AMHERST - When Zhi Ren Zhu came from Beijing, China, in 2009, he did not know that the Chinese student population at UMass will double in 2012. To him, this means home away from home.
Zhi Ren Zu, a civil engineering major, said it is hard to pass by somebody in the Oak Room of the Worcester Dining Common today who does not speak Chinese.
Oak Room, located in the Northeast Residential Area, serves Asian food on weekdays.
“Everybody speaks Chinese in the Oak Room,” he said. “Even the food servers speak Chinese.”
The increase in Chinese students is just one of the changes at University of Massachusetts Amherst that the International Program Office (IPO) has to deal with - the IPO has to also cope with these changes with fewer resources.
With the growing population of international students in UMass, IPO has to figure out how to operate more efficiently and also to create more programs for the internationals students, under a tight budget.
The International Student Advisor at IPO, Richard Yam, said while there is a growing trend of students coming from China, this year also marks the highest number of international student enrollment since the last five years.
There were 1406 international students in UMass in 2009, and this year that number has increased for 21 percent to 1704.
“Not many people are aware of this - we are not state funded,” Yam said.
IPO has been operating with the fees from the Study Abroad Program. IPO charges $750 for every student who goes abroad under the Study Abroad Program, which around 1000 students participate in every year.
With more international students coming in, Yam said that the IPO cannot rely only on the study abroad fee. He also said that the IPO also needs more resources to cater the growing number of students.
“We used to have even more staff than this,” he said. “We had more resources to help the international students before - we even had teaching assistants, translators, and we even had more trips for the international students.”
This semester, for the first time, the IPO is charging every international undergraduate a $100 fee. IPO also plans to charge the graduate students this fee in the next few semesters.
Yam said IPO knew this was coming three years ago and tried charging the international students in 2009, but the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) blocked the proposal.
“But now we have no other way - we have to charge the students,” he said.
This year marks the highest number of Chinese students enrolled in UMass. Based on the UMass International Program Office (IPO) Statistical Report for fall 2011, 150 out of the 542 international students enrolled in fall 2011, came from China.
Currently there are 610 Chinese students in UMass, which makes up 27 percent of the entire international student population.
Students around campus also noticed the growing population of the international students - especially the Chinese - at UMass.
Ahmed Zakaria, an international student from Pakistan and a resident assistant at Greenough Dorm, said that there are more Chinese students in some dorm buildings than there were before.
Before becoming a resident assistant, Zakaria lived in Lewis Hall in Northeast Residential Area last year.
“The dorm was already labeled ‘Asian Dorm’ before,” he said. “But this year when I came back to visit, I saw a lot more international students than before. Especially from China.”
Meanwhile, Zu, who also lives in Lewis Hall, agreed that there are more international students around campus than three years ago.
“Every year we have to make a few changes for the orientation because more students are coming,” said Zu.
The IPO hosted 373 international students in the 2009 student orientation, 445 students in 2010, and 530 in 2011.
Yam said that it was not surprising to see many international graduate students coming to UMass.
“We always have good reputation (in graduate studies),” he said.
However, Yam pointed out that UMass had not been this popular among the international undergraduates before.
Yam said that it is also UMass’ interest to court more international undergraduates.
“The budget cuts hurt UMass,” he said. “So they always want to have out-of-state students.”
“It is also good for the internationalization of UMass,” he said.
Zu and Zakaria agreed the newly imposed fee is fair, though they wished there had been a formal announcement from the IPO.
“But I understand,” said Zu. “Because not many people know - people are all excited with the bigger international students population, but they are not aware of this [IPO] money issue.”
Meanwhile, Yam said that international students generally need more emotional and community support throughout their stay at UMass. However, with a tight budget, it is hard to organize programs for the students.
To organize more programs like legal advice session, workshop on VISA issues, and social security information session would require money and trained facilitators. Yam also hopes that IPO can be considered for state funding in the future, now that UMass has a growing population of international students.
IPO is also looking forward to using the newly imposed fee to benefit students.
“We’ll try to see if we can hire more staff,” Yam said.
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