Foreign Student Safety in Spotlight

By Elizabeth Redden. Professionals in international education have long had to counter stereotypical depictions of the U.S. as a crime-ridden, pistol-packing kind of place, but this week issues surrounding perceptions of international student safety have been especially prominent: not only was Secretary of State John Kerry quoted as saying that prospective Japanese students are deterred by fears of gun violence, but one international student died, and at least three others were injured, as a result of the Boston Marathon bombings. Boston University has been left mourning Lu Lingzi, a graduate student in mathematics and statistics who was described by The New York Times as “a woman whose aspirations took her from a rust-belt hometown, Shenyang, to Beijing and then the United States.” One other Chinese student was reported injured, as were two Saudi Arabian students, one of whom was initially misidentified by some media outlets as a suspect, leading a Saudi embassy official to tell The Boston Globe, “We’re concerned about the backlash against students based on a false story.” (Officials at the Saudi Embassy did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.) Read more...