UTAS Student Success Program

The UTAS Student Success Program comprises of Leaders from various backgrounds including Malaysia, China, Vietnam and Syria. The Leaders who were calling students from their home countries felt it would be useful to connect with students who struggled with English by using their native language. We discussed, trialled and monitored this experiment closely. It was immediately clear that this was a successful way to allow students to discuss their issues or questions without restriction. After introducing themselves, the Student Success Leader asks if the student would prefer to speak in their native language, and then the conversation continues. The follow up e-mail and case notes are recorded in English.

We saw an enormous increase in our abilities to assist students; they went from saying, “Everything’s fine” to “I live 30 minutes from campus, there’s no public transport, I’m lonely and I don’t know how to get to class”. The Leader was able to unpack these issues and provide this info to the International Student Advisers to work with.

The success of this allowed us to formally create Chinese Outreach positions. Not only do our two Chinese Outreach Leaders Riyang and Chu engage with students in Mandarin and Cantonese, they also review and advise us on cultural issues. Our phone scripts and email templates were inadvertently created with an Australian audience in mind. Questions we had framed to be conversational, Chinese students sometimes responded with fear or suspicion. Riyang and Chu advise us on ways to structure our scripts and so they’re better received. They have also translated their online profiles to traditional and simplified Chinese, as well as making sure we’re aware of important dates such as suggesting we don’t call students during the Chinese New Year period.

Given the large percentage of Chinese, Hong Kong and Malaysian students at UTAS we’re currently working in this space, however we are still exploring options for Arabic and Vietnamese outreach.