The Last Student

In early 2011, political turmoil had taken its toil on Egypt and University of Minnesota officials quickly evacuated their three students who were completing study abroad programs there. However, they forgot one.
When Stacey Tsantir, the university’s director of international health, safety and compliance, found out that there was a University of Minnesota student stuck in the Cairo airport, Tsantir said, “Surely, he’s not our student.” But the student was from the University of Minnesota and there was no record that he had even left campus, Tsantir said, although the university advises their faculty members to report student travel.
After contacting the student, Tsantir said she called the student’s mother. “The first words out of her mouth were, ‘I didn’t think anyone cared about my son,’” said Tsantir. "If that's not close to my worst nightmare, I don't know what is." The student eventually made it safely home, but this story has added to higher education officials’ growing oversight of international travel.
According to an article called "Tracking Travel", political unrest in the Middle East and natural disasters in Japan are recent tragedies that have highlighted the risks in sending students abroad without proper training and safety procedures. "If someone's injured or hurt, the question is always going to be asked of the university, 'Shouldn't you have known?' " said Bill Powell, an area executive vice president for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. who specializes in higher education.
The number of students studying overseas has more than doubled since the 1990s, according to the Institute of International Education, a New York-based nonprofit. Close to 274,000 students left the U.S. during the 2010-2011 academic year, up from about 130,000 in 1998-1999.
While abroad, many students conduct research, work internships or volunteer in service work outside of the academic year. Students are also choosing to travel to more countries. The top 15 destinations in 2010-2011 included England, France, Brazil, India and Mexico. South Korea, recently threatened by its nuclear-armed neighbor to the north, was No. 23 on the list, attracting nearly 2,500 U.S. students.
Tsantir, who also serves on the ClearCause Foundation’s board of directors, said that the University of Minnesota’s policy regarding students studying abroad was put in place in 2004 and urges faculty to make sure that students develop an emergency communication plan, obtain international health insurance and take other safety precautions before leaving the United States. Tsantir said that about 99 percent of undergraduates and their advisors follow this policy, while only 75 percent of graduate students comply with the policy. The University of Minnesota has approximately 65,000 students in their five campuses with about 5,000 students traveling abroad in any given year. Without the necessary tools and safety preparations for their time abroad, these students may be at huge risk while overseas.


Source:
Berg, Joel. "Tracking Travel." RiskAndInsurance.com. LRP Publications, 1 May 2013. Web. 5 June 2013. <http://www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=533353998>.