David Bycroft, Peter Spolc, Chris Everson, Sylvia Lewohl
Homestay is a wonderful, educational experience that provides an ideal opportunity to learn about another
culture. Each year both Australia and New Zealand open their doors to thousands of new international
students, many apply for homestay, believing it to be the very best way to experience a new environment.
Each student must have a safe, supportive place to live and each student must be made sufficiently aware
of dangers and hazards in their new surroundings. One of the most complex issues is the care and
monitoring of students in homestay, especially those under eighteen years of age and it is in the education
provider's best interest for Homestay providers to have good policies and procedures in place and function
under good practice guidelines. Unfortunately this has not always happened.
In Australia a group has got togther to solve the problems associated with Homestay by forming The
Australian Homestay Network and have produced an online, fully compliant, management system which
is extremely easy to use and gives both the student and host access to orientation material, interesting
articles and chat lines. Each student and host is fully insured and has access to telephone assistance
twenty four hours a day seven days a week.
Abstract: The difficulty of an institutional survey of a student population is that previously observed
negativity concerning the relationship of establishment and subject – power differential, mistrust,
guilt –taint the results of surveys that are undertaken by an identified university official or an
individual that is known to be in the employ of the university, such as residential assistants, tutors
and students under departmental employ.
Since 2005 OSHC Worldcare has undertaken a series of student/customer surveys concerning
the OSHC product, experiences of Australia and additional questioning about their studies.
These surveys were conducted in such a manner as to be anonymous and thus gather as much
unbiased information as possible. A more recent use of the focus groups has been to use the
focus group to ask questions supplied by the university so as to gather unbiased, or at least, least
biased information.
The students are free to ask questions in the focus group forum, and so the information gathered
from the students is not just reaction but also proactive.
This presentation will explore, within the bounds of customer/client confidentiality, the results from
our focus group participant’s answers and comments and the indicators they provide for
international student recruitment and retention based on community communication both in
Australia and their country of origin.
Peter Kell, Virginie Schmelitschek, Anne Maree Smith and Gillian Vogl
ABSTRACT: This paper reports on a community action project that was developed by a
community committee to assist international students to feel more welcome in
Wollongong. Research with international students carried out since 2005 by Peter
Kell and Gillian Vogl found that international students who were well connected to
their communities experienced greater well being and performed better
academically. In 2006 a community working group was formed comprising staff and
students from different sectors at the University of Wollongong; representatives from
Wollongong City Council; the local business chamber; local businesses, Illawarra
Ethnic Communities Council and Illawarra TAFE. The Welcome to Wollongong
(W2W) Community Group worked together to put in place a community website for
international students and also to co-ordinate a civic reception and mini festival to
welcome new international students to Wollongong. This was held in February 2008
and was funded by an IMB community foundation grant. This paper provides an
evaluation of this project and discusses a new type of framework that the authors
believe should underpin the international student experience. This framework
proposes a wellness and security paradigm in managing international student
mobility.
Abstract: Exit surveys and feedback from Returning Home programs indicate that many
international students have an unmet desire for a ‘real Australian experience’. Those
students that lived on their own or with other international students while studying in
Australia reported that, despite completing a degree here, they had not had the
opportunity to be invited into an Australian home. Related findings from A Growing
Experience (University of Melbourne, 2006) identified that Australian universities
need to take on the challenge of developing programs that connect students into the
community.
This motivated La Trobe International to develop a cross cultural weekend break
program to encourage intercultural community connection. The program has grown
from small experimental beginnings, to one of several regularly scheduled events.
They are designed to link students from three campuses to families within the
community, thereby providing a contrast to their place of study and enriching the
student journey. The unique benefit of the program is that it operates across three
campuses; one metropolitan and two regional. Students from La Trobe’s Melbourne
campus who elect to participate can experience life in a rural/regional setting for a
weekend break in either Bendigo or Albury/Wodonga. Likewise, students from either
of the regional campuses can visit Melbourne.
Students have described this immersion into a new environment as providing ‘a
better idea of how an Australian family is run’; ‘a new environment and an eyeopening
experience [Melbourne]’, and a tree-change – ‘Now I can recognize different
types of cows!’. The benefits are mutual, for some rural/regional families, coming
from what is essentially a mono-cultural community, this program gives the
opportunity to engage with other cultures. For regional students visiting a
metropolitan family, they benefit immensely from a safe and friendly guided tour of
the city.
This paper details the research that informed the program’s development, describes
its implementation and notes some of its’ design advantages. It will outline
recruitment including the allocation and briefing processes; explore challenges/risks
inherent in running a community outreach program; and document evaluations
including the excitement of the student journey.
Keywords: community, engagement, connectedness, cultural exchange, metropolitan, rural/regional
Abstract: Transition is an area which is critical to the overall student experience in higher education, from
students’ entry into university to exit from the university. The University of South Australia has developed
and implemented various strategies to respond to the needs of international students studying business
degrees. The needs identified relate to international students’ feeling part of the university community,
level of interaction with other students and career planning and development.
This paper will discuss the University’s response to these areas, the strategies developed and the
importance of internal collaboration to provide a comprehensive plan in responding to these areas. The
strategies identified include the establishment of a Business Mates student mentoring program to assist
first year students with the transition to university life. In addition, an international student career
strategy has been developed to assist international students with career development skills by facilitating
participation in career planning, networking and industry engagement.
Key Words: Interaction, international students, transition, first year, career development
