“It’s very racialized and very politicized”: International Educators Recount the Campus and Local Climate for International Students

International educators have served as the primary support system for international students and are responsible for supporting international students through navigating racist encounters often without feeling adequately prepared (George Mwangi et al., 2025; Yao et al., 2019). With a diverse learning environment model as our framework, our study explored how international educators in the United States make sense of their racialized local and campus contexts, specifically in their work with international students. Using a three-dimensional approach to narrative inquiry, we interviewed 31 participants from New York, Massachusetts, California, and Michigan who worked in international student and scholar offices. Our findings provide an overview of educators’ perceptions of how the campus climate was affected by racialized dynamics heightened by a global health crisis and growing racist nativism. From these findings, this study provides critical insights into the various components and actions that can impact the campus climate for international students.