EVERETT — Visakan Ganeson didn’t set out to become a director of international education for a community college.
Truth be told, he was thinking more about banking.
When the financial market was slow two decades ago, he took what he thought might be a temporary job in international education and has never looked back at what might have been.
“The program found me about 20 years ago and I’m glad it found me,” said Ganeson, who built a program at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon before being hired to do the same at Everett Community College. “It has given me so much satisfaction that I have never gone back into the (financial) field.”
Since joining Everett’s faculty in September, Ganeson has spent several weeks recruiting students in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam.
Ganeson, who grew up in Malaysia, is EvCC’s first director of international education. When the college decided to expand its program, it drew roughly 40 applicants from across the country.
EvCC traditionally has enrolled a fraction of the international students that Edmonds Community College has. The EvCC number has ranged from 40 to 60 over the past six years, compared with the 550 to nearly 780 at EdCC.
In 15 years at Skagit, Ganeson developed the program from 65 students to 250.
The goal in five years at EvCC is about 200 international students.
The key is being visible and targeting recruitment efforts.
“You go to where the students are,” he said.
And Asia remains a hot market, largely because families put so much value in higher education, he said.
“This college has a lot of good selling points,” he added. “The trouble is they haven’t got the word out to the international market.”
Ganeson said he appreciates the fact that the college wants to make sure it offers international students a meaningful learning experience, an approach that he believes will pay big dividends in the long term.
“There is a very strong commitment from the top,” he said. “They want to make sure we have a solid program and not just bring the students in. That’s extremely important.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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