 "Photo: File photo")
Education professor Laura Eisenman thought she had a good idea for a study abroad program that would allow students in the disabilities studies minor to compare how the disabled are treated around the world. After a year of planning, she developed the five-stop 2010 Winter Session trip and began signing up interested students.
"We talked about doing a comparative study abroad program," Eisenman said. "Wouldn't it be interesting to go to several different sites where there would be different cultures and different situations that might help us understand the broader experience of disability?"
However three months after she submitted her proposal and received preliminary approval, university officials banned such "Around the World" study abroad programs as part of a new set of regulations, which took effect last month.
University officials later relented and allowed Eisenman's trip to continue, but this is the last year such a trip will be allowed.
In a March 3 memo sent to study abroad faculty directors, Vice Provost Havidan Rodriguez stressed the importance of keeping study abroad costs as low as possible in light of the weak economy.
"Given the short time frame of our study abroad program, the increased costs and liability issues that emerge with multi-site programs, these types of programs must be significantly reduced or eliminated," Rodriguez stated in the memo.
Eisenman's trip costs $7,513 for in-state students and $9,853 for out-of-state students. That puts it among the priciest of next winter's programs, but there are some single-stop programs that are more expensive, including a department of entomology and wildlife ecology trip to Australia that costs $8,613 for in-state students and $10,953 for out-of-state students.
Lesa Griffiths, director of the university's Center for International Studies, said the memo's directive means that "Around the World" programs that stop in several places will no longer be approved. Trips that visit two or three countries will be limited, but will be approved if the sponsoring professor can explain why visiting more than one country is academically beneficial.
Griffiths said the change was prompted by rising costs and the belief that multi-country trips do not allow for an in-depth study of a culture.
"When you're going to five countries in four weeks, you're spending a great deal of time on a bus or airplane with 24 other American students," Griffiths said. "You're not spending time in the local community."
She said it could also be a safety issue if a student were to get sick on a study abroad trip and require hospitalization. If the group moved on to another country, the student would be left alone in a foreign hospital, she said.
Eisenman said she was disappointed by the new regulations and appealed to the provost's office for an exception to the regulation.
"I won't argue that an in-depth study is not a good thing, but we've been careful about selecting places where we can make good contacts and engage them in meaningful ways," she said. "What we're giving up is the opportunity for some of the more cultural and fun excursions."
Eisenman said after several conversations with university officials, she received approval to continue the trip this winter.
Griffiths said one other "Around the World" program, a leadership trip run by professor Audrey Helfman, also received an exemption.
"Because they had invested so much planning, both appealed to the provost's office with their academic justifications and he is allowing them to both go for this year, then they will stop," she said.
Eisenman said it is a shame that she won't be able to continue the trip and take advantage of the contacts she will make this year. She said spending less time in more places can still be a valuable experience for students.
"They're going to have the opportunity to explore the ideas in depth and have the advantage of thinking about those ideas as they relate to these different contexts," she said.
Political science professor, James Magee, who has led several study abroad trips to Italy, said he agrees students are best served by a study abroad program focused on one country. Magee said multi-site trips require students to waste time traveling, rather than exploring the area they are staying in.
"You want kids to experience as much of a culture as possible," Magee said.
Magee was one of several veteran study abroad faculty directors who were asked to review the proposed regulations when the plans were being considered earlier this year by the vice provost's office and the Center for International Studies.
Griffiths said her office decided to re-examine the policies after noticing minor problems with the program.
"The program has grown so big and so fast and there's so much interest among faculty and students, it was just time to stop and give everyone a reminder," she said.
The new policy also limits the number of students allowed on any study abroad trip to 30. Previously, faculty could take as many students as they wanted to, sometimes more than 50, Magee said.
It also specifies that study abroad trips cannot begin before the official start of Winter Session. In past years, there has been an increase in the number of trips who leave early enough for students to spend New Year's Eve in their destination country.
Traveling between Christmas and New Year's Day, when the university is closed, could be an issue if there was a flight delay or other travel problems since the university's support services would be closed and not able to easily deal with the problems, Griffiths said.
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