Far Beyond Recruitment:
Understanding Chinese International Students and Helping Them Succeed

AIEA Thematic Forum
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY

Karin Fischer

A senior reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Karin Fischer covers the business of international education and the globalization of higher education, including competition for foreign students, activities by American colleges overseas, policies and programs that affect the international activities of American colleges, and the internationalization of the college experience.

Fischer joined The Chronicle in 2005 to write about U.S. higher-education politics and policy. She previously worked for Kiplinger Washington Editors; MediaNews Group’s Washington bureau; the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail; and the Daily Hampshire (Mass.). Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Washington Monthly, and George magazine.

In 2010, Fischer was one of 10 reporters selected for the East-West Center’s Jefferson Fellowship program for study and reporting in Asia. She also is the recipient of the Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship and a National Press Foundation fellowship on the Business of Higher Education. She is part of reporting teams that have been honored with an Utne Independent Press Award for best political coverage and by the Education Writers Association for the articles “Asia Rising/America Falling” and the “Towns, Gowns, and Taxes” series. A graduate of Smith College, she also was the recipient of the Poynter Institute News Reporting and Writing Fellowship for College Graduates, which recognizes a dozen outstanding young journalists annually.

Darla K Deardorff

Dr. Darla K. Deardorff is currently executive director of the Association of International Education Administrators, a national professional organization based at Duke University, where she is an adjunct Research Scholar in the Program in Education. In addition, she is an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University and at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (formerly Monterey Institute of International Studies), a visiting professor at Meiji University Research Institute of International Education (RIIE) in Japan as well as at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, visiting faculty at Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) in China and at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in China, is on faculty of Harvard University's Future of Learning Institute and the prestigious Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication in Portland, Oregon. She has also been on the faculty of University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and Leeds Beckett University (formerly Leeds- Metropolitan) in the United Kingdom. She receives numerous invitations from around the world (in over 25 countries including in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Australia and Asia) to speak on her research and work on intercultural competence and international education assessment and is a noted expert on these topics, being named a Senior Fulbright Specialist. She has been the keynote speaker for numerous conferences around the world including the CERCLL Intercultural Competence Conference in the US, ICC Global Conference in Salzburg, Austria, Intercultural Horizons Conference in Siena, Italy as well as other conferences in Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Colombia, South Africa, the Netherlands and the United States. In May 2012, Dr. Deardorff was the commencement speaker at Bridgewater College in Virginia, US.

Dr. Deardorff has worked in the international education field for over fifteen years and previously held positions at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill where she has had experience in study abroad, international student services, cultural programming, and ESL teaching/teacher training. She is also an ESL instructor and teacher trainer with over twelve years of experience and has lived, taught and worked in Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. An Educator for Duke Corporate Education and a trainer for the EAIE Academy in Europe, Dr. Deardorff is an experienced cross-cultural trainer and coach and conducts training for non-profits, corporations and educational institutions. She is a consultant for numerous universities and organizations around the world on topics related to intercultural competence development and assessment, global leadership, teacher education, and internationalization. One of her recent consultant projects was for UNESCO on comparative perspectives on intercultural competence which resulted in an invitation to speak at the first UN World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, as well as at UN-related events in Doha, Qatar and Belgrade, Serbia. She is founder of ICC Global, a global network of researchers on intercultural competence.

Jun Liu

Dr. Jun Liu is Vice Provost for Global Affairs, Dean of International Academic Programs and Services, and Professor of Linguistics at Stony Brook University, SUNY.  Liu oversees Visa and Immigration and Services, Study Abroad Programs, Global Partnerships, Institute of Global Studies, Intensive English Program, and the Confucius Institute, among others at the university.  Prior to this position, Dr. Liu was Associate Provost for International Initiatives, Chief International Officer, Director of Confucius Institute, and Professor of Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University (2011-2016).  Liu spent 13 years at University of Arizona where served as Head of the English Department (2007-2011), Director of Confucius Institute (2008-2011), and Assistant Vice Provost for Global Engagement (2010-2011).  From 2006 to 2008, Liu became the first Asian and nonnative English-speaking President of TESOL International (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.) and he is currently on the Board of Trustees of TIRF (The International Research Foundation of English Language Education), the Board of AIEA (Association of International Education Administrators), and he is Vice President of ISCLT (International Society of Chinese Language Teaching).

Liu has published extensively in the area of intercultural communication, communicative competence, and language education. His recent books include: “TESOL: A Guide” (Bloomsbury, 2015, co-authored), “Teaching English in China:  New Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches” (Continuum, 2007), and “Asian Students’ Classroom Communication Patterns in US Universities” (Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2001). Liu has given more than 100 plenary and invited speeches in more than 30 countries since 2000.  Liu received post-doc fellowships from National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, and American Educational Research Association (AERA).  Most recently, he received Presidential Fellowship from AIEA (2012), Georgia Governor’s Award of International Program of the Year (2015), and James E. Alatis Award for Outstanding Service to TESOL, Inc. (2016).

Dr. Liu obtained his BA in English Language and Literature at Suzhou University in China in 1981, MEd in Curriculum and Instruction from East China Normal University in China in 1989, and Ph.D. in Second and Foreign Language Education at The Ohio State University in the United States in 1996.

Agnes He

Agnes He is Professor of Applied Linguistics, Founding Director of the Center for Multilingual and Intercultural Communication (MIC), and Chair of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies (AAAS) at SUNY-Stony Brook University. She received her B.A. in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Diploma-in-Education from National Institute of Education in Singapore, M.A. in English as a Second Language from University of Arizona, and Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from UCLA. A Guggenheim Fellow in 2011, Agnes He has published extensively in the areas of discourse linguistics, educational linguistics and Chinese linguistics. She is a pioneer in research on Chinese as a heritage language. Currently, she is Co-PI of a large-scale, longitudinal, interdisciplinary NSF-funded research project on communication between international teaching assistants and undergraduate students. 

Jeff Wang

Dr. Jeff Wang is the Special Assistant to the Chancellor, Director of China Office, and a faculty at School of Social Work at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Dr. Wang advises and assists the Chancellor on international affairs and engagement; provides leadership to university-wide China strategic initiatives; works with schools and other units to develop international policies and programs; and directs all academic, administrative, and budgetary aspects of Rutgers China Office.

Shyam Sharma

Dr. Shyam Sharma is assistant professor at Stony Brook University's Program in Writing and Rhetoric. Originally from Nepal, where he taught English literature, theory, and linguistics, he currently specializes in writing in the disciplines, rhetorical traditions, and international education and international students. He ongoing research project--which is based on visits and interviews conducted with faculty, administrators, and students in nearly thirty universities--documents how US universities support international graduate students with writing/communicative skills in the context of the students' academic transition and success.