By the time an international student walks into a classroom at Memorial University, they’ve already navigated a remarkable and complicated journey.

There’s a gauntlet of bureaucratic procedures and forms to finalize before an international student can even make their way to campus.

There are passports, study permits, vaccination records, health insurance and tax forms. There are travel and living arrangements. Then, when they finally arrive, there’s an unfamiliar landscape and an entirely new and unique culture.

No student can be expected to weave through these complexities on their own.

Fortunately, Memorial has a robust infrastructure to help international students find their way.

And that infrastructure was built with Dr. Sonja Knutson at the helm.

Dr. Knutson earned her Bachelor of Education in teaching English as a second language from Concordia University and completed her master’s in post-secondary education at Memorial. She went on to receive her doctorate from Memorial as well.

Her career here started in 1999 when she began teaching in the English as a Second Language Program and then accepted the role as manager of international student advising in 2001. That’s when she started helping international students make their way to Memorial.

Building the internationalization infrastructure was no small feat though. When Dr. Knutson took over leadership of international advising, Memorial’s inbound international student population was fewer than 400 students.

By 2012, under her stewardship, enrollment had soared to approximately 1,600. She designed integration and transition programs to support this dramatic growth while still maintaining a personalized and inclusive approach.

In 2015, as acting director of Memorial’s International Centre, Dr. Knutson was appointed to lead the newly created Internationalization Office, and she took on a sweeping university‑wide mandate to implement Memorial’s Strategic Internationalization Plan.

 

Dr. Sonja Knutson speaks during an Internationalization Office open house in 2019 as Dr. Noreen Golfman looks on. Photo by Rich Blenkinsopp from the Gazette.

 

This role was not merely administrative. It was transformative.

She co-ordinated support for international students, overseas programming, partnerships and government relations across all campuses.

She established internally funded grant programs to assist with mobility and oversaw an award‑winning online pre‑departure training module for prospective students. It was a holistic approach that included intercultural workshops to ensure that new students would be prepared to thrive both academically and socially on arrival.

Dr. Knutson’s influence extended beyond onboarding students. Her role included oversight of student exchanges, academic collaboration, overseas initiatives and externally funded projects.

Along with her administrative responsibilities, she has been an active scholar and educator. An adjunct professor in the Faculty of Education, she teaches graduate courses on the internationalization of higher education and supervises doctoral students, mentoring both local and international scholars.

She has written book chapters and presented at conferences worldwide. She also served on the board of directors of the Canadian Bureau for International Education for six years and chaired the International Education Leadership Knowledge Community at the National Association for Foreign Student Advisors.

Her dual identity as a scholar and hands-on administrator meant her leadership was informed by a rare synthesis of theoretical insight and real‑world experience.

By the time Dr. Knutson retired in 2024, international students accounted for 27 per cent of the student population at Memorial.

This marks a major cultural shift across all Memorial campuses. And with students from over 125 countries attending Memorial every year, the cultural diversity we enjoy today is thanks in no small part to Dr. Knutson’s determination.

What had once been nascent and dispersed — the various threads of international advising, mobility assistance and capacity building — was woven into a coherent and strategic tapestry under her leadership.

The Internationalization Office she shaped now operates as a well‑equipped, purpose‑driven hub, and students from all over the world continue to follow the routes she charted.

In honour of her contributions, Memorial supporters have made donations to Scholars at Risk, an organization determined to defend academic freedom and the human rights of scholars around the world.

In many ways, Dr. Knutson’s career exemplifies how international education can be both locally grounded and globally engaged.

She helped create the pathways that enable international students to navigate campus life. She fostered vibrant collaborations that bring global research to our province. And she structured institutional policies that reflect a more inclusive and globally oriented campus culture.

Much of what is now taken for granted in Memorial’s international programming originated through her efforts to help international students find their place at Memorial. And to welcome them with open arms.