Yu, a native of Canton in the south of China, holds a bachelors degree in business administration from Shenzhen University. In 2012, Yu came to the United States to join relatives. After a brief stay with relatives in San Francisco, Yu heard about Harrisonburg from her friend Wenjun “Wendy” Wu, a 2014 EMU nursing graduate .

After working briefly as a massage therapist in Harrisonburg, Yu wanted to return to school and IEP seemed a natural fit. Though initially reluctant to return to the classroom, Yu thought improving her English-language skills would be empowering.

“The program is a bridge for people like me, immigrants who are already educated,” she said, of her decision to enroll in IEP. “It is a bridge to connect my old life to my new life.”

What she didn’t realize was her participation would bring out qualities she didn’t know she possessed and lead her to a new vocation.

IEP started with a handful of students in 1989, says director , but its steady growth necessitated a move from a small building near the seminary into refurbished Roselawn quarters in 2012.

About 60 to 80 students take IEP courses each session, representing 15 to 20 different countries. Students spend 20 hours a week in small classes working on their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. While beginning courses focus on fluency, upper-level IEP courses help international students with cultural differences, especially in the academic realm where most plan to continue their studies.

Chinese students will notice differences in academic expectations, Yu said, especially in terms of citation and plagiarism. “In China we still want an original idea, but we do not have the same rules. In China, we can use other people’s words and we do not need a citation.”

A cultural difference that may puzzle Chinese students, she says, is the emphasis on critical and creative thinking in the classroom. “When you write an essay [here],” she says, “you don’t need to follow the mainstream.” Learning, she adds, “is about more than just learning facts.” This freedom has encouraged her to explore new ideas beyond what she terms the “listen, understand, follow” creed experienced in her former academic setting.

With her improved English skills, Yu had planned to enroll at James Madison University to earn a master’s degree in business administration. However, as she progressed through the higher levels of IEP, Yu started to realize her passion lay in helping others to learn English, rather than in business.

For Yu, her new calling to empower immigrants through education is more than academic. “My mom is coming here – how will she learn English and how will she get a job? She could live in San Francisco or New York [speaking only Mandarin], but in a place like Harrisonburg, if you don’t know English, then you can’t do anything.”

After realizing her passion for teaching English, Yu made the decision to stay at EMU to earn a . “I like the environment here. I like how they treat me here. There is a and things like that. Even the ], which I was interested in before changing my major, has a course called ‘,’ which I think is unique.”

Despite being an IEP success story, the transition to graduate classes in a second language has not always been easy for Yu. “Reading and writing something professional involves a lot more than simple English,” she says. “Graduate-level papers require academic language and critical thinking.”

Yu works in the EMU cafeteria, as a Mandarin conversation assistant, and as a tutor for students at IEP.

There are several Chinese students who are alumni of IEP currently enrolled at EMU as well as several other Chinese students who came to EMU through other universities and high schools. No matter their origins, they are a close-knit group. Yu says the group gets together on a regular basis; they ushered in Chinese New Year with a party. “I am older than my friends by two or three years, but we are the same and they treat me the same.”

Yu says she would like to return to China as a visitor some day, but with her mother in the process of relocating to the United States and with her commitment to graduate studies and then teaching, Yu says her future will be here.

[Editor’s note: Concerning Winifred Yu’s reference to the challenge of transitioning from IEP to graduate classes in a second language, EMU has an , with tutoring in , available to students at no charge.]

The first cohort of about a dozen students will gather for their start-of-the-semester residency at in Ohio, Aug. 11-15, 2014. They will participate in an orientation to the program and take a class on “Leadership for the Common Good” with George Lehman, PhD, of Bluffton. He is the Howard Reid professor of business, chair of the business studies division and director of graduate programs in business.

Joining the class for one day will be , author of Sharing the Rock: Shaping Our Future through Leadership for the Common Good. Published in 2011, the book sums up 25 years of study on how businesses and other organizations develop leaders.

“We want the residency at the beginning of each semester to be intellectually provocative,” said , PhD, director of the Collaborative MBA and dean of the in Harrisonburg, Va. “We also want to build a strong sense of community.”

Grace’s wife panned his first book draft as too theoretical. “Talk about your personal experiences and tell more stories,” she said. So he did. “The rock” in the title refers to a place near Jerusalem that Grace encountered as a backpacking student from the United States. It is supposedly the spot where Abraham almost sacrificed his son. The rock is sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and they have fought over it for centuries.

Sharing the Rock introduces seven practices focused on advancing the common good through business, politics, government, education, health care and community service organizations. “The book teaches aspiring leaders how to choose their personal values, embrace the wisdom of the margins, craft a vision, create gracious space, claim their voice, receive hope and act with courage,” said Grace.

Grace worked for 15 years in higher education before launching the in 1991. Later he founded Common Good Works, which takes him throughout the United States for seminars on leadership development.

The Collaborative MBA offers most of its courses through interactive video conferencing and projects in which students talk with their professors, either via technology or in person. The curriculum is based on the concept of “leadership for the common good,” emphasizing six values – spirituality, community, leading as service, justice, sustainability and global citizenship.

The three sponsoring schools are Bluffton, EMU and  in Indiana.