The news coming out of Dubai this morning is that Michigan State University is closing down their campus effective immediately. While the MSU campus was struggling financially, they were pushing forward with a heavy recruiting schedule throughout the Middle East & many other countries. However, finding students who met admissions standards and who were interested in staying on the Dubai campus was difficult.
So far, the only article I’ve seen has been in the UAE-based “The National” – which strangely included this quote:
Prof Kim Wilcox, the provost and vice-president of MSU, said that in the current climate many students and parents were not keen on the idea of studying in the US.
Apparently Professor Wilcox has either been misquoted or has not followed MSU’s kick-ass international recruiting team & their fantastic success in bringing students on to the East Lansing campus from all over the world.
At a recent international higher-ed mini-conference I attended a session discussing the influx of students from Saudi Arabia and how its changed the landscape of the campus and the type of issues its presented. One of the main issues, it seemed to me, was the adjustment to the style of learning was really difficult for the students. The concept of US-style of learning is so at odds with the methods these students have used all their lives, memorize, regurgitate, do not question the professor. Suddenly they’re required to think cognitively, debate their classmates, question the professor, and analyze before answering.
Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times
Its a tough chasm to bridge, and it really takes a significant amount of “deprogramming”. I’m of the thought that if you have an Intensive English Lanaguage program on campus, one of the most crucial topics to cover is study skills & learning methods. That’s why this New York Times article about the American University of Cairo caught my eye: A Campus Where Unlearning Is First
These are the kinds of questions posed to undergraduate students entering this [American University of Cairo] 90-year-old university during what the president, David D. Arnold, called a first year of “disorientation.” During disorientation, the students — 85 percent of them Egyptians — are taught to learn in ways quite at odds with the traditional method of teaching in this country, where instructors lecture, students memorize and tests are exercises in regurgitation.
160 pounds of mail from colleges and universities during this student’s search. Wow. While there is certainly a discussion and post in there about the OVERabundance of information thrown at high schools students in the US, what *I* thought about was how many Universities were sending viewbooks overseas? How much are you spending on mailing tons of paper across the world? Often to countries where the mail system is so poor the chances of the student receiving it in a timely manner is completely out of the question (yeah Saudi Arabia, I’m talking to you).
So are you still doing this? Are you still spending money on random direct mail campaigns? Does it work? What is your ROI? I am curious because I would think on average a University should be sending a hundred or less viewbooks to a country like Saudi Arabia each year. The rest of your budget should be spent on using the hundreds of better and more effective methods of connecting with the student on a personal and emotional level. That’s what will connect most of them to your institution and make them interested in attending.
…of course I say all this as an international student who chose her school based on its brochure and chose NOT to go to another based on theirs. Of course that was more than 10 years ago…the recruitment game has changed, and its time to give the students virtual hugs and handshakes, not just more mail.
Our student site, www.al-jamiat.com launched a new series of posts today reviewing different colleges and campuses beginning with Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. If you would like your college to be featured on our student site, send us an email!
Of course that was more than 10 years ago…the recruitment game has changed, and its time to give the students virtual hugs and handshakes, not just more mail. 
