Pacific Lutheran University, a private liberal arts university in the United States with some 2,700 students enrolled across over 40 majors, offers a range of academic programs, campus life, and ongoing student support and is currently home to international students from 26 countries.
Pacific Lutheran University is a private liberal arts university in the United States that currently has some 2,700 students enrolled across over 40 majors. Its students come from 36 states and 26 countries.
Its recent accolades include being ranked 14th best regional university in the West and fifth in Best Colleges for Veterans by US News, third in Best Value Schools for 2022 by US News and World Report, and best in Washington State for financial aid by LendEdu.
MSM Reporter sat down virtually with Geoffrey Foy, Ph.D., PLU’s Associate Provost for Graduate Programs and Continuing Education, on the university’s academic offerings, campus life, and ongoing support for international students finding a home on its campus. Here are excerpts from our interview.
What distinguishes the academic life at PLU?
We have a long history at PLU as a small private liberal arts university. We look at the intersection between liberal arts and also professional studies, and professional education. We value that intersection for what the liberal arts can bring us in a breadth of academic education and for our critical thinking skills, and also what professional studies can offer us, developing certain skills and perspectives contributing to the world and our career paths.
Our students leave us very well-prepared to not only be able to think critically and have good values about the kind of care they want to show other people but also they’re very prepared to develop their careers, become contributing members of society, and make an impact in their communities. In that case, we stay involved with them as alumni and we learn a lot from them as they’re going out in the world and doing that.
“What makes us desirable, too, is going to be not only the heritage that we have of having a long track record as a successful liberal arts institution – and that combination of professional studies – but also our geographical location. The fact that we’re in the Northwest part of the United States connected to many of the well-known Fortune 500 companies from Amazon and Boeing to Microsoft and Starbucks, and having strong relationships with those institutions that we tell prospective students about.”
What are the most popular programs for international students, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels today, and what makes them popular?
It’s common to see this across higher education in the United States as well as internationally, that the fields that international students are most interested in are ones that are very practical based on their own interests and interests that they’ve developed with their families and their communities: Business Education, Computer Science, Life Sciences, Engineering. Then you get some interest in the Arts as well as other kinds of Health Sciences. Certainly, there is that interest to develop pathways to those majors as well. These are the common areas that we see international students focus on and we can see that in the data across the country.
I think what really does make them those priority areas are going to be the practical outcomes. What they gain from that credential, especially coming into the United States, a US credential from a university or a college here is going to be some of the practical elements of that education and what it can do for their career path, what it can do for their communities.
So as they either stay and do some more research or internship, but eventually when they go back, they’re able to be equipped with a great credential, but also some real solid skills and knowledge that they can then, in turn, contribute to whatever career path that they take: the public and private companies, the nonprofits, self-employment, entrepreneurial things they can do on their own as they develop their own businesses in their communities.
Which countries do your international students mostly come from, and what makes your recruitment strong in these areas?
We have a long history of origins with Norway and the start of our university over 130 years ago. We still see strong numbers from that country as well as other Scandinavian countries. Consistent with the data across the country are going to be students coming from East Asian countries, and Southeast Asian countries.
We do see an uptick right now from students coming from Vietnam. We also see some interest, interestingly, coming from Mongolia and most of that is answering that second part of that question. What makes it successful in these countries? A lot of it it’s dealing with two or three things. One is going to be the relationships we have with agents on the ground in those countries and the story that they know about us, the history, how they convey our message to these students, and how that aligns with the interests of the students. Certainly, it’s also the relationships that we have with other government entities in those countries and the relationship between our country and those countries – if it’s easy for students to have to go through the whole visa application process.
What makes us desirable, too, is going to be not only the heritage that we have of having a long track record as a successful liberal arts institution – and that combination of professional studies – but also our geographical location. The fact that we’re in the Northwest part of the United States connected to many of the well-known Fortune 500 companies from Amazon and Boeing to Microsoft and Starbucks, and having strong relationships with those institutions that we tell prospective students about. I think that makes us quite desirable for those students in those countries that I’ve mentioned.
How does your institution help make liberal arts education appealing and relevant in today’s world?
I think it’s based on some of the standards, good research in the fields. The fact that we have faculty with terminal degrees and students are in our classrooms with those faculty who do the good research and focus on strong pedagogy, strong teaching methods.
The other side is student learning. And certainly, we have it on instructional technology, we’re trying to make it where the student can have access to the content in different ways. So certainly being able to have a learning management system that supports in-person learning as well as the other types of modalities of blended and online that’s accessible, that’s available to our student body so that they’re empowered to be able to learn in multiple ways.
What are some trends in today’s job market that you believe will help shape the way we develop the current and future generations?
Individuals that have some credit: They’ve earned some college credit, but they have no degree, no credentials. Many of them might be able to if we provide pathways for them to get into a degree so that they can have higher pay. We know from the statistics that once you get that bachelor’s degree, you can have higher pay. So that’s more desirable.
But we’re seeing a significant part of that group also not want the bachelor’s, but they do want a credential. They do want some more education, some training, some scaling up. And so that’s where we’re trying to provide and get into that part of the market in education, in the workforce training that allows us to reach out to that audience to make high-quality education and training accessible to them with the time to complete the kind of design that we have in the content.
“The fields that international students are most interested in are ones that are very practical based on their own interests and interests that they’ve developed with their families and their communities: Business Education, Computer Science, Life Sciences, Engineering. Then you get some interest in the Arts as well as other kinds of Health Sciences.”
What makes PLU graduates highly sought after?
It’s the mission of our university to create these leaders that do care about others and the environment they live in. They want to make a difference in those parts of the world. They’re equipped to do that because of the type of education that we have, combining liberal arts education and professional studies. Our graduates have all of that as a foundation, including that emphasis on global education and being able to have a broader perspective about the world.
So being able to recognize that diversity of perspectives and backgrounds, being able to include those in decision making, I think our graduates do that on an excellent level and we see that as our alumni go out in the world and the kind of companies they work for are the nonprofits or the different government agencies they work for.
What makes the US a leading international education destination worldwide, and what can be done to improve or maintain this position?
One is the high quality of education that we have in the United States at that post-secondary level that it’s attracting students from all around the world. At PLU, it’s the liberal arts, strong professional studies, strong academic standards, and strong academic freedom for our faculty. The emphasis on those traits that make a good university, good academy research, and good teaching, good service, it’s something that has been well-established in the United States for the last 50 years and beyond.
How we develop these, you know, geopolitical ties and how we behave in the world is an important area of focus for us to be able to still make our education accessible to other countries.
And certainly, I would encourage students and visiting scholars to have that opportunity financially, and with the support of their families and their governments, to be able to study outside their country. They should do it. It expands your horizons and expands your understanding of the world that we live in.
