Growing an academic program takes a lot of work: you’ve got to have the best professors, staff, and in-demand programs. And you’ve got to tell people about them. In fall 2024, Lawrence Technological University professors ventured to India to introduce the University to high school and university students.
For many years, Lawrence Tech has employed recruiters who are familiar with the educational system in India and established relationships with organizations that help students interested in studying abroad. Neha Vaydia is the senior recruitment advisor. Eric Martinson, Ph.D., chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, explained that Vaydia did a lot of prep work to set up in-person meetings with the international student agencies, university faculty, and academic advisors.
He explained, “We use a two-pronged approach to recruiting abroad. One is we introduce ourselves to the agencies who are hired by the student or the family to find the right study abroad experience. The other is going directly to various universities.”
Martinson traveled with George Pappas, Ph.D., director of the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence, and Hamid Vejdani, Ph.D., professor of mechanical, robotics, and industrial engineering.
Representing the College of Arts and Sciences (CoAS), Martinson said, “We go down as faculty. We know that we have great, cutting-edge programs that are in demand by the world economy, and we try to build excitement about them.
“We met with students at two universities. We were there to convince them that they should come to our university. I was impressed with the caliber of the students, how much research they’d done about LTU, and how many had pretty clear ideas of where they’d like to go.”
LTU recently hired Shazee Shazad as the full-time representative in India, with Vaydia now covering Nepal and Sri Lanka.
CoAS has been active in LTU’s prior international recruitment efforts as well. In spring 2024, Oriehi (Destiny) Anyaiwe, Ph.D., traveled to his home continent of Africa to personally meet with students from Nigeria and Ghana and virtually with students from Kenya to encourage them to come to LTU for the Blue Devil experience. He said, “Altogether, I met between 560 to 700 graduate and undergraduate students, as well as high school students for dual enrollment programs. Several of them decided to come to LTU, but none were granted a visa.” LTU’s dual enrollment program allows high school students to take college-level courses to make it easier, faster, and less costly to complete their undergraduate degree.
Lisa Kujawa, vice president for enrollment management, said, “Many of our current 949 international students were drawn to LTU because of its small size, the ability to interact directly with their professors, and our technical, hands-on approach, even at the undergraduate level. Graduate students also get hands-on work experience as teaching assistants or research assistants, which can prepare them for the world of work as they complete their studies.”
