Many of us were surprised and shocked to learn that Furman has admitted a mere ten international students this year. That’s a tremendous blunder. Having a good number of international students in every incoming class is of immeasurable academic, intellectual and personal value for all our students. With numbers like these we are failing our students, domestic and international ones, in many ways. Also, these numbers betray our ambition of an education towards global citizenry, and they are certainly not helping our proclaimed ambition for more diversity.

This low enrollment was not an accident. It required a change in our recruitment strategy and the consequences of doing so were entirely foreseeable. Whatever the Furman Administration undertakes in the future to correct this, what happened this year is revealing of a thinking that should have no place at a college with a claim or an ambition to be in the top league.

Akan Malici, Political Science