ICC: An International Community

EAST PEORIA ― Illinois Central College, while physically constrained to central Illinois, is expanding its cultural boundaries by creating offices meant to help students learn about the world beyond their native country without having to leave the Academic Building.

On May 7, ICC held a ribbon cutting event for these two new offices . The first was the broadly focused International Center, and the second was the highly specific Chinese Language Institute. They were placed right in the center of what has been known as the student activities hallway, in offices 304A and 304E, respectively.

The International Center is meant to be a social and cultural hub for all things international at ICC while the Chinese Language Institute is specialized to bridge the language and culture gap between the world two largest economies, the US and China.

ICC’s has been building up to this accomplishment with years of international networking with other institutions, like Xiamen Huaxia Vocational College in Xiamen, China, to which ICC students can travel as a part of a study abroad program.

“For more than a decade, ICC has worked to establish and deepen its commitment to international education, and that includes the relationships with sister colleges … ,” said Dr. John Erwin, ICC’s president, before the ribbon cutting. “In addition to these relationships and experiences, our local students really being able to experience international diversity here is critical.”

Here for the ceremony were several of ICC’s international partners and supporters, including Xiaoru Wang, president of Xiamen Huaxia Vocational Technical College. There has been a relationship between her college and ICC since 2006, but this was the first time Wang had visited ICC.

“I am very impressed. I saw your department of agricultural technologies, and I was really impressed with the labs where students can go for help,” said Wang.

One of the individuals instrumental in nurturing ICC’s international programs  a Chinese women named Nancy Ou who once lived in Peoria. ICC trustee Sue Portscheller remembered the influence Ou had on ICC’s relationship with overseas colleges.

“Nancy Ow was the visionary who got all of this started about 10 years ago,” said Portscheller. “Because she wanted the college’s leadership to understand the vision of the international component that she wanted to establish, she personally took four trustees over to China to visit the schools.”

Now, both local and international students will have these office resources to learn about each other’s culture.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for students and teachers to learn about how many international students are at ICC,” said Shiho Amano, 25, an ICC student from Japan.