Interterm, spring 2022 study abroad canceled

An email from Chapman Provost Norma Bouchard announced the cancelation of all international study abroad programs for interterm, spring break and spring 2022. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director.

Provost Norma Bouchard alerted Chapman faculty, staff and students Oct. 6 that international study abroad programs for interterm, spring break and the spring 2022 semester were canceled, while domestic programs would remain as scheduled, for now. 

“As these decisions are made, they're not done in a silo, and there are a lot of professionals that are involved in this,” said Kristin Beavers, who serves as the director for Global Education. “I know that the COVID-19 task force for the university, which includes the health officials and higher level officials at Chapman, have input into the health and safety of students.”

Jodi Hicks, the assistant director of the Center for Global Education, expanded on Beaver’s point, clarifying that the move to bar international travel courses was made in accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a U.S. Department of State database that lists all ongoing travel advisories by level of caution required for travelers on a scale of one to four. 

Ultimately, Bouchard, who also functions as Chapman’s executive vice president and chief academic officer, had the final say on the matter, Beavers said. Since the majority of the countries where students were planning to travel to were levels 3 — meaning individuals should “reconsider travel” — and 4 — meaning individuals should “not travel” — the trips were sweepingly canceled. 

“We have (students wanting to travel to) seventeen countries that were at level four — that’s the highest risk — and nine countries at level three,” Bouchard said. “The CDC has issued a travel advisory to these locations, and so I felt it was in the best interest of the students, the faculty and the staff to put a pause.”

The announcement stirred up a mixture of emotions for students who were eager to study abroad, many of whom had been holding on to the hope of taking classes internationally since the programs were restricted at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beavers told The Panther she sympathizes with students who longed for this experience.

“Your disappointment is our disappointment,” Beavers said. “This is our fourth time we’ve had to cancel programs. Our job is to get students to have an international experience, so it's been an emotionally exhausting rollercoaster over the last two years.”

After a series of  previous cancelations, the Center for Global Education was actively planning to send students abroad as soon as January 2022 as recently as a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Beavers said all this departmental work will go to waste.

“For us as a team, we’ve done all this work, we have all of these students that are interested and want to go abroad and then (we) have to cancel,” Beavers said. “Trust me, your emotions are attached to our emotions as well.”

According to Hicks, The Center for Global Education plans to hold an information session to tell students about alternative options they can participate in, like international internships — which are now open for summer 2022 — and future semester programs. 

For those who will no longer be eligible to study abroad as Chapman students, there are still opportunities that will allow for an international experience post graduation, like the Fulbright internship, a student program that provides grants for individually designed study and research projects or for English Teaching Assistant Programs.

Students who were supposed to go abroad in spring 2022 can switch to the semester program in Washington, D.C. for the spring. Additionally, domestic interterm 2022 travel courses are still slated to continue as planned, but Hicks said these programs will have a limited number of spots and are filling up fast, as the applications are due Oct. 21.

“(This) was not a decision that I took lightly,” Bouchard said. “I am a big champion of international initiative and all kind of global initiatives for students; those are such high impact practices and are so important to students. But then, I felt that obviously safety came first, and up to now, the university has followed CDC guidelines. So, when you have travel advisories for these locations, I thought it was too much of a risk.”