Pellissippi State becomes college home for international

Pellissippi State becomes college home for international students

A tour bus ride in southern Germany showed Luanne Dagley more than the Bavarian Alps. It also introduced her to Ulli Sczesni, a 30-something bus driver with a desire for more education.

Three years later, Dagley, associate professor of history, is watching with pride as Sczesni completes requirements for an associate’s degree from the College.

Sczesni is one of more than 150 international students enrolled at Pellissippi State. Some, like Dai Wen Chen of China, are foreign nationals who moved to the United States a few years ago and graduated from a local high school. Chen is a graduate of South-Doyle High School in Knoxville.

Others, like Sczesni, a German national, and Mulyana Ilham of Indonesia, came from their homelands specifically to attend college in this country.

Pellissippi State is educating students from 57 countries, with the greatest numbers coming from South Korea, India and China.

Foreign-born students seek an American college degree for a variety of reasons, if these students are any indication, including taking advantage of a well-regarded system of higher education while at the same time improving English language skills.

And these three students say they like the idea of starting the process of earning an American college degree at a community college.

“I like the community college system. I like the small classes and the dedicated professors,” said Ilham, a first-year Pre-professional: Science-Medical Technology student. He already had been accepted into an Indonesian university but was encouraged by his aunt, who lives in East Tennessee, to come to the U.S. to study.

Ilham says he now wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree in medical technology and possibly study business before returning to Indonesia.

Chen, also a first-year student, chose Pellissippi State because he wanted to get more help with his English and because he could pursue a degree in architecture after working on an Associate of Science degree at the College.

“I don’t think that I could learn English as well anywhere else. It’s been pretty easy for me to talk with my professors here, and they always have time to help,” he said.

He says he likes the friendliness of his fellow community college students, several of whom also are foreign-born, from such places as the Ukraine, Iran, Japan and Thailand.

Sczesni, who has served as president of Pellissippi State’s International Club for the past two years, also likes the more personal attention she has found at the College.

“I like the class size here. The teachers know you by name, not number. The whole Liberal Arts Department seems to know me,” said Sczesni, a logistics and transportation student who also earned a General Educational Development equivalency diploma here. “And I like the knowledge that the professors have in their subjects.”

Faculty member Dagley, who once was a graduate student in Germany, is Sczesni’s sponsor at Pellissippi State, helping finance her travel and education costs in this country.

Dagley recalls how she described the opportunities at Pellissippi State while riding on Sczesni’s tour bus in 2002, and she remembers Sczesni’s enthusiasm for coming to the U.S. to pursue an American college degree.

“The experience of working with foreign students has been wonderful,” Dagley said. “I see my sponsorship of Ulli as a way of giving back some of what I gained from my own studies abroad.” Dagley has participated in activities of the International Club, as well as providing advice on courses and serving as Sczesni’s “housemother.”

In Germany, Sczesni had gone to work after advancing through the rigorous “Gymnasium” system, the highest level of her country’s secondary schooling.

She stayed in her family’s group tour business for so long, however, that she was legally too old to study business in the German university system. She still was interested in pursuing a college degree as a way to prepare to one day take over the family business, so the idea of coming to the U.S. to pursue a degree made sense.

Sczesni is considering several options for when she completes her degree, among them returning to Germany to head her family’s business or remaining in the United States to work on a master’s degree so she can teach German.

All three students say they want to transfer to a four-year school, possibly the University of Tennessee, after finishing at Pellissippi State.

Starting at a community college and transferring to a four-year school seems to be a typical path for foreign-born students at Pellissippi State, says John Tankersley, admissions coordinator for international students, though he says there really isn’t a “typical” foreign-born student at the College.

Some, like Chen, have been in this country for a few years and have an American high school education. Others, like Sczesni and Ilham, come to the U.S. on a student visa to enroll in college. Some are au pairs, or foreign-born caregivers of children. Some are legal immigrants who are not yet citizens but who have jobs in the U.S. and want to upgrade their skills. Some are spouses or children of foreign scientists and professors.

When dealing with those who come from abroad, Tankersley says going through the process of helping them obtain a student visa takes much effort, with no guarantee that the student will wind up at the College.

“About one-third of those I help will come to Pellissippi State, about one-third will go to college elsewhere, and one-third will be denied entrance to the U.S.,” mainly because of tighter post-Sept. 11 visa restrictions, he said.

As a result, he says he is focusing less on drawing people from outside the country and more on helping foreign-born students who are already in East Tennessee.

Tankersley says the College tries to reach international students in a number of ways.

“We work with adult English programs. We work with groups serving immigrants, and we meet directly with immigrants at local festivals, for holidays like Cinco de Mayo,” he said. “We also invite foreign-born students from the public schools to our campus for a special college visit day, which takes place in the spring.”

The College has established resources specifically to assist foreign-born students.

“The College has something for everyone—free classes for basic English skills or traditional college classes with separate English sections for non-native speakers,” Tankersley said. “We have four full-time, tenure-track faculty members who specialize in honing the English skills of non-native speakers.

“At other schools, foreign-born students are often taught by instructors less experienced with non-native speakers, who aren’t familiar with some of the problems that international students face,” he said.

“I think that we are light-years ahead of most other colleges and universities in the state. We are always looking for ways to improve, and I think we have established a niche in the Knoxville community.”

State higher education officials have created a committee to draft a “white paper” on how to integrate English Speakers of Other Language programs into two-year and four-year colleges and universities.

“We’ve already done it at Pellissippi State,” Tankersley said.

FOR INFORMATION ON PELLISSIPPI STATE’S PROGRAMS FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS:

John Tankersley, 539-7007 or jmtanksersley@pstcc.edu

"Inside Pellissippi" is a bi-monthly electronic publication produced by the Community Relations Office for the faculty and staff of Pellissippi State Technical Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, P.O. Box 22990, Knoxville, Tennessee 37933-0990. All suggestions and comments should be sent to Julia Wood (jwood@pstcc.edu).

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