Student Org Unites International Student Community
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 1, 2014) — The International Student Council (ISC) has revitalized its role on campus to creatively unite international students at UK.
With its creation in 1988, the ISC was founded with the purpose of spreading diversity and acting as an umbrella organization for all international organizations within UK’s campus.
"Through our organization, we have been able to produce festivals and events for all audiences to help promote diversity," said ISC President Sarita Gustely, a sophomore majoring in vocal performance and international studies. "In the past, ISC was acting as an organization of its own and not incorporating other international student organizations, which was one aspect of our organization that we decided to change."
This year, ISC has brought together seven different international organizations: the African Student Association, Omani Student Association, Indian Student Association, Chinese International Fraternity Alliance, Brazil Without Borders, the Japanese Culture in Kentucky Society, and an upcoming Indonesian Student Organization.
"We came up with the idea of having representatives of these organizations at our monthly meetings," said Omer Tariq, ISC vice president and a junior studying finance and accounting. "If organizations want to promote something or we want to discuss a certain topic, representatives will stop by. It’s a great network."
The UK Indian Student Association (ISA) has benefited from ISC's revitalization and continues to lend its support.
"For all international students, it is very important to have somebody to help them in a new country; the ISC is doing their job really well with this," said Ishan Kudale, president of ISA. "Recent events like having social hours at Sweet Mango were a nice way to interact with other international students. ISC really supports us by promoting our events on their social media sources, which has given us a really good response for ISA."
As ISC has created more partnerships on UK's campus, they hope that events will be more educational for participants about the internationalization of UK.
"The partnerships have helped our council tremendously. We’ve grown to a council of 40 members and have been able to establish our goals," said Gustely. "In the coming months we have many events planned. In previous years, all of the events were more fun and social. However, this year we’ve had much more organization and decided to lean toward a more educational stance."
ISC has several upcoming events within the next semester:
- Saturday, Oct. 11: International Tailgate/Tent Party
- Saturday, Oct. 18: Culture Fest 2014 (The International Festival)
- Monday, Nov. 17 – Friday, Nov. 21: International Fair
Students interested in joining the ISC are invited to come to meetings held every Friday at 5 p.m. in room 207 in Bradley Hall. In addition to liking the UK International Student Council page on Facebook.