LU leans on international students as local attendance drops

THUNDER BAY – Falling local enrolment at Lakehead University has led to greater international student attendance than any year over the school’s 50-year history.

As of Wednesday, Lakehead has 925 international registered students, 400 of which from 57 countries are new in 2016.

Lakehead president Brian Stevenson said the university is seeing a decline in local and regional registration has led outreach programs overseas.

“Part of our strategy has been to have a more global environment and have more diversity but also, as our demographics are declining in Northwestern Ontario and we’re having fewer students come from the region, we’re also having students from around the world take over those spaces,” he said.

“It’s very important for us to keep the numbers up to keep the services to all the students in Northwestern Ontario.”

International enrolment at Lakehead has skyrocketed since Stevenson took leadership in 2010, when it was attracting only 100 students from outside of Canada annually.

He said graduates working in other countries and a growing international alumni movement are both playing roles in building the university’s brand abroad.

“We have a lot of alumni around the world because we have, over the last 50 years, had a lot of students from around the world who have gone back, or a lot of our students who are working and living abroad,” Stevenson said.

“So as we do international work, we’re also reaching out to many alumni associations we’re building around the world.”