MSU is responsible for 21 blind dates that have turned into relationships this semester.
The Buddy Program combines an international graduate student with an American undergraduate student for eight weeks to introduce the buddies to each other’s cultures. Each pair meets for two hours a week.
Started as an MSU project in 1994, it has spread to other campuses including the University of Minnesota and Harvard University in Massachusetts.
Both undergraduate and graduate students are interviewed to become buddies, and the undergraduate students are paid.
“It’s truly an MSU innovation that has had national influence,” said William Rittenberg, coordinator of the International Teaching Assistant Program.
Rittenberg said the program, which usually pairs about 40 to 44 students together a semester, often links people who wouldn’t normally talk to each other. He said many people enter the program full of stereotypes about other cultures but end up with a better understanding of different backgrounds.
There is one problem resulting from the program - but it’s a problem organizers don’t necessarily mind.
“They (participate in the program) repeatedly,” Rittenberg said of the participants. “Sometimes that’s even a problem.
“We want everyone to have a chance.”
History senior Jennifer Demsky said she expects the program to expand to more schools and students.
“Eventually, it will spread and there will be better communication between the students and the international TAs,” Demsky said.
Demsky and her buddy, who is from China, often discuss the stereotypes students from the United States and China have about each other.
“He thought that students in the U.S. were lazy and they didn’t study much,” she said. “He was really surprised that they held jobs and went to school and put so many hours into school and took it so seriously.”
Besides the pairs of buddies, there also are three group leaders who are in charge of meeting with several pairs. They meet with the undergraduate students once a week and the graduate students once every other week.
Aloka Bagchi, a group leader from India, said barriers between different cultures are broken down because of the sessions.
“I’ve taught hundreds of American students,” she said. “But you always meet them in the classroom and you judge them as students, but here, I feel like I’m almost one of them.
“It’s not like that teacher-student relationship. I just got to know this whole other side. I got to realize how special American students are, and how some of them are so sensitive to world issues.”
For more information, see www.msu.edu/~taprog/buddy.htm.
