Students in Lewiston get calls from home

More than 40 South Korean students were expected to arrive in Lewiston Jan. 4 for a month-long visit through the American Culture & Language Institute.

Instead, only five showed up. The Asian economic crisis crashed the others’ travel plans.

Another 40 Korean students who were enrolled this semester at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston were forced to change their plans, too.

“A lot of students cried and didn’t want to leave. It was pretty sad,’’ said Geyao Liu, international student adviser at LCSC.

The Koreans did not ask for financial aid to stay at the school. There isn’t much aid available for foreign students anyway, he said.

The college did grant an out-of-state tuition waiver to an Indonesian student who otherwise was going to have to withdraw.

“This is happening all over the country, but particularly on the West Coast,’’ said Sharon Taylor, director of the Intensive English Institute in Lewiston, which has lost about 15 students this term.

Taylor said some of the remaining students from economically stressed countries, including South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand, “are afraid their parents are going to have to call them home. Some are really upset. They don’t want to go.’’

Several students have transferred to less expensive schools in California, she said. “Some schools are not the same quality as (our) school, but (the students) are just trying to hold on. They say they will be back when they can afford to.’’

This is not the first time crisis circumstances have affected international students, according to Taylor, who has been in the business of teaching English as a second language for 20 years.

She was teaching in Oregon during the Iran hostage situation. “Suddenly all of our Iranian students went home or were stranded in the United States without funds.’’

And then during the OPEC crisis, scholarship students from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Venezuela also had to quit their American schools.

At Pacific International Institute at LCSC, some Korean students who planned to join the program this month backed out, said secretary/interpreter Kazumi Downing.

The institute usually doesn’t have many Korean students and so has not been greatly affected by overseas events, she said.

“But our Japanese students are talking about the Japanese yen, that it might be weaker in the future. (Right now) they’re more affected by the weather than the currency.’’

It’s a different story for the American Culture & Language Institute in Lewiston, said its president, Phillip Venditti.

The institute for the past four years has been involved in bringing students from Korea to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley for cultural exchanges.

“We want to target some different countries ... but we’ve been so busy with Korea,’’ Venditti said. “We were expecting on the basis of this month’s large group to be able to travel overseas to do some face-to-face recruiting, but that’s not possible now.’’

Instead, the institute will make an effort to spread the word about its program to international students at other U.S. institutions, he said.

Taylor at the Intensive English Institute also said recruitment may take place in different areas for awhile, “until things in the Far East settle down.’’

She’s concerned about the current situation, but looks on it with some perspective: “This business is prone to sudden fluctuations. Then things turn around and the students come from somewhere.’’

This story was published in the Jan. 16, 1998, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.