Coronavirus concerns change spring break plans for hundreds of Penn State students, faculty
Penn State’s spring break starts next week, but coronavirus has upended the plans of hundreds of students, with the university pulling many from study abroad programs and spring break classes abroad.
The university is in the midst of transferring students from Italy to the United States after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the country’s coronavirus risk to a Level 3 travel advisory last week.
In addition, the university has canceled all spring break embedded courses to countries including Vietnam, Switzerland and Italy due to coronavirus concerns.
“We understand that this decision is disappointing to many in our community, but it was not made lightly,” said Nicholas Jones, executive vice president and provost, in a press release. “We made this decision out of an abundance of caution, understanding that things like quarantine requirements, available transportation options, and open and accessible public sites vary from location to location, and are changing daily. Some countries appear to be low-risk right now, but that could change at any moment and there could be significant disruptions for our students while abroad and upon their return.”
The university also convened 12 “action teams” focusing on “confronting the threat and managing the risk the situation presents our community,” he said in a video. Those teams are focused in communications, campus health preparedness and response, study abroad and international student support and commencement, among other things.
Jadrian Wooten, an associate teaching professor in the department of economics, said he was “devastated” for the students enrolled in his now-canceled embedded course in Switzerland, particularly the seniors who would be graduating in May.
“They’re a really good batch of students. They’ve met each other, they made friends (in the class),” he said. He added, “Two of them got passports. They’d never traveled abroad before. So they got passports for this trip.”
The course, which required co-enrolling in another economics class, would have explored government, natural resources and trade in Switzerland. They planned to visit the United Nations, World Trade Organization, wineries in the French Alps dealing with climate change and a concentration camp, among other things.
Wooten said that many who were enrolled in the course wish they’d been given some prior indication that the trip could be canceled. But an email from the university last Friday assured everyone in courses outside Italy and South Korea that their trips were still on schedule, he said.
Maria Truglio, professor of Italian and women’s, gender and sexuality studies, said it was “heartbreaking” to see so many students’ study abroad plans upended.
“So far none of our students have been forced to late enroll here since the program they were pursuing in Italy has arranged for the spring courses to (be) completed remotely,” she said.
Penn State spokesperson Wyatt DuBois said the students who were studying abroad in Italy “are planning a variety of individual ways to get back to the United States.” WPSU reported that about 237 students abroad in Italy were affected by the changes.
Many are returning to their homes because they don’t have housing at University Park this semester, he said. The university is requiring anyone returning from a CDC Warning Level 3 country during the past two weeks to self-quarantine for 14-days if they are coming back to campus.
Penn State is working with all students who had booked university-affiliated travel to reimburse them for costs like canceled airfare and program fees, said a release. The university said it will not reimburse students for expenses related to personal travel.
Wooten said the Office of Global Programs would have to process refunds for over 1,000 students and faculty enrolled in embedded courses across University Park and the commonwealth campuses.
Additionally, for students who don’t have housing over spring break, the Penn State Housing and Food Services are working to make on-campus residence hall rooms available.
Yet starting Monday, students and faculty will be on spring break through March 13. Many will be traveling to destinations within the United States, and some will travel internationally.
The global number of coronavirus cases rose to over 97,000 as of Thursday, with 176 cases reported in the U.S. Eleven deaths from the virus are concentrated in Washington state and California.
“The students are mad. The faculty are mad. But at the end of the day, I think everybody understands why (the classes were canceled),” said Wooten.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 3:23 PM.
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