Center in its Michigan Union home has been beloved by young people from all over the world, and in its friendly atmosphere, many international friendships have been formed.
Although the new Center now had a permanent home, Nelson was still faced by many problems. By the time college opened six weeks later, he had a staff of paid and volunteer student assistants, who were enthusiastic and eager to begin and proud to be a part of the experiment. Among them was M. Robert B. Klinger, a graduate student, who became a special counselor on immigration and other problems having to do with foreign students. Klinger's service to the International Center has extended through all the years since it opened its doors.
One of the first programs at the Center was a social hour, held on Thursday of Orientation Week. The occasion was so successful that these Thursday teas are still continued, thus giving the foreign students and their American friends an opportunity to know each other. Within the next five years gathering war clouds intensified the problems of counseling. In this difficult period students from other countries gradually became stranded as their homelands were involved.
Emphasis on the Good Neighbor Policy of Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Co-ordinator Nelson Rockefeller led to a large increase in the enrollment of Latin American students. The need of a committee to aid in handling the University's relations with Latin America became apparent. Authorized by the University Council and appointed by President Ruthven in November, 1941, the Committee on Latin American Affairs included Dean Bursley, Dr. Lowell T. Coggeshall, Dr. Louis A. Hopkins, and Professors Irving A. Leonard, Raleigh Schorling, and J. Raleigh Nelson, chairman. Four other members of the faculty assisted during that year: Dean Henry F. Vaughan and Professors Nathan Sinai, Robert B. Hall, and Dudley M. Phelps.
Two years later, in November, 1943, the Committee on Latin American Relations was reorganized as the Committee on Intercultural Relations. Its functions were as follows:
- 1. To make a survey of the active projects within the University affecting its permanent intercultural relations, and, with a view to a continuing service, to keep informed of the development of such projects or of new proposals that might in any way influence those relations.
- 2. To secure, if possible, a proper correlation of all approved projects in order to prevent duplication, overlapping, and conflict of interests.
- 3. To lend encouragement and active co-operation in the development of all such approved projects.
- 4. To formulate a general plan for the systematic extension of scholarships and fellowships.
- 5. To develop ways and means for co-operating with all governmental and other agencies working for closer permanent intercultural relations. (Letter, L. A. Hopkins to J. R. Nelson.)
From the beginning of J. R. Nelson's service to the University, he had been vitally concerned with developing means to help foreign students adjust to new environments. He continued to regard the teaching of English as the problem of primary importance in planning the program. English 1a and 1b became the model for the English Language Service of the Center and the progenitor of the English Language Institute. During the Center's first two years the Department of Speech and the Department of Linguistics co-operated with Nelson in organizing this instruction. In the first year, Professors John H. Muyskens and Charles C. Fries, on several occasions, addressed the foreign student assembly
