On January 30 and 31, 2025, BCCIE, in partnership with the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE), hosted a two-day symposium focused on international student support.
To view slide decks from BC Symposium, please click here.
Bolstering Meaningful Connections to Empower International Students through Peer Mentorship
This session explores the importance of international mentorship programs and how they support a successful transition and integration into students’ life on campus.
Description
Learn about the unique approaches to mentorship programs at CapU, which are highlighted by focusing on meaningful connections. This session contains discussion about the challenges and open dialogue to share ideas for mentorship program development and enhancement.
Speaker
Eduardo Gevenez — Capilano University
Additional materials
Building Strong and Ethical Partnerships with Trusted Education Agents
This session explores strategies for selecting, onboarding, and managing education agents through clear communication, ethical standards, and continuous monitoring to build successful long-term partnerships.
Description
Explore effective strategies for establishing a thorough and transparent decision-making process for selecting, signing, on-boarding, and managing education agents. The speakers discuss how to enhance communication, manage expectations, and provide clear guidelines and timely updates to ensure agents have the right resources to support prospective students. Finally, they will examine how continuous monitoring, feedback collection, and adherence to strong ethical standards contribute to building successful, long-term relationships.
Speakers
Angela Liang — Vancouver Community College
Fabiano Maciel — Langara College
Additional Materials
Don’t blur your line of sight to students Recruiting Ethically under the IE Code of Practice
This session explores how institutions can maintain a direct line of sight to prospective students in an era of agent aggregators and chatbots to ensure ethical recruitment, transparent communication, and informed decision-making.
Description
In a world of agent aggregators and Chatbots, it’s often difficult to maintain a direct line of sight between an institution’s recruitment team and its future students. These blurred sightlines can lead to students being mis-informed about costs, accommodation availability, work opportunities during and after studies, and the general student experience. To recruit ethically, we need to ensure that we maintain a direct line of sight to students, so that we communicate as transparently as possible, manage expectations from the outset, and allow students the opportunity to make informed decisions regarding their study plans.
Speakers
Gareth Jones — Douglas College
Daniel Zeldin — Camosun College