One evening in September 2010, Collis Common Ground was packed with people. Students and adults alike ambled about, scrutinizing the individual flags of various countries that served as centerpieces on the round tables scattered throughout the room.
Hanover locals Frank Lesher and Barbara Lesher glanced around, trying to find a Chinese flag. Spotting the a scarlet rectangle dotted with gold stars, they seated themselves and waited.
It wasn’t long until a young man approached them and asked if they were the Leshers.He introduced himself as Jincheng Li Th’11, the international student with whom they had been matched. The Leshers spent the rest of the night strolling through campus with Li and a few other Chinese students, identifying important buildings and delighting in Li’s enthusiasm about spending time in the United States.
Nothing about these initial casual interactions could have forecasted the strong — even lifelong — friendship that the Leshers would forge with Li.
The event served as a kick-off for the international friendship family program, which pairs international students with local families. The program aims is to help international students adjust to life in the U.S. by sharing dinners, embarking on outings and celebrating special occasions with their match family.
The Leshers became involved in the program when their son Ted graduated from the College in 2010. Although they had opened their home to numerous dinners and overnight stays for the track and field team, of which Ted was co-captain, they had never hosted an international student before.
Frank Lesher explained that his and Barbara’s willingness to share their home and time with international students arose from their parental tendencies and desire for inter-generational relationships.
“We were empty-nesters,” Lesher explained. “And we have always liked the experience of multi-generational living. That’s why we moved to a college town. We like doing things connected to the college that let us meet [students].”
Li met up with the Leshers frequently during his time in Hanover.
“We met up every few weeks and did all kinds of things — dinner, hiking, soccer games, Gospel Choir shows at the [Hopkins Center] and so on,” Li explained.
In fact, the Leshers invited Li to their vacation home in Vermont for his first Christmas in the U.S., after he briefly returned home to China. After the Lesher’s two sons picked him up from Logan Airport, Li arrived at the Lesher home, welcomed like a member of the family and given his own Christmas stocking.
“I learned a lot about American traditions [and] lost some ping-pong games to Ted,” Li said.
Li noted that instances like these helped him adjust to life in the U.S.
“Being abroad as an international student can be lonely and even frustrating sometimes, especially the first few terms/quarters,” Li said. “But Frank and his family really made my time at Dartmouth feel like home.”
Frank Lesher said that the relationship between his family and Li felt reciprocal — he and his family have benefitted from Li as well. The friendship family program served as a mutual cultural exchange, he said, noting that he had never encountered a person who hailed from the Chinese mainland.
Tamutenda Chidawanyika, a third-year Ph.D. student at the Geisel School of Medicine originally from Zimbabwe, was paired with the Leshers in 2012 and expressed a similar sentiment to Li.
Having attended the College of Wooster in Ohio as an undergraduate, Chidawanyika had begun to assimilate to life in the U.S, but said she still appreciates the sense of welcome and unity that the Leshers have provided her through regular meet-ups for meals.
“Host families are always very helpful in giving a perspective of what the culture in the region is,” Chidawanyika said. “I also just enjoy having the opportunity to be a part of a family away from my own family back home, and I like having the opportunity to talk about Zimbabwe to non-Zimbabweans.”
Janel Gaube ’18, originally from British Columbia, Canada, said that she did not feel as if it took as much time for her to begin understanding U.S. culture as it may have for other international students, owing to her Canadian roots. The connection she forged with her host family, however, has still had a positive impact on her experience at the College.
The couple with whom she was matched, Biff and Michelle Simpson, have participated in the program for several years — they match with two to four students each year. Gaube says they have served as an ongoing resource for her at school.
“They say, ‘If there’s anything you want to do in the area, let us know and we’ll do it one weekend,’” Gaube said.
This past fall, the Simpsons brought Gaube to a town-wide garage sale near their home in Canaan, New Hampshire, where she was able to buy a used bike without having to navigate the sustainability sale on campus.
With the Simpsons, Gaube has eaten dinner, played crib and visited local covered bridges, of which she said the couple is particularly fond.
It’s simple pleasures like these that have also served as positive experiences for Iraday Yao ’17, a student originally from China who was matched with a family through the FFP.
“We’ve visited lots of local attractions — farms, small restaurants, a haunted house over Halloween,” Yao said. “It’s helped me to see different parts of the culture here and to assimilate.”
Yao said the part he most enjoys about the program, though, is the lively discussions he has with his host family over dinners, which range in topic from gun control laws to bridging gaps between the U.S. and less developed countries.
“The FPP brings people who normally have no intersection into this crossing area to mingle ideas, which creates a hodgepodge of idea melting,” Yao said.
Yao said that the Torres’ open-minded nature has helped to shape his own world perception and view.
This sort of hospitality extends beyond affiliates of the program. Students have long enjoyed meals with professors at their homes — at the end of some seminars, for example, professors invite students to their home for a meal.
With the change to the College’s schedule in 2012 that meant students no longer had to return to campus after Thanksgiving, some Upper Valley residents began inviting students to eat to break up the new six-week-long winter interim period.
Last fall Caroline Canning ’18 mentioned to writing professor Ellen Rockmore, who taught her Writing 5 class, that she would be in Hanover for some winter interim training with the squash team. Shortly after, Rockmore invited Canning to her house for dinner, along with Josh Davis ’18, another student in the class who spent part of his break working in town.
Rockmore picked Canning and Davis up at their dorm and brought them to her Hanover home, which she shares with husband Dan Rockmore, a math and computer science professor at the College, as well as their three children. Canning described the house as warm and inviting.
“The kids’ artwork was on the walls and fridge, there was a cute dog running around, food was being prepared.” Canning said.
Canning, Davis and the Rockmores discussed everything from education reform to the Rockmore kids’ extracurricular activities, over chips and salsa, pasta, salad and Ben and Jerry’s. Canning noted that Rockmore had prepared both meatless baked ziti and regular lasagna, in case she or Davis were vegetarian.
Canning said that the home-cooked meal was a welcome reprieve from endless FoCo food and the bitter cold and desolation of campus during winterim.
“With a professor your connection is your class, but it’s good to get to know them on a personal level too. It’s nice to have an adult [in Hanover] that you know outside of a class setting,” Canning said.
The Rockmores first began hosting students in December 2010, when Ellen Rockmore invited Kyle Schussler ’12 — one of her students who was staying in Hanover for the winter interim period to train with the hockey team — over to her house for dinner with some of his friends. Through the years, Schussler’s girlfriend became one of the Rockmores’ favorite babysitters, and the family recently hosted one of his old teammates for dinner.
Ellen Rockmore said her motivation for hosting dinners stems in part from a desire to make students feel more welcome and comfortable at the College.
“I think its hard to live in an institution in a dorm, and to eat all your meals in a cafeteria,” Rockmore said. “It’s nice to have a change of scenery, to be in someone’s home, to eat home-cooked food.”
Like Frank Lesher, Ellen Rockmore also emphasized that having students over for dinner is a mutually beneficial activity — she also enjoys the interactions and relationships it creates.
“[Hosting dinners] helps students to understand that we’re all part of one community,” she said. “And it gives me a chance to meet different students who are not at all the types I hung out with in college.”
And, she added, “It’s really cute to see the way my kids interact with the students.”
Hanover locals Pete Henderson ’55 and his wife Ann Henderson also host meals for the College’s hockey team.
The Hendersons frequently attend hockey games, and they donated money to sponsor a member of the women’s hockey team for a few years.
They subsequently sponsored other women’s hockey players including Reagan Fischer ’12. Through Fischer, the couple became much more involved in the team, often hosting them for dinners during the long break before winter term.
When Fischer’s family stayed with the Hendersons when they visited Hanover, and when Fischer’s sister was passing through the area travelling north, she also stayed with the couple.
The Hendersons now enjoy a continuous relationship with the hockey team, and they frequently cohost dinners for the women, along with another local couple.
“We’ve always been very social with younger people, having two daughters ourselves and college-aged grandchildren,” Anne Henderson said. “And the girls [from the team] are always so excited to come, and we like to have people in.”
Henderson said the couple enjoys contributing to the sense of community for which the College is known.
Chidawanyika agreed, saying that the Leshers’s willingness to open up their home and lives has been integral to her development at the College.
“[It’s benefitted me] just [to have] the opportunity and option to have a sense of family in the area — people who check in on you regularly to let you know they are there if you need them, who remember you on holidays and with whom you can build relationships with that hopefully last well into the future,” she said.
