It’s a Small World, After All

Last Friday night, unfurled flags from across the world hung limply on the walls of Adams dining hall, making a sharp contrast with the dark-stained mahogany columns and gilded chandeliers. Somehow, it was the perfect integration of the international and the American aesthetic.

It was the Woodbridge Society’s annual Fiesta Mondiale, and it was completely sold-out. Originally created by five international students in 1994, the Woodbridge Society is enjoying its most successful year to-date with membership numbers now swelling into the hundreds. No longer simply a refuge for foreign students, the society has become a dynamic interface between the domestic and international student populations. Previously content to introduce the unfamiliar Harvard experience to internationals, Woodbridge now proudly presents the international experience to Harvard, and the fruits of its growth are apparent. Yet all this new growth sprouts from a deeply rooted source: a culture of inclusion and openness as could be fostered only by a truly international organization.

FIP REFUGEE

Rebecca R. Gong ’08, Woodbridge’s incoming president, is a product of that culture. Born in America, and educated in China, Gong’s American citizenship prevented her from participating in Harvard’s Freshman International Program (FIP). Tackling the issues that immediately face students from a foreign country, FIP helps internationals obtain social security numbers, bank accounts, and cell phones, and also introduces them to the Cambridge and Boston area through a variety of trips, including one to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game.

It can be an international student’s first introduction to American culture, and without the socially engaging, diverse FIP leadership staff, the process of adjustment would be vastly more difficult.

“I was a FIP refugee,” Gong says.

Despite being denied access to the program, Gong remained undaunted and successfully integrated herself into the Woodbridge Society. “In my particular case it was seeing that potential in Woodbridge to become a place for Americans who are really interested in international affairs and meeting international students,” Gong says.

Like Gong, the other students who don’t neatly match the Harvard definition of “international” have recently flocked to Woodbridge, and their impact on the Society and on the international community has been felt. Recent policy changes made in conjunction with the Harvard International Office, which sponsors and funds FIP, will allow dual citizens to participate officially in the program in 2007. And last fall marked the first time Canadians were allowed to participate.

The Woodbridge Society’s incoming Vice President Allegra M. Richards ’09 (who is also an FM comper) shared many of Gong’s frustrations. “I actually wasn’t allowed to do FIP...[but] I showed up at Harvard and kind of did FIP anyway. I wanted to integrate myself with the international community,” Richards says. Now in her role as vice president, she will coordinate the Society’s FIP efforts and help international freshmen integrate themselves as she once did. While much of the program will focus on big issues like bank accounts and cell phones, Richards will also have to address “the little things...that make it hard for internationals to adjust.”

She relates the story of a FIPper who had trouble understanding American conversational norms. “He didn’t understand at first that when someone sees you in the street and asks ‘how are you?’ it’s a form of greeting.” The FIPper would respond as if the greeting were an inquiry, pouring out his every concern while his interlocutor walked on by.

“AN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY NOT A FOREIGN SOCIETY”

Woodbridge believes that experiences like these highlight a need for a body that provides internationals with opportunities to integrate themselves beyond the efforts of FIP. While FIP provides a necessary introduction, it can’t hope to fully integrate its participants on a social level. Woodbridge has answered this need through a staggering gamut of social events, including its monthly cultural food party “Baraza” (Swahilli for “open house”), a speaker series, a winter formal, and the Society’s trademark party, “Fiesta Mondiale,” each spring.

“My sort of leadership perception was that it should be really social,” outgoing Woodbridge President Karolis Balciunas ’08 says. “[Woodbridge] had tea parties that were a huge success.” Based on the size of the event’s Facebook.com page, Balciunas estimates attendance at one at 300 students.

But that sort of attendance isn’t achieved with internationals alone. “We get Americans to come to every event,” Balciunas points out, and it’s critical that they do. Without creating contacts and relationships between Americans and internationals, Woodbridge’s current leaders believe that the Society cannot serve its purpose. In Gong’s words, Woodbridge is “an international society, not a foreign society.”

Balciunas emphasizes the need for the meaningful social interaction that he believes the Society’s events encourage. “We don’t throw a party for the sake of having a party,” he says. “We throw a party to bring people together.”

The result appears to be a symbiotic relationship between the American and international communities. When Woodbridge throws a party with an openness and elegance that seems unusual for Harvard’s social scene, it attracts students from both within and without its ranks.

THE FUTURE OF WOODBRIDGE

While the Society seems to have achieved success extending its presence beyond the international community, some feel that it still has plenty of opportunity for progress.

“I think it’s pretty visible in the international community,” says J. Francisco Martinez ’07, who attended Fiesta. But he did not feel that Americans were nearly as aware of the event. Perhaps more pressingly, the planned expansion of FIP to include dual citizens, Canadians, and certain American expatriates will make it more difficult to maintain the quality and relevance of the program. Next year’s FIP class will require the addition of several FIP-leader positions and a relocation out of Weld, where FIPpers were traditionally housed. Despite these challenges, Gong and Richards have expressed confidence in their plans for the future.

The Society’s trend toward openness has already shown signs of success. Expansion in the name of openness will bring novel challenges for Woodbridge’s leaders, but if they succeed, it seems they will benefit not just internationals, but the entire Harvard community.