Southeast's International Village has opened its new location

The Southeast Missouri State University International Village opened at its new location Jan. 25.

The renovation to 1025 N. Sprigg St. has been in the works for the past year and a half after the University realized a need for a better venue to house international oriented activities on campus.

The executive director of International Education and Services at Southeast Kevin Timlin said the old building at 939 College Hill Place barely had enough office space and there was no use for the building other than peer administrative related activities.

“We are basically two entities, we are international education services as well as intensive English programs,” Timlin said.

According to Timlin, the intensive English program (IEP) space was not conducive to a good language learning environment for the students and they also needed a stand-alone place for the IEP to deliver their programs and create an environment to foster student success.

“Our philosophy is that a graduate of Southeast, in order to be competitive in the workplace whether its local, regional, national or international, you have to have the ability to efficiently and effectively communicate and collaborate with people from different cultures and backgrounds and countries,” Timlin said. “So this space gives us more opportunity to infuse global learning into everything we do in the educational community here, through learning activities, social activities, cultural activities.”

Osaid Alkhamayseh, a first-year student at Southeast from Pakistan said he is enjoying the new location of the International Village.

“You can get some quiet place to focus and study. It’s a good environment to learn a new language,” Alkhamayseh said. “The teachers here are polite and they are understanding. They know what the students need and they are here to do their best to help develop our language and it is also a good location.”

The new administration building houses all of the offices for the staff members of IES and intensive English programs. It also houses administrators, IEP instructors, international recruitment and admissions, international student and scholar services and study abroad resources. There is a multipurpose room where students can cook and host events, a video conferencing room, a computer lab along with a prayer, meditation and private room.

“I have been here for only four months and I think I have improved a lot in many skills writing, listening and reading. The teachers are really good far as their classroom management skills, I like the way that they teach English,” Southeast student Daniela Pina said.

Pina said the International Village gives the opportunity to have connections with the international office as well as the IEP.

“It is easy for us to talk with the teacher, we can just cross the street and we are in the same building as the staff that we need. I think that is a benefit,” Pina said.

A green route shuttle was also put in place so that students can get back and forth to campus.

Pina lives off campus and says the shuttle to the International Village is helpful to get around through campus as well as to her home.

There are three cottages in the international village that are for housing. Students are not able to live in the cottages yet due to the delay of renovation.

There is a vision for the cottages once the resources are identified and the renovations can be made.

“It would have a living-learning community for whether its global culture majors or return study abroad students,” Timlin said. “We would have the ability to house visiting scholars, we have partnerships with universities around the world where we invite professors to come and deliver lectures.”

Pina also had some mixed feelings with her interaction with domestic students.

“Having our own space is huge so we can do activities in this place and the building is more comfortable than before, my only concern is that we are a little bit too far and isolated from other parts of the university,” Pina said. “I don’t know if having a building for only internationals is the best way to connect with other communities in the university, but besides that, I think this building is very good.”

Timlin wants to make sure both international students and domestic students get to experience the benefits of the International Village.

“In no way shape or form do we want people to think that this is only for international students this is a campus and community resource and through international student may have a lot of opportunities to use it this is open to everybody,” Timlin said. “We want different people to gather here for events. We want people to be able to share. It’s really to contribute to the educational environment and community side of the whole campus.”