Like many of our peers, we are fortunate to work at an institution serving individuals from different ethnicities, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds. In this regard, many of us work on campuses with large international populations coming from all parts of the world. Such students bring unique perspectives, experiences, and knowledge, contributing to the richness of the academic environment. But international students themselves often face huge hurdles to success; being away from loved ones and familiar surroundings can cause them to feel an undue amount of stress that their domestic counterparts do not face. Beyond this, they may experience language barriers, culture shock, and difficulties in adapting to new academic and social environments (Smith & Khawaja, 2011). To address these issues, universities often provide support services to help international students overcome these challenges and thrive in their academic pursuits. In this article, we’ll focus on one unique type of service: offering cultural events to decrease student stress in the classroom and increase engagement with faculty and other students.
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