Overview
The Davis International Center, under the direction of Paula K. Chow and with support from Friends of Davis International Center, provides a wide array of services to international students and visiting scholars:
Help International Students and Scholars Adjust to Princeton
- Organize welcome receptions, area tours, theatre and music trips.
- Introduce "host" to all new arrivals.
- Help foreign newcomers practice their English. Local volunteers tutor foreign students and scholars. In addition, Princeton students are also available to help foreign spouses.
- Foreign spouses meet weekly to engage in discussion and conversation in English.
For details, please see Friends of Davis International Center.
Intercultural Outreach
- Initiates and sponsors speaker programs, international music and dance concerts, art exhibits, and national and international festivals with student organizations and/or academic departments.
- Produces regular video interviews to broaden public perspectives. These programs include "International Forum", "International Vision," and "Women's Global Perspectives."
- Brings campus foreign students and scholars to area schools and organizations, providing a personal perspective on life in their native country.
Community Building Events
- Initiates and maintains contact with campus international and national organizations to facilitate their activities with planning, funding or office assistance.
- Sponsors weekly lunches to bring together interested foreign and American students and scholars. On the average about 100-125 people come to chat, relax, or plan events over these lunches.
- Students, spouses, faculty and staff gather regularly at the "Let's Talk" discussion tables to discuss issues relating to diversity and multiculturalism.
- Initiates and organizes special campus-wide projects such as the annual International Festival.
- Over breaks and holidays, we plan trips and activities for those who remain on campus. Groups have gone to New York City, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia for musicals, plays, museums, and dinner. Others have cooked multicultural dinners together.
- Encourages interaction between alumni and foreign students in activities such as annual career panels.
- IC supported the formation of the following overseas Princeton Clubs: Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, India, Africa, Chile and Nepal. It also works closely with the International Alumni of Princeton and the Asian American Alumni of Princeton.
Davis International Center Staff
Paula Chow and Hanna Hand.
Brief History
The International Center at Princeton was founded in 1974 by volunteers — faculty, alumni and their spouses and community residents — with an office space allocated by the University at 5 Ivy Lane. They welcomed newly arrived international graduate students and visiting scholars with receptions, tours, and Host Family and English Conversation Partnership and in 1978 Dean Earnest Gordon invited the volunteers to an office in Murray Dodge. Later in the same year President William Bowen incorporated the Center as part of the University, into the Office of Undergraduate Students Life. Co-director/founder Paula Chow sph '13, became the Center Director while Louise Sayen sp '38, her founding partner, became the President of Friends of International Center. The Friends have continued to assist the Center with our service programs and in addition have helped with fund raising and other initiatives.
Through the years, the Center has expanded its mission and developed multiple programs with academic and other offices, students, alumni and community organizations to foster understanding of diverse cultures among Princetonians on and off campus. It was first moved to Stevenson Hall at 91 Prospect in 1999 and then moved to the newly completed Frist Campus Center in 2001, sharing a complex with the Women’s Center.
On May 10th, 2007, the Center was named the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis ’30 International Center through a generous donation from Kathryn W. Davis sp '30 and her son Shelby Davis '58, a trustee of Princeton University, as part of the family’s celebration of Ms. Davis’s centennial birthday. Ms. Davis is a scholar in Russian Studies and a world traveler who together with her late husband and philanthropic family has supported many programs world round. We are grateful for their trust which will allow the Center to serve the international minded Princetonians in perpetuity.
Prepared by Paula K. Chow, Director
November, 2007
