President Jared Campbell called the meeting to order and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mike Sanders led us in a thoughtful prayer.
CLUB ANNIVERSARIES: Chris Boland, 45 years, March 12th, Tom Woolwine, 7 years, March 13th,Jerry Cooke, 33 years, March 25th, Nick Pryor, 5 years, March 25th, Ross Donnell, 28 years, March 28th, Jan Armstrong, 28 years, March 28th
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Our Greeters were the members of our Women of Rotary.
Sad Announcement: As of April 3rd, Mandy Sheldon is resigning from her Club 13 position to take on a position with the Water District nearer to her home. The Club 13 Board will be begin looking for her replacement.If you have any suggestions, please submit them to the Board.
Happy Announcement – we have two new members for induction: (1) Ms. Claire Ashbrook, a preservation architect and (2) Ms. Kari Tripses with Project C.U.R.E. (Commission on Urgent Relief and Equipment)
Purple Pinkie Donuts for Polio announcement: $25 donation for dozen purple donuts. See Mandy to sigh up and pay. More details later – The project coincides with World Immunization Week of April 24 to 30th. (flyer was on the table)
Reminder: Rotary Youth Camp Native Plant Sale at the Rotary Youth Camp on Friday April 17th from 4:00 to 6:00 PM (flyer was on the table)
Shoes for Orphan Souls – Brad Kleindl reported that he has bought more shoes this year (our 25th year) which will be given over at the upcoming District Meeting at the Rotary Youth Camp.
Happy Bucks: Jerry Cooke shared a humorous quip with Phil Kinney as the subject. There were other Club 13 members with Happy Bucks statements.
President Jared reminded us that the District wide challenge, “8 in 8 Membership Challenge”, is still ongoing. We are “competing” with other District Clubs as to which club(s) can bring in 8 new members in the next 8 weeks, starting in March.
REMEMBER: The DISTRICT CONFERENCE April 24 & 25 to be held at our Rotary Youth Camp with a special concert on April 24th ! starting Friday night and continuing Saturday morning. Theme: One District - One Weekend – One Powerful Impact. Saturday’s Grand Finale will be the 25th Anniversary Shoes for Orphan Souls’ Shoe Roll Call, featuring future Rotary International President, Larry Lunsford, of the KCMO – Plaza Club. Friday (4/24/26) night’s “Jukebox Heroes - Tribute to the 60’s-80’s” entertainment with Kansas City’s very own Rock Orchestra. This event’s location will be 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Lee’s Summit, MO 64065 (at Unity Village) beginning at 7pm with the doors opening at 6 pm.
PROGRAM: Kristy Bayer introduced our speakers from Rockhurst University, Muhle Diamini, Director of International Admissions & Recruitment and Julia Liupaono, Director of International Students as Rockhurst University. Their topic was “Being an International Student in the U.S.”. Muhle was originally from the South African country of Eswatini (f/k/a/ Swaziland) [a landlocked kingdom in southern Africa, bordered by South Africa to the north, west and south and Mozambique to the east] and came over as a college student, attending Westminster College. He has held positions at various colleges and universities. Julia attended Missouri Southern State University (Joplin, MO) and has held positions at Missouri State University and Park University and a stint at Bordeau & Noulles LLC, an immigration and nationality law firm, before Rockhurst.
Rockhurst and other universities/colleges are interested in foreign students because in part of the pending post 2025 decline in college age income freshmen (18 year olds). Eighteen years ago, our U.S. birthrate dropped significantly primarily to economic concerns. Globally the United States is a perceived as a primary college destination for the combination of college educational & social experience. Becoming an admitted foreign student is a very intense selection process. The foreign family must have resources and potentially some merit based scholarship. As to Rockhurst (versus some State schools), the foreign students must already have an English proficiency. We saw a chart of 20 years of International Student Trends with generally rising incoming foreign students. We also saw a slide on the breakdown of Selected Regional Places of Origin, divided into four groups: Asis, Europe, Latin America & Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within each group, we saw where students were coming from, with India far & away the most students (363,019) and the next highest was Nigeria with 21,847. Asia accounted for the top source, even without India. As to Student Destinations, California, New York, Texas, Massachusetts and Illinois were the top five. Missouri came in at number 10. We saw a slide on International Students by Academic Level with Graduate level students showing the largest number, versus Undergraduate and other classifications. Here is the real kicker, in 2024, international students contributed $55 billion to the U.S. economy!! International students’ primary sources of funding predominantly from Foreign Private Sponsor (family) and a smaller percentage from U.S. Colleges /Universities.
In fact, 84% of U.S. institutions consider international student recruitment a priority! The main benefits of International Recruitment is 1. Proactive hedge against demographic cliff (shortage of 18 year old U.S. born students); 2. Diversifying revenue sources; and 3. Value added to campus community from incoming foreign students. What has Rockhurst done to facilitate this ? (1) a virtual team that provides an in-market presence across 3 continents and 7 countries (2) a process that removes unnecessary barriers to entry and (3) a marketing plan that cater to unique needs (unique channels: Meta Ads, WhatsApp forums & Informational Webinars).
What are the Rockhurst Admission Requirements ? (1) An individual’s full academic transcripts for all of secondary/high school {translated into English} and (2) Proof of English language proficiency. We also saw a chart broken down into five sections for International Student Timeline: Before Arrival, Upon Arrival, During Program of Study, Upon End of Program of Study, and After Program or Study. This reflects Rockhurst’s organized approach to the process. Rockhurst gets involves with their visa types. It was a very enlightening presentation – discussion.
UPCOMING MEETINGS & EVENTS: Bring a Prospective Member
March 26th - 4th Thursday – Social at Teocali Mexican Restaurant & Cantina (2512 Holmes St, KCMO)
April 2nd - Dr Dara Brammer, Offenders Intervention Program
April 9th - Lou Eisenbrandt, Vietnam Nurse
April 16th - Kyle Mead, President/CEO, Heartland Center for Behavioral Change
April 30th - Harvester Service Project, 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Rotary Youth Camp Native Plant Sale – Coming Soon!
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