UNLV’s Global Dorm fosters intercultural interaction

Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 | 4:06 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 27-28, 2005

UNLV freshman Diane Kim has all of the same questions and anxieties any new student might have.

As she moved into her first residence hall Wednesday morning, a visit from her residential adviser, senior music education student Tom Schmidt, brought out a slew of questions:

How do I access the Internet?

Where do I do my laundry?

When will I get to meet some of the other people in the dorm?

Kim, 18, was also worried about finding her classes and handling the workload once her professors start handing out homework, but the one thing the South Korean student wasn't worried about was fitting in as one of UNLV's approximately 1,250 international students, 93 of whom live on campus.

As part of a new effort to better integrate residential and academic life, Kim is one of the first students to move into the new "Global Dorm" at UNLV, Richard Clark, residential life director, said.

One of nine themed residence halls, Global Dorm intermixes international students such as Kim with U.S. students to foster intercultural interaction.

"The basic premise behind Global Dorm is to learn from each other," Leslie Wallenfeldt, a residential life coordinator, said.

Global Dorm, which houses 45 students, is also designed to help international students adapt to life in the United States, said Schmidt, a 22-year-old from Spring Creek, near Elko, who spent last year as an international student in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"There's a lot of culture shock when they move to America," Schmidt said. "We'll be helping them get more inculturated and offer programs to help them make that shift."

Global Dorm also shares a building with the hotel management hall. The Harrah College of Hotel Administration draws most of UNLV's international students, particularly students from South Korea, China and India, Clark said. UNLV's international student population has been fairly constant over the last several years, and the university has not seen any major declines in its population because of increased immigration measures.

For Kim, the Global Dorm means she gets the best of all worlds, she said. She gets the comfort of living among other international students, the challenge of intermixing with other cultures and the ease of having several other people in her major on the same floor.

"I think it's really cool," said Kim, who has lived in the United States for the last eight years, first in Washington and then in Virginia.

Kim's roommate, whom she has yet to meet, is also South Korean but grew up in New Jersey, Kim said, and one of her suitemates, Maria Farrow, 23, is originally from Portugal but grew up in Carson City.

Farrow, also studying hotel management, said she chose the Global Dorm for the chance to intermingle with several different cultures.

"I just fit in best with the international students," Farrow said, adding that she'd like to pick up some more languages to help her with her future career in hotel management. She said she already speaks four -- English, Portuguese, French and some Spanish.

Studies have shown that students do better when they live with people whom they share similiarities with, Clark said.

In addition to the Global Dorm, UNLV launched halls in several different majors, including hotel management, engineering, nursing and education. There is also a "wellness" hall that focuses on physical and mental health, a women-in-leadership hall, a study-intensive hall and an honors dorm.

Each hall will offer specific programming geared toward the interests of the students living there, Clark said.

The women in leadership hall, for instance, will be partnering with the women's center on campus and the women's study major to offer programming. The hall will serve as a support group for women going into male-dominated majors.

Global Dorm is also working with International Student Services on campus to set up a mentoring program for foreign students.

"We want to provide a link between the classroom environment and what you are doing outside of the classroom," Clark said.

Residential Life is similarly working with each of the colleges to offer academic advising and other programming for its hotel management, engineering, nursing and education halls, Clark said. Those halls also have a student residential adviser in those majors.

UNLV is housing 1,700 students this semester in its residence halls, which puts the campus at 102 percent capacity, Clark said. The campus was able to accommodate everyone by making some rooms triples. The space crunch this year is primarily because one hall, Tonopah North, is closed this year for renovations, Clark said.