By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Sonali Pathirana can relate to what Changle Lin is going through as a foreigner attending college away from home.
Since 2005, the township woman has participated in a program designed to introduce international graduate students and scholars at Princeton University to American culture as well as be a support system for them.
The Davis International Center, an arm of the university, has been pairing them up with families in Princeton and the surrounding area through its host family program started in 1960. They don’t actually live with their host families, but when their schedule permits, they go to sporting or other events together, share meals and stay in touch through the school year.
Each host family commits for the entire academic year, agreeing to have at least one get-together a month. During the last school year, 65 host families and 73 students and scholars participated in what is seen as a mutual learning experience.
”The families get a lot out of (it). They learn about other people’s culture,” said Hanna Hand, chairwoman of the program. “And the students, of course, learn American culture and meet American people (and) meet other people through host families.”
Ms. Hand, a native of Germany, is choosy when selecting host families. When one applies, she will do an interview to learn where the people work and other details. “We are not taking host families just off the street. We like to be referred through another host family or a faculty member . . . because you’re sending students home to people’s houses and you do have to be a little careful especially in this day and age now,” Ms. Hand said.
She will match up students and their host families so they are of different nationalities. Language barriers are not an issue, since there is an emphasis on students and scholars cultivating their English skills. Though neither Ms. Pathirana nor her German husband are American, most host families are, Ms. Hand said.
Ms. Pathirana, a native of Sri Lanka, can relate to life as an international student. She went to University of Delhi in India for her undergraduate degree and then to Cambridge University for her master’s.
”My parents always had friends in the universities that I went to and they always looked after me. So that’s what I do here,” she said in an English accent.
”Having been a student,” she continued, “I think it’s a really nice thing to know that there’s somebody here local that you can call if you’re sick, unhappy, bored.”
During the past school year, her international student was Mr. Changle. From the town of Xi’an in central China, he is in his second year of graduate school in the school of applied science and engineering. Before coming to Princeton, he had never been to the United States.
Not surprisingly, he felt the usual cultural shock. When Ms. Pathirana took him out to brunch, he was shocked at the “very large” size of the portions.
For the foreign students, there are distinctly American things for them to experience, from attending a Thanksgiving dinner to watching a baseball game.
”I think it’s a very good opportunity to interact with the community, to find out how people are living in the Princeton area,” said Mr. Changle of the host family program.
The Davis International Center, serving international undergraduate and graduate students and visiting scholars, acts as their lifeline. They help with visa issues and provide English-language discussion classes and other services to a diverse student body drawn from around the world. According to the university, there were 1,522 international students enrolled during the 2011-12 academic year.
The host family program is officially only for one school year, but the friendships last well past that. Ms. Pathirana keeps in touch with the very first student she had, a native of South Korea now at Columbia University doing post-doctoral work.
”We make friends. I think that that’s the first and most important underlying point of this,” Ms. Pathirana said when asked about the benefits. “It’s not just some sort of philanthropic exercise. It’s just sheer friendship.”

