It shouldn't surprise anyone that college students from diverse cultures have strongly held points of view that can conflict with each other, especially when nationalism inflames an issue.

On an American school's campus, international students, as they're called, sometimes have to be persuaded not to act out disputes from their homelands.

Dickinson State University officials seem to have done well in defusing a situation in which students from China became upset over a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker, and a back-and-forth dispute between students emerged. It wasn't violent, but a female student must have felt intimidation when a group of Chinese students, seeing her bumper sticker, surrounded her car.

Spring semester has ended at DSU, but international students are apt to stay the summer rather than travel to their homelands. Amazingly, of DSU's students, 400 of them are from 30 different countries.

"Free Tibet" has become a popular cause to the point of having Hollywood stars seeking audiences with the Dalai Lama in his exile.

The spiritual leader has said he wishes Tibet could be autonomous. China asserts vigorously that Tibet is indivisibly part of China.

When there are loyal, patriotic Chinese students in close quarters with students of Tibetan background and their Nepalese sympathizers, there are bound to be tensions.

The fortunate report is that mediating went on, and the director of multicultural affairs is said to have been adept in facilitating dialogue and learning. That's exactly as it should be.

DSU has been quite intentional in fostering internationalism. Its Global Awareness Initiative has multiplied American students' contacts with people from around the world and taken those students to places far and wide.

Becoming a multicultural institution, DSU moved at a fast pace, getting under way in 2000. It's had to deal with students' experience of massive culture shock, language issues and now a conflict from halfway around the globe.

The foreign students also have to learn about the U.S. concept of free speech. If people want to have a "Free Tibet" rally that doesn't disrupt the peace and learning atmosphere, they should feel free. It's precisely the same permission as the Chinese students banding together to design pro-China T-shirts, some saying "No" to the notion of an independent Tibet.

DSU had the right idea in its global initiative, declaring as one of is goals, "To foster the ideal that individuals can contribute to world peace through education, understanding, tolerance and interaction with people from other cultures."

Sometimes that's easier said than done, but the college, as always, certainly will have another opportunity to teach multiculturalism when students gather on campus some months from now.