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Mississippi College Welcomes International Students


Office of Global Education Executive Director Mei-Chi Piletz joins colleagues at an event attracting international students at Mississippi College.

Mississippi College is attracting nearly 500 students from around the globe to set a new record this fall.

In alphabetical order, from Argentina to Yemen, 492 MC international students come from 38 nations. They go a long way to enrich and diversify the culture of the Clinton campus, school leaders say.

A series of Global Café programs at Cups, the International Festival in April and the annual Moon Festival in late September are a few of the many Mississippi College activities making visitors feel welcome in the Magnolia State.

Leaders at MC’s Office of Global Education stay busy recruiting students from all over the map. Once they get here, the MC staffers go out of their way to make them feel right at home.

Mei-Chi Piletz, executive director of the Office of Global Education, works long hours to recruit, and retain students, and often serves as their mom away from home. But she says she cannot do it alone.

“I have a dream team of people working here,” says Piletz, a native of Taiwan. “My team is great.”

In mid-October, Piletz plans to head to Brazil on a recruiting mission. She will attend an education fair in Brazil that will put her in touch with representatives from 22 Brazilian universities. An MC graduate living in Brazil will help her. Her trip is booked from October 14-20.

Piletz will reach out to prospective undergraduates and graduate student during her visit. “I want to put MC on the map. Not too many Brazilian students know about Mississippi College.”

At the moment, there are five students from Brazil enrolled at the Christian university.

The enrollment of international students has surged at Mississippi College for more than a decade. There were just nine international students when President Lee Royce arrived in 2002. Today, there are 492 international students enrolled. That’s up from 377 international students in Fall 2014.

Leaders of the Office of Global Education say a combination of factors is contributing to the steady enrollment increases. Affordable prices, a quality education and the institution’s strength as a “home away from home,” make Mississippi College an excellent choice for students from abroad.

“The world has come to Clinton,” says Eric Pratt, vice president for Christian Development. “Our students have the opportunity to meet and build relationships with people from many different nations.”

Pratt sees the international diversity in the classes he teaches at the Baptist-affiliated university.

“In my classes, the insights and ideas offered by students from South Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India and Brazil provide for interesting discussions,” Pratt said.

International students from China have helped Mississippi climb to the top of the collegiate table tennis ranks in North America. Captain and Coach Cheng Li and standout players Tong Zhang and Yi Chi Zhang have led the team to its April 2015 triumph over 11-year coed team champ Texas Wesleyan University. MC was ranked No. 2 the previous three seasons.

The Chinese student-athletes embrace their MC education. So do students from other lands.

Ahmed Alkhateeb, 22, an accounting major from Saudi Arabia, says the warm welcome he’s received from Mississippi College students, faculty and staff has been wonderful. “When I came here, I felt like I am in my own country.”

In the past couple of years, MC’s international student population has grown from 21 nations to 38 countries. Piletz, though, wants to attract more international students. She’s willing to travel abroad to recruit them. “There are many, many countries I would like to target.”

Many international come to Mississippi College first to take classes to upgrade their English language skills before beginning their academic studies on the Clinton campus.

For more information on the university’s programs for international students, contact Mei-Chi Piletz at 601-925-7635 or mcpiletz@mc.edu