IU looks to Ferguson International Center to attract, serve international community

Indiana University leaders hope the Stephen L. and Connie J. Ferguson International Center will support its community of international students and study abroad programs, while attracting future attendees from around the world to the Bloomington campus.

The new 40,000-square-foot international center is under construction at the corner of Eagleson Avenue and Seventh Street. IU broke ground on the site in March of 2020, and leadership aim for completion by July or August 2022.

According to Vice President for International Affairs Hannah Buxbaum, the Ferguson International Center will bring all of the offices that serve IU's international needs under one roof, including the Office of International Services and the Office of Overseas Study.

Previously: New construction at IU Bloomington may slow, but renovations will continue

Beyond that, IU leadership hope the building of a new international center in a central, prominent place on campus will make the university's commitment to international students clear.

"Frankly, the building is also a visible investment in our international community," Buxbaum said. "These students are such an important part of our campus. To have this great new facility right in the center of campus near the (Wells) Library, near the Kelley School, near the School of Global and International Studies, and really visibly dedicated to the international student community — I'm very excited about being able to do that."

The scattered, sometimes fringe locations of international offices on campus might have conveyed the opposite impression.

"The impression we were creating for the international student community was (that) you're off a little bit on the side of campus," Buxbaum acknowledged. "So, part of it is being compatible with our own values about our desire to have these international students here."

As IU continues to seek to attract international students, leadership want to ensure visiting parents get the right impression as well.

"It absolutely makes a difference because parents want to think that the school they're sending their kids halfway across the world to attend wants them there and cares for them," Buxbaum said.

Shazia Akhtar, an international student from Dubai, said she believes everyone in the IU community will benefit from the Ferguson center. "I'm very excited that this building is finally being constructed for international students," Akhtar said. "I feel like not just international students (will benefit), but all the students that are going to be on campus. Because it's going to be such a central location, so their events or things that they host, I feel like the whole campus is going to be part of that."

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Akhtar recalled her own difficulties getting around campus to access international services when she first started at IU, and was thrilled that other international students would have an easier time in the future. Being an international student is difficult enough on its own, Akhtar explained, given that students must attend school while managing their immigration status and paperwork.

"I'm honestly very happy knowing that they will not have to have go through those challenges of not having the space of meeting other international students, or having a campus building be so far off in the corner where it's not accessible," she said. "It was really problematic, especially in my freshman and sophomore years, when you're still figuring out the bus routes and you're trying to figure out your international documents, and it's very stressful."

Though excited by the improvements, Akhtar was not impressed it has taken this long to make international students feel more at home on the Bloomington campus when they make up such an important part of IU, numerically and culturally, but also financially.

"I'm honestly very happy and excited about it, but I'm not really impressed by it,' Akhtar said. "Because I feel like these problems have existed for so long, it's almost frustrating to see that it's taken this long for any of this to have been addressed."

Akhtar has concerns about how important her fellow international students really are to IU administration.

"I'm confused because we have a large prominence at IU, and apart from that we are bringing the highest amount of funding for the school, yet our needs are the last to be considered and our needs are not a matter of priority," she said, referring to international tuitions fees being higher than what many Americans pay.

International students continue to play a larger role on campus, and the number of international student organizations at IU has risen to almost 100. It became clear there was a need for dedicated spaces for meetings and other functions, and university leadership hope that will change with the Ferguson International Center.

"As these student organizations have grown, we want them to have a place to meet and a place to plan their events," Buxbaum said. "They do a lot of cultural programming for the benefit of the whole campus community and they deserve some dedicated space to do that in."

While she acknowledged the benefits of the new international center, Akhtar said the new building must be one part of a larger, more consistent strategy of support for the international community at IU.

"It needs to show up in more than just a shiny building," she said. "It needs to show up in their policies and it needs to show up in the way that you're standing up for international students."

"For international students, (the pandemic) was hard," Buxbaum said. "I think that having been through that experience reinforces for us how important a part of our community these students are."

The Ferguson international Center was partially funded by a $5 million dollar donation from Steve and Connie Ferguson, both IU alumni. The project's total budget was $17,500,000, according to the university's capital planning website.

Contact Patrick McGerr at pmcgerr@heraldt.com, ‪812-307-5636‬, or follow @patrickmcgerr on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Ferguson International Center at Indiana University open summer 2022