08/18/21

Summer camps, a staple of American families for generations, went international with the help of the Office of Global Partnerships at Fort Hays State University. Global Partnerships coordinated with FHSU’s international partners and agents worldwide to organize international virtual summer camps. The program received significant interest with over 800 students registering from more than 20 countries.

According to Haley Williams, Program Specialist for OGP at FHSU, this summer’s virtual summer camps built upon the in-person experiences of international students during the past several years. “Due to the pandemic, we knew that international students would not be able to travel to Hays, so this necessitated a new virtual model. The outcome was that we attracted more students and generated more excitement about Fort Hays State.”

The goals of the Virtual summer Camp were to introduce Fort Hays State University and the community of Hays to prospective international students, building confidence in their ability to succeed in American higher education and in some cases to have their first experience with online or virtual learning. The ultimate goal was to attract prospective international students to apply and register in courses either on campus or online.

While 2020 summer camps were overall successful, Williams explained that OGP learned a great deal from the experience and worked hard to improve upon the model. The virtual camps permitted Fort Hays State to offer the experience which was both educational and fun at no cost to participants.

Williams explained how the camps were reorganized this year, making it possible to reach more people than in the previous summer. “First, we created two-day information sessions for each partner and then met with one or two groups each week.” With ten participating partners this year, the camps needed to be spread out through both June and July.

Williams continued explaining how “on Wednesdays each week throughout July we did an ‘Event’ where we had community and campus members giving presentations.” Events included a virtual walking tour of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History; the town of Hays; the residence halls at FHSU; and a presentation on American holidays and culture. These virtual events were one of the new changes for the virtual camp that allowed everyone who registered to participate while reducing the time required by presenters to duplicate their presentation.

The final addition to this year’s virtual camp, one of the components missing from the previous in person camps, and which Williams stressed as something OGP wanted to incorporate, was the ability for the camp participants to share about their own lives and cultures. She said, “on Thursday’s we did what we called ‘Meet-ups.’ This is where we achieved an interactive cultural exchange. We asked the students throughout the summer to prepare one slide per week highlighting an aspect of their own culture, their life, or their country. We split participants into breakout rooms making certain we had different cultures represented.”

With participants from so many different parts of the world, meet-ups were offered two times each week and quickly became one of the most popular parts of the camp, often with over 80 students participating in each session.

Luciana Mendoza, a Fort Hays State student from Paraguay working with the OGP, believes that the meet-ups are what many of the camp participants looked forward to most. She explained how “they engaged with each other, with people from other countries that had similar interests, gained improvement in learning more English and learning more about American Education as well.” Camp staff recorded as much as possible of the sessions and meet-ups. Students unable to attend a session could view the recordings at their convenience, allowing them to participate in the interactive cultural exchange experience.

Work is already underway to plan the 2022 virtual summer camps experience as OGP will continue to use new technologies to advance the successes of this year’s virtual camps and meet-ups. Plans will also include offering these international experiences during the academic year if a partner or agent expresses interest.