As part of its three-year strategic and operations plan, SUNY Jamestown Community College is focusing on attracting more international students to its campuses.

JCC saw an increase in that student population during the COVID-19 pandemic, and those trends appear to be continuing.

Daniel Heitzenrater, a member of the JCC Board of Trustees’ Educational Services Committee, said the college has seen “record enrollment” this school year with 81 international students.

“Setting the bar high for the next education year at 100 as a goal, so hopefully we can meet that,” said Heitzenrater, who added that the college regularly taps into different programs to recruit international students.

Last year, JCC unveiled its Advance 2025 strategic plan that President Daniel DeMarte said was more enrollment-focused than its predecessor.

“That last plan, typical of strategic plans, had everything in it but the kitchen sink,” DeMarte told The Post-Journal last August. “And when you plan that way what typically happens, and again this is my view on the world, we tend to suffer from our own version of attention deficit disorder. We’ve got so much going on it’s hard to focus.”

“This plan is far more focused,” he added. “We went from seven strategic directions and 44 goals to four strategic directions and 13 goals. Focus, focus, focus. That’s what this plan is about.”

As noted in a summary of Advance 2025, the first strategic direction aims to “improve enrollment, retention, and completion for high school learners; traditional learners; out-of-area learners; and adult learners.”

The State University of New York at Fredonia, for the spring 2023 semester, has 46 international students, representing about 2% of the university’s 2,746 enrolled student population. SUNY Fredonia also has 125 out-of-state students, another area of focus for JCC in its recruitment push.

SUNY-wide there are 2,212 international students enrolled at community colleges across New York. There are 17,283 international students at all other SUNY facilities, representing about 8.5% of the total enrollment in the state higher education system.

According to information on JCC’s website, the community college had 1,815 total students during the 2021-22 school year.

Alyssa Drozdiel, the student member on the Board of Trustees, brought up transportation concerns with the influx of new students during the board’s recent gathering.

“Having all these international students here is an incredible and amazing success for our campus,” she said, “but, of course, with that you get students who can’t drive to go get their own groceries or have entertainment beyond the campus.

“Many students have talked to me about this and, as a student with a license, I often make trips up to Walmart.”

Drozdiel said the local shuttle bus has restrictive hours.

“As many of our international students come here on sporting scholarships and stuff like that, they don’t have the easiest schedules to work with,” Drozdiel continued. “So, when the shuttle comes, they might be in practice or at a game or something.”

She said the Student Senate and college administration are aware of the transportation concerns.