Five students coming from Near East, South Asia

Iuliia Protopop, CSC international education program coordinator, said five or six students will enroll at CSC as part of the Near East and South Asia Undergraduate Exchange Program. The program, which strives to improve relations between the United States and participating countries, funds the students’ cost of attendance and provides money for cultural enrichment for one year.

The enrollees include two students from the United Arab Emirates and one each from India, Tunisia, Libya and Pakistan. Protopop said she is still waiting to be notified whether one other student will be placed at CSC.

As part of the program, the students will be required to be involved in campus activities, community service and conduct presentations about their home countries. The students, who have completed university-level courses, are each studying a different discipline. They are journalism, geology, agriculture, pre-medicine and international relations.

“This program will be both cultural and educational,” Protopop said. “The students are required to be actively involved.”

Protopop, a native of Ukraine who was awarded a CSC master’s degree in May, expects the program to provide a cultural benefit for CSC’s other students, too.

 “It helps the American students broaden their world outlook," Protopop said. "They will be exposed to different cultures without going abroad. Usually the people who participate in the exchange programs are very open to meeting new people, making friends and sharing information about their cultures.”

CSC became involved with the program while CSC Dean Dr. Gary White and Assistant Vice President Steve Taylor were at a conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. Representatives of the Near East and South Asia program said they were still looking for host institutions for some of the students. White and Taylor inquired about CSC becoming a host institution and were given a deadline of that evening to submit a proposal, as selections were beginning the next day. White said he jumped on the opportunity, because the program helps CSC meet its goals of enrolling students from many different countries. The proposal was quickly drafted in the hotel room.

The students are scheduled to arrive in Chadron by airplane from Washington, D.C., on Aug. 15.