Crisis, Compliance, and Care

Crises have become an ongoing condition in U.S. higher education, and international students experience these disruptions with heightened vulnerability because housing, work access, and legal status are tightly coupled to institutional decisions and federal regulations. To examine how institutional crisis responses shape international students' sense of belonging in the face of uncertainty, we introduce the Compliance and Care Matrix (CCM), a conceptual framework that treats compliance (legal-regulatory adherence) and care (accessible, humane, student-centered support) as intersecting orientations. We apply the CCM to five representative crisis vignettes from the past five years: COVID-19, student activism, visa revocations/SEVIS terminations, campus violence, and funding cuts. We argue that compliance is a necessary floor, but care is the scaffolding that makes compliance usable and belonging-affirming. We conclude with practical recommendations for integrated crisis communication, cross-unit coordination, culturally-responsive advising, and institutional advocacy.