International Visitors Center of Jackson: A vital link
By Bette Pearce
The International Visitors Center of Jackson at Jackson State University — one of 100 such sites across the U.S. and the only one at an HBCU — operates under the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, through its contacts with foreign embassies, to provide numerous services, from translators and transportation to escorted tours.
Formally established in 1986, initial programming efforts actually started in the 1960s through the Mississippi College and University Consortium under the direction of Dr. Cleopatra Thompson.
Visitor numbers vary, said Shirley Harrison, interim director of JSU Global, the umbrella under which the center operates, but have topped 500 in a month’s time.
“We arrange visits with people and at places specific to their professional or cultural interests — medicine, business or manufacturing — and oftentimes civil rights and the Mississippi Blues Trail,” said Harrison.
“Many foreign visitors want an up-close and personal experience with U.S. culture so some local residents serve as civilian ambassadors,” she added. “They may meet for a chat over a cup of coffee, or they’ll invite visitors into their homes for dinner. Lifelong friendships have been developed.”
Harrison’s most memorable experience, she said, involved medical professionals from Russia.
During a tour of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the group was taken to a neonatal unit where “we saw tiny infants struggling for their lives. It so touched all of us. You could just feel it; nobody had to say a word. We all felt how fragile life is and how grateful it makes us for all the other healthy children in the world.”
There were no political differences, no cultural boundaries, she says.
“It was an aha moment for all of us.” ONEJSU