Internationalisation awards success

Warwick SU has achieved several successes at the National Union of Students’ International Awards.

The awards, which aim to celebrate work done to support international students and to help internationalise the experience of all students, took place in Birmingham in December.

Out of a total of 85 applications from 35 students’ unions, there were 11 categories. Warwick Students’ Union came runner-up in two out of the five categories it entered, and was shortlisted in another.

Warwick was the runner-up for the International Student Experience Award, based on Go Global and Orientation and for the Internationalisation Award for Higher Education Union of the Year.

Warwick was Shortlisted for International Student Activities because of the work of World@Warwick, the third-largest student society with over 1,000 members.

Daniel Stevens, last year’s SU President, was the joint winner of International Student Officer of the Year in recognition of the work he did to put international issues on the agenda during his presidency.

Leo Boe, the current President of Warwick Students’ Union and himself an international student, is keen to emphasise that there will be more internationalisation success to come.

“Considering how young our efforts are to improve internationalisation in student experience, I’m proud of us coming runner-up in two categories,” he said.

“There’s so much more to be done, and I’m very excited about it.”

Included in Boe’s plans are to further the Go Global project with competitions, introduce cultural cuisine sessions to engage students with international foods, and work on initiatives in order to measure the internationalisation of students at Warwick for them to gain a better understanding.

Go Global is a joint Students’ Union and International Office project which aims to get students thinking about global issues and foster greater integration of the student body.

The push for internationalisation of Warwick Students’ Union echoes the University’s strategy to make all Warwick students well-rounded, successful individuals.

This year has seen increased partnerships between the Union and University through the first collaboration of Orientation week to include tours and events, which over 1,000 new international students took part in.

The awards marked the end to the National Union of Students’ second year of an internationalisation project to improve home students’ international experience and make international students feel welcomed in Britain.

The awards were a way of recognising unions that had shown examples of best practise of this.

_Note: The paper issue of this article reads “Leo Boe, the current President of Warwick Students’ Union and himself an international student prior to his appointment as SU President.” Correction: Leo Boe still has international student status._