Some secrets were shared Thursday night in the Bobcat Student Lounge.
About 25 students gathered to discuss the anonymous responses to the Post-a-Secret campaign. The event was hosted by Hashim Pashtun, International Affairs Commissioner in Student Senate.
The campaign asked local and international students to anonymously write down their thoughts on the international presence at Ohio University. About 40 percent of all the received secrets were local students wanting to contact international students, but didn’t feel comfortable enough to speak to them.
The Post-a-Secret Panel featured speakers Joe Cheng from China, Kombe Kapatamoyo from Zambia, Aarti Arora from India, and Nicholas Brumfield, an American student who is president of the Arabic Languages Students Association.
“Generally everyone I’ve met is very open with talking about their culture,” Brumfield said.
But unlike Brumfield, Arora’s experience with students has been quite different.
“For me, international populations look different. An international student are those that I haven’t interacted with growing up in India,” Arora said.
Administrators have done their best to encourage interaction between international and local students, but the students must pursue that interaction as well, Arora said.
“I think the school has done a good job catering to international students,” Cheng said.
All members of the panel agreed that there are plenty of events dealing with the international community and that they hope students take more advantage of them.
“There’s certainly a gap between international and local students,” Brumfield said. “You flock to what you know.”
This article originally appeared in print under the headline, "Students gathered last night to talk interational relations."
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