Niagara University is teaming with the Lewiston-Porter Central School District to assist international students. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley explains how the program works from high school to college.
"It's a really for our kids. It diversifies our population,” remarked Paul Casseri, Superintendent at Lewiston-Porter Central Schools.
The Lewiston-Porter Senior High School hosts an International program and has relationships with other schools in Argentina, Germany, France, Turkey and China.
“So we were working with some schools in Tianjin, China – specifically a Tianjin number two high school in Tianjin, China and have developed a very significant partnership and are now accepting F-1 Visa students. They come to us in their senior year and then they graduate from Lewiston-Porter with a New York State Regents diploma and then we send them on to great institutions, like Niagara University where we have sent quite a number of students to,” remarked Casseri.
Niagara University is in the Lew-Port School District which makes it ideal to for the schools to partner.

"We get a number of students and they're terrific young people,” said Niagara University President Father James Maher.
It's essentially a win-win for Niagara and Lew-Port. Father Maher explained by teaming with Lew-Port High School and its international students they can quickly learn about the University and what it has to offer. The program works as a recruiting tool.
“So our program is really to work with them to develop young people who come for their senior year and get acclimated to the campus and our attempt is to recruit them to come to Niagara and say this is a similar experience to Lew-Port of what you’ve had,” explained Maher.
Both Fr. Maher and Superintendent Casseri are excited about their partnership that works to enhance each of the school’s missions to education students.