Influx From the Middle East

Aseel Saied dreams of opening a fitness center to teach sportsmanship to young Israelis and Palestinians together. For the moment, this young woman from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, is starting her junior year at Bridgewater College in Virginia. “It is a challenge to keep your identity and heritage,” says Saied, “but at the same time, it’s not very nice to feel like you are always different. I’m proud to be Palestinian and Arab and Muslim, but I don’t want to be singled out all the time.”

Saied is particularly grateful for the relationship she developed with Stephanie Wilson, Bridgewater’s director of multicultural services. Wilson become Saied’s mentor on campus, filling a role that a lot of international advisers do. “The number one quality (for a mentor or adviser) is to be a good listener,” says Saied, “besides taking you to Walmart when you need to go!” Wilson says she simply showed a “great willingness to learn of Aseel’s culture, her personal story, and her connection to the world as she saw it.” Wilson provided opportunities for Saied to share her culture in a more formal atmosphere, including finding space for Saied to teach basic Arabic and as Saied describes it, “explain without confronting people that I am a normal student. I am not a terrorist.” 

Scholarships Bring Student Surge

Advising students from Middle Eastern countries on U.S. campuses can be as simple as visiting a big box store or as complex as dispelling stereotypes. Yet even as political tensions