Officials said Ball State’s international program will not be affected negatively by the recent resignation of the Student Government Association president following racially insensitive tweets.
Imara Dawson, executive director of the Rinker Center for International Programs, said he does not feel the tweets will change student’s views.
“As an international educator, I choose to view this unfortunate incidence as an opportunity to encourage a larger dialogue between our international community and the Ball state community,” he said.
Ball State’s international program won national recognition by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday for its international student population growth. The university is expecting to have about 900 international students in attendance this year.
Rep. Luke Messer and international trade specialist Leslie Britton presented Ball State President Jo Ann Gora and Ball State with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Export Achievement Certificate for opening new foreign markets.
Gora said Ball State’s growth in international students might have been recognized by the department because it is “unusual.”
“We don’t have an engineering program, so it’s harder for a university like Ball State to grow its international enrollment,” she said. “So frequently what international students are looking for are those highly technical fields, like engineering, which we don’t offer.”
Gora said this award better reflects campus than recent events with Malachi Randolph, SGA former president, who formally resigned Thursday after receiving criticism for racially derogatory tweets.
“That was a moment in one student’s life and I don’t want this to be blown out of proportion,” she said. “Malachi made some poor choices and he has paid the price for that. I don’t think that his tweets represent the culture of the campus.”
Dawson said he thinks this one bad experience is far outweighed by the larger overwhelmingly positive experience he has heard from international students.
He said during his five months at Ball State so far, he has not come across a student being harassed for their international status.
“If they were, I would hope we could talk to the person who did it to educate them,” Dawson said.
He also said if an international student had been hurt by Randolph’s tweets, he would like to explain to them that is not the way most Ball State students feel.
“I would want to let them know that Ball State is an inclusive and diverse place,” he said. “He did not speak for the university as a whole.”
Dawson said he plans to talk with all of the university’s student groups to let them know what the Rinker Center has done and what the center plans for the future.
Robiyabonu Dustova, a sophomore accounting and criminal justice major, is an international student from Tajikistan, a country in Central Asia. She said she has had an overwhelmingly positive experience on her first time abroad.
“So many things have changed in me and in my environment,” Dustova said.
Dustova said she has never met anyone who has reacted negatively when they find out she is studying abroad.
“Maybe I was just way too lucky, or maybe it is just the relationships people have with one another here,” she said. “What I can say for sure is that the community is a very good place for us to start. It is a wonderful campus where you can have fun, but it isn’t so big that you can’t focus on your studies.”
Rachel Podnar contributed to this story
