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Turn international student success into a scalable, data-driven retention strategy.
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International students arrive full of promise—and too often, leave quietly in the first year. They struggle with isolation, unclear career pathways, cultural barriers, and fragmented support systems that were never designed to work together. The result? Lost tuition, lost talent, and lost global trust.
Six years ago, leaders at Syracuse University saw the data—and made a bold decision. Instead of tinkering around the edges of international student services, they rebuilt the entire model from the inside out.
In this week’s episode of Beyond the Quadcast, we sit down with Ling LeBeau, Director of International Student Success, and Steven Schaffling, Assistant Dean of Student Success, to explore how they transformed international student support from a transactional compliance function into a holistic, relationship-driven engine for retention and belonging.
You’ll hear how Syracuse:
- Embedded international student success inside academic advising
- Brought career development into the first semester
- Built a pre-arrival community through peer mentors
- Used AI to scale resume-building and mock interviews
- Reframed advising as teaching with measurable learning outcomes
- Leveraged low-cost, high-impact tools for campuses with limited budgets
If your institution is facing enrollment pressure, global recruitment challenges, disengaged students, or retention targets you can’t quite reach—our new Building a Holistic Model for International Student Success & Retention toolkit delivers a replicable, data-backed roadmap you can actually implement.
