Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The Global Campus

Study Abroad in Hot Spots

THE world is a perilous place. Just look at Northeastern University’s study-abroad record this past year: starting last April, the university was forced to suspend programs and evacuate students after State Department travel advisories in Thailand (anti-government violence); New Zealand (twice, for earthquakes in Christchurch in September and February); Egypt (revolution); and Japan (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis). The university had planned to team up with an institution in Tunisia but put that on hold after unrest there.

To function successfully abroad, universities — and students and parents — have to accept that uncertainty is the norm.

For students, that’s apparently not an issue. Many want a role in rebuilding, and first-hand knowledge of the politics that drive dissent and reform. Post 9/11, says Peggy Blumenthal, a senior counselor at the Institute of International Education, enrollment in study abroad to Islamic nations was expected to drop. Instead, it rose 127 percent from 2002 to 2006.

The American University in Cairo suspended its program after the State Department advisory in February against non-essential travel to Egypt. But many of the 325 Americans studying abroad there relished their front seat to history and didn’t want to leave, says the university president, Lisa Anderson. She says fall programs are under discussion, and if the advisory is lifted, she expects a “bumper crop” of students.

Most study-abroad sponsors base their decisions to suspend programs on the State Department warnings; advisories can trip insurance policies, leaving little choice but to evacuate students. (Federal aid for study abroad cannot be used in countries where there is an advisory.)

Dr. Anderson advises parents and students to attach to a “robust” institution, one that will assess a country’s risk level and put in place emergency procedures, including seemingly simple things like transportation to an airport or arranging to have belongings shipped home.

Companies like International SOS contract with universities to provide emergency assistance. They will find doctors, arrange evacuation travel, advise students in crisis, and assist parents in communicating with students. If the provider doesn’t enlist such a company, students can buy coverage independently. (A student from New York would pay about $160 for $1 million worth of ISOS coverage for a four-month trip to Japan.)

Universities will also help place students to finish off the semester. Most of the 69 study-abroad students who had to leave Temple University Japan are completing credits at the main campus in Philadelphia or online. Georgetown University students evacuated from Egypt were placed in other programs, including in Qatar and Istanbul, or went home. American University students were able to move to universities in Jordan and Morocco.

Study abroad in the Middle East and North Africa is small — 6,446 students in 2008-9, the latest year available. That includes about 480 in Jordan, 130 in Tunisia and 75 between Iran, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen (zero in Libya, down from 2 the previous year). Egypt had more than 1,800 study-abroad visitors.

Image
UPHEAVAL International SOS evacuating Temple University students from Japan. Turmoil in Egypt, top, and disaster in Japan.
Credit...International SOS, Left; Moises Saman for The New York Times, Top; Shiho Fukada for The International Herald Tribune

But whether programs resume in the fall depends on how the political process plays out. “We’re staying in Egypt assuming risk factors don’t escalate, or there is an appropriateamount of risk,” says Donna Scarboro, vice president for international programs at George Washington University. The difficulty in such assessments, she says, “is that Egypt wasn’t registering as a high-risk place last fall or spring.”

At George Washington, when the revolution started, protocols kicked in to evaluate the situation. “Sometimes it’s a matter of imminent danger,” she says. “Sometimes it’s evaluating transportation and resources. If the circumstances make it difficult for the student to study and learn, then the purpose is lost.”

Ultimately, the university activated its evacuation insurance plan. Despite the turmoil, applications are already coming in for fall. Such destinations offer “very powerful learning that students want to be a part of,” Ms. Scarboro says, and that schools want to provide.

Northeastern sees the upside, too, and allows students and faculty to petition its risk assessment committee to reinstate programs. So students do get to study in Israel, say, or Kenya (on condition they stay away from violence-prone border areas) and Lebanon (but not in the south), where enrollment of Americans was up 42 percent in 2008-9.

Denis J. Sullivan, who runs the university’s Middle East programs and has been taking students to Egypt for 18 years, has petitioned to return there for three summer sessions.

But it will be some time before many programs determine how to proceed in Japan — the 11th most popular study-abroad destination, with almost 5,800 participants.

Decisions will be based on the risk students and faculty members face living in the country. Feeling an earthquake and living with the fear of radiation is quite different than observing — or even taking part in — a political movement, as Bruce Stronach, the dean of Temple Japan, points out. Still, students are applying for fall study abroad there, and regular classes resumed on April 4.

Because Japan’s academic calendar is different than in the United States, Georgetown decided students in its spring study-abroad semester could not complete the term at its Washington, D.C., campus. The university is planning courses for them this summer, but its Japan plans are up in the air.

Katherine Bellows, executive director of Georgetown’s international programs, says students not specifically interested in Japanese culture and language are being encouraged to consider other Asian venues. “They spent almost a year getting ready to be in that culture,” she says. “They were so excited. To have to leave, or not get on the plane at all, it’s heartbreaking.”

Richard Rinaldi, a Georgetown junior, landed back at the D.C. campus after his study abroad in Egypt was cut short after just 10 days. “At times this semester, I look around and say, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” he says. “It was a way shorter but way richer experience than others get. People in their entire lifetimes will not witness what I saw.”

Georgetown hopes to be sending its students back to the American University in Cairo in the fall. “Safety comes first,” Ms. Bellows says, “but part of our mission is to teach students to navigate in this quickly changing world that is full of events that we can’t predict.”

Author id here

A version of this article appears in print on  , Page 26 of Education Life with the headline: Study Abroad in Hot Spots: If you go. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT