|
Welcome to GSA's
International Student Program!
{IPD} My name is Sheryl Stearns, and I'm the International Program Director at George Stevens Academy. My job involves recruiting international students and assisting them with the admissions process, handling visa issues, coordinating host families, overseeing the boarding program, and advocating for the students in a variety of ways. I love my job, and it is truly rewarding to witness the interactions between local and international students as they learn from one another.
Over the next two weeks, we will be welcoming twenty-one new and nine returning international students to GSA. They're coming to Maine from China, Vietnam, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Finland, and Italy and will be either staying with local host families or living in one of our two residence halls. The students' talents and interests are varied, and I'm excited about getting to know each one of them.
This the third year of the International Student Program, and there have been many exciting developments in the past year. In addition to the increase in student numbers, we now have two beautiful residence halls on our campus -- one for boys and another for girls. Supervising the boys and acting as "mother hen" is our Residence Life Director, Emma Sweet, and her husband Colin Powell. Crystal Gamet is the new Residential Supervisor in the girls' house and lives there with her husband, Jamie Hanlon-Smith. The atmosphere in both of the residence halls is consistent with GSA's mission to create a caring educational community, which meets the needs of individual students and helps them develop self-reliance. Throughout the year, we will be offering you a glimpse into boarding life on our website.
Having worked and studied overseas, I understand the difficulties associated with living in a new culture and learning another language. I spent a total of a year-and-a-half studying at the Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet in Mainz, Germany, and then from 1991 to 1997, I worked in business for a greeting card company serving as operations manager in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. My husband, David (Chair of the Social Studies Department at GSA), and I taught for two years at the International School of Lusaka in Lusaka, Zambia, and then for three more years at the New International School of Thailand in Bangkok. We feel privileged to be working once again in a multicultural setting.
If you have any questions about the International Student Program or would like more information about this very special school, please email me at: sherylstearns@george-stevens.pvt.k12.me.us. I look forward to hearing from you!
Warm regards,
Sheryl Stearns
August 2008
|
