Chapter 12: Redefining Engagement: Including International Students in Socially Just Leadership Education

International students represent a vital yet often overlooked and misunderstood group within the fabric of our campus communities in the United States. Given the unique challenges international students face, many student affairs professionals are underequipped, timid, or downright unsure of how to engage with members of this population. In this chapter, we define “international student” as a degree-seeking individual present on a U.S.-based campus who holds a nonimmigrant student visa. We chose these factors to highlight leadership education and socially just engagement practices specific to this unique population and to draw parallels and differences between their domestic peers. This chapter provides an overview of today’s international student in the United States; highlighting the specific challenges these students face on our campuses, underscoring barriers to academic and cocurricular engagement, and providing strategies to enhance leadership educators’ understanding of interculturally competent and socially just engagement practices with international students.