On March 4, faculty, staff and international students woke up near the crack of dawn on Cornell's Ithaca campus to meet and greet students in the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) Foundation Program in the first videoconference between the two groups.

Focusing on "Cornell and diversity," the participants swapped ideas and information on everything from what it is really like to be an international student to where to find the best ice cream flavors in Ithaca.

The WCMC-Q students had lots of questions, including some on what the Ithaca students thought about their Doha counterparts and how much they knew about Qatar. The Ithaca group of predominantly Far Eastern graduate and undergraduate students was positive about the Cornell community's "terrific diversity" and acceptance of -- and interest in -- students from all over the world.

Krystyna Golkowska, senior lecturer in English in WCMC-Q's Foundation Program, a yearlong program to prepare students for the WCMC-Q premed curriculum, organized the encounter with colleagues in Cornell's International Teaching Assistant Development Program (ITADP) to establish a closer link between the two campuses and to make students aware of the value Cornell places on inclusiveness.

"International students arriving in Ithaca often come with stereotypes of what Cornell students are, the myth of the homogenous native speaker being one of them. At the same time, students and faculty on the main campus may assume there is no diversity on our Doha campus, which is not true either. The video-conference was meant to help both sides to get to know each other better," Golkowska said.

The exchange was also intended to prepare the foundation class for six weeks in the Cornell Summer College, June-July 2008.

"For many of the foundation students, it will be a culture shock," she said. "But it's going to be a very good experience for them to go to Ithaca and to gain confidence, once they find they are doing fine."

Theresa Pettit, senior lecturer in Cornell's Center for Learning and Teaching and director of the ITADP said, "Because of our diverse campus, we have encounters with people from different backgrounds every day. In my opinion, it's what makes the campus so rich. The [Qatar] students seemed very open and forthright ... very much like the students you would meet here."