More than 100 countries are represented among LSU’s international student population. The largest contingent, by a single country, comes from China, followed by India. Dozens more each come from Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, UAE and the UK. More than a dozen come from Russia. One even comes from North Korea.
We tend to think of LSU in terms of a football team, a Greek system, the stately oaks and broad magnolias, the place we earned our degrees, or the school where we send our kids, writes Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her new column.
How often do we stop to think about what it means that LSU is a major, Tier 1 research institution that attracts thousands of gifted students and researchers from around the world? They bring with them ideas, information, tremendous intellectual and cultural capital that adds to the sum total of knowledge in their respective disciplines.
Riegel writes that she can’t stop thinking about Firoz-Ul-Amin, the LSU Ph.D. student, who was murdered in the early morning hours of Sept. 7 at Mr. Lucky’s Valero gas station on Airline Highway, where he was working an overnight shift. He was a young man with so much promise, living so far from his native Bangladesh,14,000 miles and a world away.
Why don’t we do more to bring these international students them into the fold and fabric of Baton Rouge while they work and study alongside us?
Read Reigel’s full column for more on her thoughts about Baton Rouge’s international community. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com
