Doctoral Student University of Maryland College Park
The poster details a project carried out by 2 doctoral students that involved interviewing international students at a large Mid-Atlantic University to ask about their perceptions of culture, the library as a potential partner for cultural programming, and the factors that would prevent them from collaborating on such endeavors. The poster will present the already completed thematic analysis as well as suggestions from the participants themselves. It will inform future partnerships and collaborative efforts with international students and position them more holistically as full partners in programming, rather than their current positioning as a monolith group viewed through a lens of deficiency. It will situate this work within the current literature on international students in academic libraries. It will be presented as a brief overview of prior work with international students before re-framing the narrative of outreach and engagement to include students themselves, using a narrative method drawing from the student's own responses in the interview. Visually it will include selective quotes, a word cloud, a visual representation of participant country and views on collaboration, and a concise recommendations section.