12 June 1996 From around the world they come to Lincoln

The specialist, resource-based nature of Lincoln's degree and diploma programmes has always attracted large numbers of students from overseas.

In the "food and feeding" sciences – agriculture, horticulture, agronomy, animal husbandry, farm management – Lincoln has long been an internationally respected leader with many of its graduates going on to occupy top research, teaching, advisory and production positions around the world.

From the Falkland Islands to the European Community, from Africa to Mongolia, from India and Pakistan through the Middle East to the Mediterranean, from Australia, the Pacific and South East Asia to Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Central and South America, you will find Lincoln graduates at work in key jobs.

The enrolment pattern has changed slightly in recent years with the bulk of overseas students now coming to Lincoln for commerce degrees – B.Com. and BCM – but there is still the traditional resource-based emphasis with the Commerce degrees offering specialisations in areas such as Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Valuation and Property Management, and Manufacturing and Technology Management.

So far this year – and the mid-year entry enrolments are still to come – there are 729 international fee paying students at the University from 47 different countries making up 19 percent of the total student roll. Twenty-two percent of those international students are studying at the postgraduate level.

The University has a policy of "internationalisation" and believes a global outlook benefits its Kiwi students by exposing them to international contact and networking opportunities and encouraging them to think and act in a "one world" environment.

"The world is now a global village," says the Director of the University's International Centre, Geoff Ormandy, "and we want our graduates to emerge with a sense of the new international culture and a potential to market their employment skills to the world at large as well as domestically."

In 1994 Lincoln won a Tradenz Export Excellence Award for its activities and overseas exchange earnings in the area of international educational services.

"Internationalisation creates employment opportunities and trade potential for other sectors of the economy in addition to education," said Mr Ormandy, at the time of the award. "The benefits from our activities reach into the wider community, both regionally in Canterbury and nationally in New Zealand."

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.