Each year, the Williston community opens its doors and welcomes many students, including international students from across the globe. International students make up 18% of the student body.

In order to ensure that the new international students settle in smoothly, Mrs. Valine, Director of International Student Programs has put together an International Student Mentor Program. As part of this program, each new international student is paired up with a returning student in September. This year there are 33 new international students and 31 mentors.

The program kicked off this year with a four-day orientation. New international students arrived earlier than the rest of the students. There were many activities to help the students get acquainted with the campus. Activities included getting to know you games, a trip to the Holyoke mall for necessities, and games at Galbraith Fields. The international student mentors were involved in all of this as were faculty members.

After orientation, the program continued with weekly meetings for mentor and mentee. This involved meeting in the dining hall or somewhere else on campus to catch up or discuss specific topics that Ms. Valine wanted the mentors to talk about. These meetings are also a great way for these new students to feel comfortable and make connections.

One of the things that mentors help mentees with is understanding the academic systems at Williston including Veracross and the concept of our grades constantly changing. Mentors also help the students understand what assessments are because other countries often have different ways of assessing students.

Mrs. Valine, Director of International Student Programs says that, “I decided that it would be a great opportunity to provide friendship, knowledge, and some guidance to our new students in their first trimester. And so I wanted to increase their immediate comfort to help them fit in better and to ultimately get their academics going more strongly.”

She continues, “Some of the highlights have been when a mentee will say ‘I met with my mentor last night and she was so nice and I just feel like I’ve got a friend.’ That, to me, is huge.”

What started as a pilot program for two weeks at the end of Fall 2014 has now become a fully functioning Mentor Program. Ms. Valine shared that the good feedback from the pilot last year resulted in the trimester program this year.

At the end of the day the program is all about making each and every international student feel like Williston is his or her home away from home while excelling academically.