Miami University's Hamilton campus is hosting 10 Chinese exchange students during the spring 2010 semester, giving them a chance to experience life in an American classroom and marking the first time one of Miami's regional campuses have directly recruited foreign students to study at their campus.
"Traditionally the branch campuses, Hamilton and Middletown, have only had very few student-visa students, the kind you see around Oxford all the time," said David Keitges, director of international education at Miami's Oxford campus.
To draw these students' attention, the branch campuses promoted their distinctiveness from the Oxford campus by emphasizing how the smaller campus could promote a more personalized experience for the students.
"I think our branch campus has some unique advantages," said Chen Ferguson, director of international initiatives at Miami Hamilton. "We can pay personal attention to students when they are here."
Since arriving in the United States for the very first time, the students from Xi'an Jiaotong University in China have been adjusting to the Hamilton campus with the help of a weeklong orientation program conducted by Keitges.
Part of this involved an ambassador program in which volunteer host families took the students to different social functions such as concerts and sports games. These families will also entertain the students during weekends and breaks. However, instead of living with these families, the students are staying in the Wish Village Apartments in Hamilton.
The students also had the opportunity to meet with the newly elected Hamilton major, Pat Moeller, who addressed the group and arranged for them to go on a tour of the city, Ferguson said.
"They have adapted pretty well," Ferguson said. "I think it's because of the wonderful orientation program."
But for the students, adapting to life on the Hamilton campus will continue to be challenging.
"The differences lie in almost every aspect of daily life including the way we cook, the concepts we have and the manners when we are talking," said Shaozhe Yin, an exchange student.
Because this program is different from the traditional four-year bachelor programs and lasts for a semester, the students are not focused so much on their degrees as they are about the opportunity to experience a new culture.
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"I treat this program as a chance for me to know more about the American society," Yin said. "I think it can help me figure out whether studying in the United States or living in the United States is suitable for me."
In exchange, 10 Miami students, mostly from the Hamilton campus, will leave in February to study at Xi'an Jiaotong University in China for the semester.
Depending on the success of the current program, Keitges said believes there will most likely be increased student participation in the future.
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