Whitewater will make history this Friday and Saturday, hosting the first ever International Student Conference in the U.S.

“We’re trying to get international students from the Midwest together and talk about how we help each other and knock down our schools borders,” last year’s President of the International Student Association Sara Amiri said.

The conference begins at 2 p.m. on Friday and cost will range from $25-$45. There will be leadership and team building sessions followed by a networking dinner and performance by the band Exmoor.

Events on Saturday begin at 8 a.m. with breakfast catered by The Black Sheep. Whitewater Technology Park Executive Director Robert Young and City Manager Kevin Brunner will be in attendance to give the welcoming message to guests of the conference.

Workshops will take up most of the day as a way to get everyone to interact.

“The main thing from the conference is to create cross-communication between campuses and connect more, because we are all having different learning experiences here,” Amiri said.

The day will end with a final speech from Don Khoury, an expert in Non-Verbal Communication.

Senior Noa Lidan also helped organize the conference.

“Sara and David have been so unique and amazing as we’ve been doing everything we can to make this conference come along and be a big deal,” Lidan said.

UW-Whitewater will be joined by UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse, WESLI, Beloit College, and Janesville International Academy among others.

Amiri said she is eager to see what the future holds for the International Student Conference.

“We’re going to have another, hopefully bigger, conference next year,” Amiri said. “Our eventual goal is to create a council for international students in the Midwest and eventually even nationwide.”

Amiri and International Student Associate President David Quintero planned the conference with the mentorship of Dr. Choton Basu from the Global Business Ressource Center and the help of:

• Noa Lidan
• Nan Siran
• Henry Schwartz
• Kenneth Topsoba
• Jovanco Tembeleski
• Maxim Abdusselimov
• Sirin Mongkolrattanakul
• Daniela Carrera

Sponsors of the conference include:

• Whitewater Technology Park
• City of Whitewater
• UW-Whitewater Global Business Resource Center
• UW-Whitewater College of Business & Economics
• PeerTransfer
• Global Education Offices of UW-Oshkosh, UW-Madison, and UW-Whitewater
• Office of Sponsored Programs (UW-Whitewater)
• The Summers Group LLC
• Don Khoury

Samantha Jacquest & Ben Holzhueter contributed to this article