Higher education veteran joins Office of Student Life in 2024

Higher education veteran joins Office of Student Life in 2024

Betania Torres brings proactive attitude and years of experience to international student services and intercultural development.

By Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078 | 01/16/2025

In 2024, Betania Torres joined Lipscomb's Office of Student Life to oversee international student services and intercultural development.
The Florida-native and higher education veteran has worked in international student services and before that in admissions since 2005 in Florida. She came to Lipscomb from Southeastern University, a private, Christ-centered liberal arts university in Lakeland, Florida.

"Throughout my time in higher education, in any role, international students would gravitate to me," said Torres, who lived overseas for a year while teaching high school English and says she loves traveling, learning about new cultures and conducting international mission work.

Inspired by her relationships with international students, Torres proactively researched, proposed and developed Southeastern's first student services office for international students, beginning in 2016.

During her tenure at Southeastern, she served as director of admissions, director of operations for the Hispanic Leadership Center and director of international student services and enrollment.

"All my roles were in leading the charge for intercultural and international development, programming and enrollment recruitment, which led to immense growth over my tenure in the enrollment of diverse student populations," she said.

At Lipscomb, Torres manages the F-1 Student and Exchange Visitor Program and ensures Lipscomb follows Department of Homeland Security guidelines for its international students.

Lipscomb has more than 100 international students enrolled in any given year, and Torres, who considers herself a third-culture person, as she has Hispanic roots but was raised in the U.S., says she wants to provide them with the meaningful support they need to navigate a new language and culture.

"I know what it is like to live in a foreign country, all the challenges I went through, and I know that the people who helped me along the way did help me have a better experience, so I'm always going to be these students' biggest advocate. I know exactly how to relate to them," she said.

In her first semester at Lipscomb, Torres coordinated a highly popular Cultural Adjustment Dinner, providing a special time for Lipscomb's international students to engage with one another, fellowship and learn about the five stages of culture shock, which is "a normal process of adjusting to a new environment," said Torres.

Her future plans include developing a more comprehensive designated orientation session for international students at the beginning of the school year, she said.

In her role overseeing the Office of Intercultural Development (OID) Torres nurtures Lipscomb students to discover the benefit of ethnic and cultural diversity and serves as an advocate for underrepresented students, fostering an inclusive environment within the student body.

OID works toward building community on-campus through culture in various ways including offering convenient and accessible gathering areas for students such as the commuter lounge, OID conference room and OID study rooms; nurturing student affinity clubs and cultural organizations; and coordination of an intercultural breakout chapel option.

Five student interns help Torres hold various annual cultural events, programs and activities for Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month, Lipscomb's WOW (Welcome to Our Worlds) Week, and the OID breakout chapel.