Admitting international students for the wrong reasons brings down a university

[This article originally published on Nov. 4, 2014]

I am writing to express my concerns regarding the effect of the admissions of academically unqualified international students on the learning environment at
Miami University.

I am a faculty member teaching mainly undergraduate courses. Typically, my classes consist of 20 students and I will usually have one to four international students enrolled. There has been increased enrollment in the past few years of international students in my courses. In one course, there are 15 international students out of 22. The vast majority of these students hail from China, but the following issues apply to students of other nationalities as well.

I welcome the diversity in the classroom. It is a pleasure working with international students who are equipped to contribute to class discussions and share their unique viewpoints with the non-international students. It is beneficial for all the students involved to have the experience of working in diverse groups in order to accomplish academic goals. It is a pleasure helping international students succeed on in-class exams, clarifying out of class reading and writing assignments and the like. Student success is the reward of teaching.

What I do not welcome is dead weight.

For the collegiate level, the displayed English literacy of our international students is abhorrent. The majority of these students do not have the conversational skills to follow along with lecture materials or to contribute to large or small group discussions. The majority of these students do not have the English reading and writing skills to read and comprehend in class exams, out of class reading assignments or out of class writing assignments.

I cannot fathom why an institution such as Miami University would accept the quality of student as I am seeing in many of the international students. I know that they go through a rigorous admissions process and I am wondering where this process is failing the university, and more importantly, the student. Are we accepting them merely to commend ourselves on our diversity or for financial gain?

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