Nouhad Mourad

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Slide - 50 Years, 50 Voices - Nouhad Morad - 00:00
Hi, my name is Nouhad Morad, I'm international student advisor at the
International Student Office, and I am also the coordinator at Incoming
Exchanges. I am an alumni at UPEI, I did a double-major in Anthropology and
the recent Social Justice Studies, and loved my time at the university and
I'm glad to be able to support other students in their journey through
their academic careers.


Slide - Memories of Student Life - 00:28 
There was a time where I pretty much lived here, I was working and studying
on campus, and when I wasn't doing that I was usually in the lounge
studying or working on a paper or something. So my memory is probably of
the lounge to be honest, I spent a lot of time there, it was the Dawson
Lounge, which was my department's lounge and you get to know a lot of other
students that way.


Slide - Seminar Classes - 00:56 
So classrooms discussions were also small but they were typically done as a
seminar style, I think I get a lot more out of it than I would've gotten in
a lecture; My, some of my first year courses were lecture style and I
definitely can appreciate lecture or a seminar, discussions, about the
course material I definitely came, felt like I came out learning a lot and
had a lot more ways to question things and I think, in today's political
environment that questioning what you hear and what you read and what you
see is continuously more and more useful of a skill. 


Slide - Fantastic Faculty - 01:43 
The faculty members here in my departments were incredibly amazing, I can't
say that I would've had the same experience at any other school. They are
fantastic and I took every class that I could with them and the support and
encouragement they gave me, as a student, especially when you are unsure of
yourself of what you're doing, which I think everyone feels for one time or
another, the support they provided with me left me with a lot more
confidence in the classroom.


Slide - Internationalization & Diversification - 02:19 
Supporting the students and supporting the community in general is very
important part of that process, so you're going to a classroom full of
Islanders with students that have very different needs and what they
currently require in their transition to another country, a lack of family,
and social supports, the education could be quite different in terms of
what the expectations are, living arrangements, language. So there's all of
this variety of needs that are required to be met and we should meet them
and we should support those, we have students from almost a 100 different
countries, so it's very it's a variety of things in terms of meeting that.
I think the value is immeasurable, for me, we've gone from a community that
I grew up in where really there wasn't a large population of different
cultures represented and to see that shift in the international population
and also it's diversifying our larger Island community. It provides us with
different experiences, different skill sets, different ways of interacting
with each other, and I think that is so valuable to our community, to
understand each other, to support each other, to educate each other, I
think it's really beautiful what's happening on campus and I love to see
that leaking out into the greater community I think it's all very, very
positive, the changes we're seeing on campus in terms of the population
growth and the increase of that and trying to meet the demand of the
students and how we can best support them is an ongoing thing that we work
with and I'm really glad to be a part of that and meeting all of the
students and finding out how we can continue to improve what we are doing.


Slide - Visibility and Reachability - 04:27 
We don't have the opportunity to know each and every student as well as we
did before. We try to do what we can to outreach so being present on
campus, reaching out to students, creating avenues where they can reach us
and where we are visible on campus, so we are always working on that and
that continues to be always a challenge is making sure that students are
aware of our services and supports that we offer because that's not always
the case and how we can help them so we wanna be their first point of
contact with students, especially the international students of course and
we, because of the role that we have, we are often in contact with other
departments on campus and in the community so we always are able to
liaise.


Slide - UPEI: A Global Village - 05:19 
I worked with the International Office as a student, and supported the
international students. I've seen our population grow from under 10% and
now as a graduated, as an alumni member and staff person we are now
reaching 30%, so it's quite extraordinary, in just a short period of time
how the campus dynamics have changed and shifted but for me, participating
with the international students I think, I did get a breath of different
experiences than other students may have. I guess I learned a lot about
another, a lot about other cultures and some of my favorite experiences
were planning our Global Village and I continue to do that now as a staff
member, organize our Global Village, we have a non-hierarchical committee
made up of students and myself and the planning process up until the event
and it's just an incredible experience to work with so many students from
so many different countries and collaborate to create this event. The
process for me is very much the purpose even though we have a very
successful event, where there is tons of students from very different
countries showcasing their culture in booths and performances and music,
and dance there's a different aspect to it which is actually the planning
process and just working together and you leave with all of these new
friendships and I just think it's a really beautiful thing.


Slide - World University Service of Canada (WUSC) - 06:57 
Currently I am a staff advisor for WUSC, so WUSC is World University
Services of Canada. I as a student was part of WUSC, on the committee, it's
a student run initiative I was the coordinator for the SRP, which is a
Student Refugee Program. Basically, WUSC works with in many different
countries and provides education for students and refugee camps, and once
they've graduated high school, they are eligible to apply to come to Canada
for their post-secondary, it's a very competitive program but across the
country there's about 72 students that came in just this year through this
program and they received permanent residence upon arrival, so it's very
unique in that the students that come are no longer refugees, they're
permanent residents and they're able to stay in Canada forever and that's
really beautiful. It's a different experience when you're coming from a
refugee camp than an international; your needs are different, your
experiences may be different. International students are not always coming
from affluent places but to come from one of the camps can be quite a
different experience and you don't have the same kind of social supports
when you arrive, so we greet them at the airport and we’re there the
moment they arrive until they graduate and we continue to meet them. Some
of them stay on the Island, most of them do move away to larger areas where
there's more of a community of people that they know because WUSC network
is, they know each other, they always know each other and I'm just not sure
how [Laugh] …Because they do come from different countries but there is
quite an extensive WUSC network we call it and to see the students grow and
succeed and work in the jobs that they want and as some of them now the
program on UPEI has been around for about 25 years and we have staff
members including Leo Cheverie, Lisa Chilton, who have been doing this from
almost the beginning so it's just a beautiful program and that's one of my
favorite things that I've been a part of and I'm really grateful that I
could return as a staff member and continue to be part of the program and
support the student committee and the students.


Slide - Final Thoughts - 09:27 
I'd love to see continued support for international students, and a growth
of our department to meet those needs. Internationalization of the campus
community, some more supports for the faculty members and other staff, as
our international student population increases, just to make sure that
staff and faculty members know thau our services and support are there and
more collaboration I love collaboration, I think it's for the benefit of
the campus community to continue that and prosper in that type of
environment. Global, so this has been a big push to decolonizing campus;
the Mawi'Omi Center has been taking, doing an amazing job at starting that
conversation and continuing to push that conversation I'd love to see that
continue in a thoughtful and intentional way across campus with more and
more supports going towards that and 50 years is a long ways away but for
our environment it's looking entirely more and more dim and disastrous; I'd
love for in the next 50 years UPEI to rise as a leader in the environment,
we have a center that's opening up I really hope that UPEI recognizes one
important part that we can play in the future of the climate crisis, it is
entirely a crisis and to serve students, I hope we recognize what an
important part that we can play as a University, as a place, as an
institution, that supports the education and cultivating young leaders.