East Lansing: a model community for international students and immigrants
- changemediagroup
- Jan 20, 2014
- 1 min read
A must read article in today's Lansing State Journal about the changing face of East Lansing. In fall 2013, Michigan State enrolled 7,161 international students (an increase of 8.5% from the prior year). Over 4,000 of those students are from China alone. Our community is stronger and more vibrant thanks to the contributions of these international residents. They also have a tremendous economic impact (estimated at $242 million) on our community.
It's vitally important that our community be welcoming and accessible to international students & scholars, immigrants and refugees. To that end, the City of East Lansing has undertaken a number of initiatives
(www.cityofeastlansing.com/InternationalResidents/). We are now offering LanguageLine interpretation services in over 200 languages. We are providing cross-cultural competency training for our employees and to landlords and interested business owners. We are working on translation of important city documents. The list of efforts goes on. Michigan State has been an invaluable partner throughout this process. I'm committed to continuing to work with MSU to make East Lansing a model community for international students and immigrants.
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