July 23, 2008, Sydney Morning Herald:
A WIDENING gulf between local and foreign university students is creating segregated classes, cultural cliques and religious ghettos, raising fears of a backlash on campuses ...
While the atmosphere on campuses generally supported foreign students, Professor Marginson said: "So you've got this odd situation with the local students half-disengaged in a way I've never really seen before. The international student industry runs off the back of a reasonably strong local system which presumes a healthy relationship with the local students … all of that has become the marketing pitch. That's the flashpoint that worries me more than any other - that it could spring back into resentment."
Almost two-thirds of international students are from Asia, and many have no contact with local students ...
Connie Zhang, a Chinese student studying commerce at the University of Sydney, said last night: "We don't really hang out with the locals. In the first few years I tried to get along with them, but it's kind of difficult. In the third year I just hung out with
international students." Her friend Hua Feng said some international students lacked the confidence to speak in English. "It's a totally different world."
July 23, 2008
Mixing tough for overseas students:
ELIZABETH Lai, a 21-year-old Singaporean arts student at the University of Melbourne, says life in a foreign country has not had the international flavour she had hoped for ...
Instead, after a year in Melbourne, most of her friends are international students ...
"You tend to stick to groups and once you are in a group you get comfortable and don't want to stray from them," she said ...
Local student Cassandra Mertono ... admitting integration of local and foreign students was probably not the norm.
"It is a bit segregated on campus," she said. "You can certainly tell on site who is local and who isn't and the non-locals tend to stick together, especially in the undergrad years."
The newer undergrads have probably already learned in high school how to shut themselves off from the "celebration", segregate themselves from the "enrichment", shun the "vibrancy", and abstain from the "energy" - for their own emotional health.
White flight from schools? Check.
White flight from suburbs? Check.
White flight from foreign sounding job applicants? Check.
White flight from immigrant area real-estate investment? Check.
White flight from policing and nursing? Check.
University flight? Check.
Diversity fails again.
The diversity tap that won't be turned off until whites vote as whites, until Christians vote as Christians, until Australians vote as Australians. Until, wait for it, we
discriminate and protect our own space as a distinct race, culture and religion.
July 30th, 2008, Gold Coast Bulletin:
