Lafayette College unveiled a new dedicated meeting space for international students and faculty members this semester.
The Global Resource Lounge, located in Jenks Hall, is intended to serve as a gathering space for international students and community organizations. It is also the new hub for English for Academic Purposes, a peer mentoring program that aims to help English learners improve their language skills.
“We want people who are far away from their countries to think it’s like a home,” Ting Ting Kang, the director of the program, said of the lounge.
“The transition to college, especially for first years and even for upperclassmen, is not the easiest,” said Dexter Kennedy ‘26, a peer mentor, who called the lounge a “safe space” for international students to feel supported and practice English.
In addition to English for Academic Purposes and other programming, the lounge is open to all students during Jenks Hall’s operating hours as a study and hangout space.
Kang added that the lounge can become a space to “promote the intercultural communications among different parts on campus so that American students can learn more from other countries, and to hear, to see people from other countries.”
According to the lounge’s website, special events in the lounge include a weekly Conversation PARDners program, a peer conversation event, and a community program for international faculty and staff networking on Sept. 23 and Oct. 23.
Kang said she hopes her program will be able to grow through the new lounge. Representatives from the lounge are open to accepting new mentors and conversation PARDners; Kennedy recommends that applicants just need “empathy and a decent understanding of English.”
These resources are designed to help international students have a successful transition to Lafayette, whether that means adjusting to American academic and social culture, or finding companions, according to Kang.
“We want them to feel welcome and also to hear their voices,” Kang said of international students coming to the lounge to utilize programming.