For Maryland distance runner Christine Laurie, figuring out U.S. taxes was one of the first challenges as an international student-athlete. Then, it was trying to buy a moped, which became a two-year process.
For her teammate and fellow Canadian Mackenzie Morgan, every form and piece of paper bubbled up a bit of fear: Would her visa be at risk if she did something wrong?
"It's always different for each international student; there's always a unique problem," Laurie said.
It could be getting a driver's license, knowing where to bank, navigating cellphone plans, various visa requirements or general cultural differences, among the countless other challenges international student-athletes face.
At Maryland, Laurie and Morgan are co-directors of a group — World Wide Terps — whose mission is to help international student-athletes navigate these challenges. The organization was launched during the 2018-19 academic year solely to build community among international student-athletes through group gatherings. It has since evolved into a more holistic group that's now housed within Maryland's student-athlete development unit. It also focuses on assisting international student-athletes with the transition process to the United States and providing career and personal development.
"Over the years, World Wide Terps has become a larger group, helping lots of international student-athletes feel more welcome and ready, dealing with the American culture shock and finding resources available on campus to help improve that journey and gather a sense of community with the international students," Laurie said.
One example of a resource created by World Wide Terps is an international student-athlete handbook. The 43-page document, distributed to all Maryland international student-athletes, is divided into several sections: housing, dining and transportation; financial literacy; medical care and insurance; education and student life at Maryland; immigration services, benefits and regulations; safety and security issues; identification, Social Security and other legal matters; life in College Park; and career planning and employment opportunities.
"That's been really great for those core pieces that don't change," Morgan said of the handbook.
To help international student-athletes manage more fluid challenges, World Wide Terps has tapped into its campus community. Specifically, the group partnered with Maryland's International Student & Scholar Services office, known as ISSS. Its staff and resources have been extremely valuable to World Wide Terps' evolution, saving hours of time and energy.
"ISSS has definitely helped us with a lot of the visa, taxes, those kinds of questions, to help us make sure we're getting enough information and the right information to the students," Laurie said. "We have a representative we correspond with and make sure if we have a problem brought to our attention through an international student-athlete, we can direct them to ISSS and we have a point of contact there."
"We don't want to reinvent the wheel," Morgan added. "So if there are resources already out there, we're trying more to link students to those resources rather than re-create them."
Members of World Wide Terps have also been vocal about expanding its mission within the Maryland athletics department. Morgan and Laurie described it as "internationalizing" the programming and groups already in place. This includes adding a designated World Wide Terps member on Maryland's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and to Pre-Health Terps, a student-athlete organization dedicated to preparing students to pursue careers in the health profession.
Maryland's programming on career readiness is another example of how World Wide Terps has helped ensure international student-athlete perspectives are prioritized.
Tim Bryson, program director for student-athlete career development who oversees World Wide Terps, said this means keeping the end goal in mind. If international student-athletes want to work in a specific country after college, he said they need to tailor their resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles accordingly through language and cultural context. It's an approach Bryson, a former track athlete at Coastal Carolina, said he's seen be successful several times since he joined Maryland in 2019. Bryson is currently helping one student-athlete plan for a career in the Netherlands.
"Every international athlete that I've worked with who has graduated has gone on to secure grad school plans and/or jobs either in the U.S. or their home country. That's not by coincidence," Bryson said. "If we work early, work often and work together, success is not impossible."
World Wide Terps has influenced how Maryland approaches connecting student-athletes with graduate school opportunities, as well. Laurie, whose goal is to return to Canada to study physical therapy, found herself running into "roadblocks" and "obstacles" as she tried to find information while looking into universities in her home country.
As a result, World Wide Terps helped form a connection with McMaster University in Canada. McMaster even held an information session for all student-athletes interested in its programs.
"I thought this was a very important first step of building those connections and starting to figure out how we can navigate careers and career searching internationally and how we can help student-athletes to do that," Morgan said. "I'm excited about how we can continue to do things like this and create those global partnerships for the future."
As leaders of World Wide Terps, Laurie and Morgan participated in the NCAA International Student-Athlete Inclusion Think Tank last fall along with more than 50 other student-athletes, coaches, administrators and faculty. Part of the Think Tank included sharing best practices for how to better support international student-athletes, and World Wide Terps was among the initiatives shared.
Both Terrapins believe the program can be easily replicated and personalized to any school's needs. The key, both added, is that it's driven by student-athletes.
"You still need that support from the administration," Laurie said, "but I think having that group of engaged, motivated student-athletes is really important."
Bryson agreed, adding that now is the time to enhance support systems and resources for international student-athletes, whose numbers have steadily risen in the last decade and now exceed 21,000 across the NCAA.
"The moment is now," Bryson said. "As we continue to see sport globalized, and I'm thinking about the NFL Europe, NBA in Africa, mega events like the World Cup and the Olympics coming to the United States in the next six to seven years, we're only going to see an increase of international student-athletes within the U.S. higher education system. Rather than waiting and being reactive when that moment comes, what can we be doing now to prepare for that moment but also support the students in our programming now? Because they're going to be advocates, they're going to be sponsors and they're going to be great alumni engagement members once they graduate to not just recruit other international athletes to the U.S. but also to continue to advance the NCAA's mission, as well."
