International Education Service Plan

Acting President Emily Huner's accountability statement

Strategic goals

Global profile

1. Establish

Learn and understand VIU's current contributions, and potential additions, to the global international education sectors.

Vancouver Island University has engaged in the international education sector for over 25 years. Initially, and for most of those years, international activities, at home and abroad, were conducted by international education experts and practitioners within a faculty and then a department. Since 2023 VIU has chosen to adjust its international education philosophy and practice to a much more integrated, university wide model. This integrated model has many benefits for VIU's faculty, students and staff but with its newness comes some lack of understanding of where VIU now stands on the world stage. It is time to review VIU's Global Profile in order to understand how VIU can continue to contribute to an ever increasingly complex global environment.

Strategies:

1. Survey and create an accurate database of all international collaborations at VIU in:
   a) Research
   b) Student Mobility
   c) Curriculum
2. Create a database of all grant monies received in last 10 years for all international collaborations at VIU.
3. Create a database for all international conferences, symposia or other meetings attended by VIU faculty and staff where VIU faculty and staff presented or otherwise made significant contribution to the proceedings.
4. Develop and launch a survey to VIU faculty, staff and students to ascertain current community understanding of the role and purpose of VIU International.

2. Nurture

Ensure mutually beneficial, and diversified, global partnerships.

VIU has many, and varied, partnerships with institutions and organizations all over the world. With the reorganization of VIU's International department it is time to review these partnerships to determine if they are mutually beneficial and enhance VIU's global profile.

Strategies:

1. Review all partnerships to determine benefit to VIU and how, or if, VIU reciprocates.
2. Determine which partnerships have potential for more active involvement and reciprocal activities. Consider prioritizing these for resource allocation.
3. Develop a document that outlines the ways in which VIU's International Partnerships are supporting VIU in implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
4. Develop a communication strategy to inform the VIU community of active partnerships and ways to become involved.

3. Advance

Further develop global experiences for students and faculty at home and abroad.

Using the information gathered from Global Profile: Create and Nurture, VIU will be well placed to identify areas for growth to support students and faculty as well as enhancing VIU global profile. Further enhancing VIU's global reach, recognition and reputation will support VIU's rebuilding of international student attraction and retention as well as provide increased interest in research and other partnership activities for faculty and students.

Strategies:

1. Understand common barriers to Outbound Mobility and work to reduce them at VIU.
2. Consult with faculty members to ensure students from all faculties and programs have access and are encouraged to participate in international experiential learning opportunities.
3. Develop a communication plan to increase awareness of Outbound Mobility opportunities for students, faculty and staff.
4. Support and educate faculty in understanding their duty of care when hosting internation learning experiences.
5. Increase awareness and usage of -VIU's emergency response provider services.

Student experience

1. Establish

Ensure continuous development relative to the BC EQA Code of Practice.

BC has established an EQA Code of Practice that all institutions who enroll international students on study permit must comply with. To ensure continued compliance and continuous improvement VIU must be intentional about regularly reviewing the Code relative to VIU's practice and compliance.

Strategies:

1. Develop a plan to annually review the Code of Practice and identify areas of continued strength as well as areas for improvement.
2. Provide Marketing and Recruitment with annual information regarding Code of Practice Standards that VIU meets and exceeds expectations for. This information can be used for marketing and recruitment purposes to inform students about VIU's standing in relation to the Code.
3. Develop an annual Code of Practice Compliance reporting template to share internally to inform leadership, faculty, staff and students of VIU's strengths and continuous improvement.

2. Nurture

Ensure access to international student services that allow all students to thrive.

The recently enhanced BC EQA Code of Practice has highlighted the need for post-secondary institutions to explicitly understand and provide support for the vulnerabilities inherent in being an international student. Developing a stand-alone goal that specifically targets the need to ensure that international students have simple and clear access to all support services is critical to successful student experiences.

Strategies:

1. Renew the VIU International website to include a hub for international students to easily access support services.
2. Identify a point person to receive international students' concerns and direct those to appropriate support and services.
3. Develop a communication plan to ensure high student awareness of academic and health support services.
4. Develop a review and feedback cycle to obtain information from students on their experiences with VIU support services.

3. Advance

Ensure clarity and transparency of information to students from recruitment through to graduation.

A key theme in BC's EQA Code of Practice is ensuring that students are accurately and clearly informed before they make a decision to apply right through to graduation. Intentionally paying attention to the various avenues of communication that reach students is critical.

Strategies:

1. Work with VIU's IT and Brand Marketing departments to ensure that VIU's website redesign supports the necessity for clarity, transparency, accuracy and accessibility of information for international students throughout the student life cycle.
2. Create a format for student feedback to help inform understanding of the student experience during the recruitment and application phases. Include students who use education agents as well as those who do not.
3. Develop an education agent training program that emphasizes the necessity for clarity, transparency and accuracy of information shared with students.
4. Support the Office of Future Students in implementing a process to effectively manage agents.