International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, began Monday.
The two purposes of the week are to introduce and gather all the international programs and resources on campus and to respond to the government’s designation of this week to spread international good will, said Elizabeth Leicester, assistant director of UCLA’s Asia Institute.
In the wake of Sept. 11, Leicester said the U.S. is trying to reach out through the educational community to build relations around the world.
“This event highlights the amount of international activities that goes on in the campus,” said Bob Ericksen, director of the Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars.
There will be cultural exhibitions, foreign film nights, a tour of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, academic discussions and study abroad information sessions to promote and celebrate international interaction as part of UCLA’s education.
The film nights and the two information sessions were the only events specifically designed for this week ““ all the other events merely coincide with the week and reflect the frequent international activities that occur on a regular basis on campus, Ericksen said.
“Every week, we discover (new international activities) on campus,” said Kathleen Micham, a staff member of the International Education Office.
Each professional school has global connections, and dozens of student groups hold cultural events regularly, showing how diverse UCLA’s student body is, Micham said.
This is the third year that UCLA has hosted International Education Week. The number of organizations that have requested tabling in the information session and the groups that will be presented has grown by about a third since last year, Ericksen said.
International Education Week brings together separate institutes that promote international activities in UCLA, Ericksen said. Some of these institutes are the UCLA International Institute, the International Education Office, the UCLA Graduate Division, the Dashew Center, and the Internship and International Opportunities office.
The week kicked off with an exhibition of Asian American studies.
On Tuesday, the International Opportunities Fair offered information on study and volunteer opportunities, internships, fellowships abroad, and international involvement activities on campus.
The Study Abroad Fair was featured Wednesday, organized by the International Education Office.
“(We) try to make (studying abroad) a natural and easy part of education at UCLA,” Micham said.
The study abroad program provides resources even for engineers, who often have a more difficult time finding such programs, Micham said.
The Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, which measures the amount of study abroad activities nationwide, ranks UCLA as No. 5 in terms of students who study abroad, with 2,330 students in 2009, and No. 8 in terms of incoming international students, with 5,590 students in 2009.
The three film nights sponsored by Dashew on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening will help students “see the world through the different lenses and perspectives,” Ericksen said.
Other screenings cover the topics of Burma’s struggle for democracy and Czechoslovakia’s communist history.