development for Miami; Lina Zhang, who works for admissions from China; Christa Branson, an adviser in the College of Arts and Science; Marcia Smith, an adviser for the Farmer School of Business; Jing Luo, international program manager for International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS); Amy Cockrell, international student adviser; and Molly Heidemann, assistant director for ISSS.

Brownell served as a student representative for the program.

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The preorientation program was first held in 2014, Heidemann said, because about 80 percent of international students at Miami come from China.

This year, the program spanned from 1 to 6 p.m. on July 10, 12 and 14, starting with a general welcome for students and their families. Three separate preorientation programs took place in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhao. Speakers showed the group maps and gave them a general idea of where Oxford is located in the state of Ohio.

From there, students and their families were split.

Brownell gave students information on residence halls and dining facilities, how meal plan works, how to get involved on campus and what it is like to attend an American university. Meanwhile, parents received the same information in Chinese.

The presentation on student life was followed by a session in which ISSS talked about logistics and practical matters for students and their families to know before coming to the United States and to Miami.

The last hour of the program was occupied by a student panel where current international students, who were home for the summer, were able to speak with incoming students and their families, answering any additional questions they may have had.

"I think this volunteering was special because not only were we helping and setting up, but also we were representatives of Miami University," Qianyu Wang said.

Wang was a student volunteer for the Beijing preorientation program. She said she wanted to offer her experience and knowledge to incoming students because they were from the same country and may have had similar questions to those she had as an incoming first-year student.

Ambrose Li, an international student who also volunteered at the Beijing program, has helped out with the preorientation program for both years it has been in session. She was motivated to volunteer because she remembers what it was like to come to America for the first time, not really knowing what to do.

Brownell said some of these student volunteers drove up to two hours to help with the preorientation program. She and the others on the trip greatly appreciated the seasoned students helping new students.

Two summers ago, senior Chris Lehn studied abroad in China, spending most of his time in Tianjin. Throughout his time there, he learned, like Brownell, how different the culture and environment is from the United States.

"It became apparent that there is more than one way to do this thing called life," Lehn said.

Lehn said the environment is not as clean as Miami's or the United States'. He was also surprised to be in a city the size of Chicago crowded with the amount of people in New York City.

Lehn wanted to study abroad there because he wanted to immerse himself in the Chinese culture and get to know what life is like in another place.

Both Lehn and Brownell had rich experiences in China.

"I felt so great about this experience," Brownell said. "I could not stop talking about it."

Brownell praised international students from all over the world for their courage and ability to go to school thousands of miles away from most of their family and friends.

"When I was 17, I don't think I would have been able to do that," she said. "I give them tremendous credit."

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