The Rambler staff believes the university is trying to make great strides to continue to promote diversity, especially when they followed Hispanic Heritage Month (HHM) with a small-scale celebration for Day of the Dead and Diwali for those who celebrate it culturally.

In October, the Division of Student Affairs hosted the last of the HHM events, a roundtable discussion named “Nuestra Voz” (Our Voice), where Latinx students were provided a safe space to discuss issues the school continues to face in terms of diversity.

But now, we ask ourselves, “How can Texas Wesleyan keep up that momentum in honoring and helping its international students at a fundamental level?”

This leads us to wonder what kinds of solutions and options the university or aforementioned university committees could provide to international students that could help them transition to American culture while still acknowledging their home cultures.

Transportation

One of the first ideas concerns an old program that used to exist for international resident students who do not have a way of transportation to get the things they need. The Ram Route was a service such students could use to have access to nearby shopping centers like Montgomery Plaza and Renaissance Square.

The Rambler feels that bringing back this option, given the fact that the university has accepted the largest freshman class since 1997, would be beneficial to both international and domestic students who do not have acceptable driver’s licenses in Texas and do not have any other means to get to where they need to go.

While there are external services available, such as Uber or Lyft, we feel that international students, who already pay a costly international tuition fee and residential international students pay an additional room and board fee, should have the extra cost of transportation reduced if the university’s residence life program would agree to reinstall the Ram Route service.

International Food

Another idea we had was about having more food options on campus, offering these students the ability to eat what they’re used to at home. We considered adding more international unison events where foods from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds could be presented.

Currently, some resident life assistants have put together a similar event, but considering the lack of advertisement and participation, or even the desire to learn about different cultures, there could be more work done in this aspect.

We also found it could be beneficial for international students to be offered a program where the school buys their groceries from various cultural markets, or to create an international committee that can determine the best food options every semester. However, there would need to be more data to understand the logistics that could affect this option versus complying to the campus meal plan.

As it stands, there are plans from SGA to bring a variety of Whole Foods Thanksgiving meals to campus for students who have no way of celebrating Thanksgiving with their friends or family and are stuck on campus for this upcoming holiday.

Residence life also plans to provide meals to students while the food halls close for the week-long break. In this sense, the school is trying to ensure that students still have a guaranteed access to food even when the food halls close.

However, The Rambler makes a point of asking whether or not the foods are culturally appropriate for international students of various ethnic cultural backgrounds is something that should still be considered especially in celebration of an American holiday.

Campus International Vlog

In looking towards the future of Wesleyan international students, we at the Rambler find that it could be beneficial for new international students to watch from home what it’s like to be an international student on this campus.

The solution to this could be introducing a Texas Wesleyan vlogger to the campus that would highlight everything an international student would need to know to successfully make a life for themselves as a student at Texas Wesleyan.

We find that having a YouTube vlogger being a student on campus could really help not only new international students but other freshmen as well as there would be many introductory themes, such as finding out where different classes would be hosted and where different buildings are located.

The Rambler always has a fair amount of international students on staff. We think that if we hired an international student who could showcase Texas Wesleyan’s campus and show others what it’s like to be a student here. When the host of the vlogging channel moves on, we would consider hiring someone else to take over.

International Mentor Program
Lastly, The Rambler staff believes that international students, resident or not, should have access to mentors that can help them plan for life after graduation. Tamika Johnson’s Ram’s First program will have room for all kinds of students including international students, who could be majoring in different things.

Our staff is dismayed that there isn’t already an international student focused mentorship program in place; however, it is helpful of the university to promote the Ram’s First program as an all-inclusive program that would hopefully consider all the factors that an international student faces upon graduation.

Overall, The Rambler believes that celebrating international students’ independent cultural holidays is not enough to sustain diversity on this campus. It is imperative that more attention is required for their needs in transportation, cultural food choices, transparency prior to arrival, and futuristic mentorship. As these are currently unmet needs, the university needs to take bigger strides in these areas before it can call itself a truly diverse RAM-ily.