Dear ETSU Students:
Earlier this week the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released new
guidelines for its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that affect on-ground
international students at ETSU and at all campuses across the United States.
These new guidelines do provide some flexibility for international students to enroll in a mixture of online, face-to-face, and hybrid courses while still meeting their visa requirements; however, the guidelines also present a potential challenge to our international student population: If a U.S. institution of higher education moves fully to remote or online instruction, as ETSU and most others did in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, international students would be required to return to their home countries immediately or transfer to schools offering in-person instruction.
ETSU has already developed an instructional-delivery plan for the Fall 2020 semester that offers courses in those three different modalities: online, face-to-face, and hybrid. Importantly, these different modalities provide all students with opportunities to begin or continue their programs of study on campus and remain on track to graduation. ETSU will comply with the new SEVP guidelines by making sure there are enough face-to-face and hybrid courses to accommodate the needs of international students. In doing this, we will, of course, evaluate the enrollment status of every international student to ensure compliance with the new guidelines.
It is possible that further clarifications or revisions to the SEVP guidelines may be made in the next few days or weeks. We will continue working through the details of the guidelines to determine how to continue supporting our international students. We recognize these new challenges are a strain on international students’ financial resources, travel arrangements, campus experiences, and, potentially, their immigration standing. For students experiencing stress because of these situations, they may contact the ETSU Counseling Center, which is currently offering face-to-face and remote services. The Counseling Center encourages the latter.
Students can email counselingcenter@etsu.edu or call 423-439-3333 to get connected to services. Additionally, and as always, ETSU’s 24-hour helpline, Bucs Press 2, is available. The number is 423-439-4841, press 2.
For students located on or near campus and experiencing housing or food insecurity, please contact the Dean of Students office at deanofstudents@etsu.edu or complete a CARE report online detailing your situation and needs.
Finally, we are proud of our current international efforts and initiatives at ETSU, and we plan to enhance these further in the future with the creation of a new International House, which will occupy the current Ada Earnest House on Dossett Drive. The International House will offer more and better advising and programming space on campus to create a stronger sense of belonging at ETSU among our international student population.
We will continue to work closely with international students during this difficult time as well as update the campus community as we learn more about SEVP guidelines.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher Keller
Dean of the Honors College
Professor of English