Early one Sunday morning in January, Study Abroad Director Bill Anthony came across startling news: Egypt was on the verge of an uprising, and a Northwestern student was in the midst of it in Cairo.
The drama in Egypt, which would spill over elsewhere in the Middle East, illustrated new challenges faced by the Study Abroad Office as it works to keep students safe abroad.
Some of the larger events marking the last few years include SARS, bird flu, the train bombings in Madrid and the nuclear disaster following last summer’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
In response, the University has started an initiative to create a staff position responsible for overseeing international safety and security, Anthony told The Daily in an interview.
The new position demonstrates the University is looking to address the need for specificity within its travel warning policy, meaning officials may be able to reevaluate recently cancelled trips to such places as Mexico, Egypt and Madagascar on a regional basis.
Caught amid revolution
Feb. 1, 2011: Cairo seizes the world’s attention and with one voice sings out, “Biladi, biladi, biladi…” (My country, my country, my country).
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians converged in Tahrir Square to rally for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The long-time ruler announced that evening he would not run in the next election. Defending his decision not to resign immediately, he called it a choice “between chaos and stability.”
Feb. 2, 2011: Fire, gunfire and Molotov cocktails; pro-regime thugs and plain clothes police; stones in the air and blood on the ground; Anderson Cooper punched in the head on live TV.
That night the State Department tweeted: “All remaining U.S. citizens who wish to depart Egypt on a USG flight should report to airport immediately. Further delay is not advisable.”
Since August, SESP senior April Stewart had been studying in Cairo, living six blocks from Tahrir Square. What she didn’t see of the emerging revolution first-hand, she could hear.
At the time, communication in and out of Egypt was virtually impossible. No Internet. Almost all phone lines were cut off.
But at 4 a.m. Monday morning Stewart got a call from International SOS, the travel and security agency with which NU requires students studying abroad to register. There was a flight out that would take her first to Paris for three days and then back to the U.S. She took it.
When Stewart left Dokki, the Cairo neighborhood where she had moved into an apartment, residents had formed a local watch program. Stewart told The Daily part of her wanted to stay, but she had lost power and Internet access, and local food supplies began to dwindle.
“It (leaving) seemed like the best choice logistically and safety-wise,” she told The Daily at the time, while contending that she was never in imminent danger.
Keeping a close eye
Anthony was working on the ‘situation’ in Cairo from the moment the State Department called it such, which turned out to be one Sunday morning in late January.
“When something breaks like that, you drop what you’re doing and you start getting information,” he said. “You gather information from all sources and try to figure things out: How many students do we have there? Where are they? Which program? And how can we reach them?”
The events rapidly unfolding would later prompt the Study Abroad Office to reassess its approach to risk assessment. In the meantime, they had a student to find.
Within a few hours, Associate Director of Study Abroad Alicia Stanley was in the office searching the database. Anthony was calling New York, where the program Stewart was studying under was based: an all-out search was underway.
By the next day they found Stewart.
Not unlike many other students trying to immerse themselves in the culture abroad, Stewart had moved out of the housing provided for her at The American University in Cairo and into her own apartment downtown. The change of address temporarily stalled the University’s search for Stewart.
International SOS called Anthony. It was 4 a.m. in Cairo, the representative explained, and they needed the green light to call her. A flight was ready to take her out of the country the same day, and Anthony gave University approval.
When pressed on why he made the decision not to wait, he describes the Study Abroad Office as “an office bound just as much by moral imperatives as by legal ones.”
Risk reassessment
Ultimately, no matter what the study abroad director says, it is the student’s decision to make. The office can strongly encourage a student to leave on safety grounds, but the University cannot simply pull a student out of a country. In Stewart’s case, she decided to leave.
NU’s official policy, as it stands, is that the University “will not operate, pay for, supervise, direct, or otherwise support a study abroad program, research program, or other course or program for any students (undergraduate, graduate, professional) in a portion of a country where a Department of State Travel Warning is in effect.”
It does make a few exceptions, but only for special cases in which the program or experience is so unique it could not be substituted somewhere else. For instance, when NU stopped sending students to Mexico a few years ago, it moved a Public Health trip to Chile instead.
After the events of February, the Study Abroad Office announced it would not process pending Fall Quarter applications for Egypt-based programs.
Currently, 33 countries are listed on the State Department’s Travel Warning list. Included are North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and less high-profile countries such as Haiti, Mexico, Israel and the Philippines.
Much has changed since the winter. In Egypt, political stabilization enabled the State Department to lift its warning. But in the wake of the events in Cairo, NU has continued to examine its travel policies.
Echoing the words of Anthony, Associate Provost Ron Braeutigam confirmed NU is seriously considering revising it to make it more area- and region-specific.
“The use of the State Department Travel Warning list is probably on the conservative side, but the conservative side is making sure safety comes first,” Braeutigam said. “That’s not a policy that would necessarily be immutable. We’re always looking at all of our policies and possible ways of changing them.”
In addition to the information International SOS already provides, NU officials said they hope the new risk assessment position will help make that more possible.
Anthony said NU is not alone in trying this approach. Cornell, Harvard and Georgetown universities have all made similar hires recently, and Michigan State and Brigham Young already have well-established positions.
Stewart’s experience in Cairo last year was not unique. Other students interested in countries with ongoing security concerns have expressed their own frustrations with the lack of flexibility in the University’s policy.
“As a policy, I can see why it’s in place,” said Medill senior Blake Sobczak, who studied in Cairo last fall. “Me, personally, at this stage in my life, I want to act as a free adult.”
Besi
de the Arab Spring, Anthony has also worked through the SARS outbreak, bird flu and the Japan tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis last summer.
The University responds to each event according to its details, he said, and not every one merits making a recommendation for the student to evacuate.
“For example, in an outbreak of bird flu, unless you’re playing with chicken sh*t, then you’re likely not to be in too much danger,” he said. “While something like (Egypt) breaking loose, which seemed like it might spread, was serious.”
