On Sept. 11, Cammie Downing ’03 was preparing to depart for her semester abroad in Senegal when her plans were abruptly changed.
“I was driving to the airport when the second tower was hit and all planes were grounded,” she said. “Needless to say, I never took off that day.”
Downing was supposed to fly to Dakar, where she was to enroll in the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Studies in International Development program. However, her travel agent told her that another flight wasn’t available until the end of September-nearly three weeks late for the program.
On Sept. 14, Downing called Dean of Students Laurie Hamre to explain her situation. A few days later, she drove up to Macalester, found housing and classes, and enrolled as though it were a regular semester.
Downing’s experience is unusual. Of the 70 Macalester students who had planned to study abroad this semester, only two have altered their plans in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Study Abroad Coordinator Katherine Yngve.
The Institute for the International Education of Students, a Chicago-based organization that runs study-abroad programs for more than 130 colleges and universities, including Macalester, reports similar numbers. According to their website, only six of their students have opted not to go abroad this fall, while 970 are currently overseas.
Yngve also said that she hasn’t received any worried calls from overseas students. “Most of the calls I’ve gotten are just asking ordinary things, like ‘when do I get to register?’”
However, Yngve said, parents of study-abroad students have called her with questions and concerns.
Margalo Willard ’02, who is planning to study in Spain next semester, said her mother has expressed worry about her safety.
“My mom told me that, because Spain hasn’t declared its position, the atmosphere might not be friendly toward Americans,” she said.
Willard said she hasn’t decided what she’ll do.
“I waver back and forth every day,” she said. “On the one hand, this is perhaps my best chance to travel abroad for cheap. On the other hand, I want my mom to feel okay.”
In response to parental concerns, Yngve sent out a letter last Thursday outlining the extra safety precautions that are being implemented by study-abroad programs. These include reviewing emergency contact protocol with students, reminding students of appropriate behavior, and providing additional support services and late orientations for students whose travel plans have been interrupted.
Because Macalester generally does not run its own study-abroad programs, the exact nature of the precautions taken varies from program to program.
“By working with so many programs over so many years, we’ve built up a web of connections,” Yngve said. “We know these programs, we trust them, and we know what their crisis programs are.
“All of these safety protocols were in place before Sept. 11,” she continued. “Now we’re simply paying much closer attention to them.”
Most Macalester students study abroad in Asia or Europe. Undergraduate study-abroad programs in the Middle East are extremely rare, but there are exceptions. Macalester Classics Department Chair Andrew Overman leads a student archaeological dig in Omrit, Israel each summer. Overman, who has been working in Israel for 15 years, said that his familiarity with the region and the connections he has made allow him to ensure the safety of his students.
“We’re well connected,” he said. “We’ve run the program long enough to be aware of the potential dangers.”
Overman’s students stay at a kibbutz in northern Israel, one kilometer from the excavation site.
“It’s a pretty safe environment,” said Emily Duffelmeyer '03, who spent the last two summers in Israel with Overman. “It’s a self-contained community, so people know who we are, and we’re pretty much always surrounded by Americans.”
Safety was of special concern this summer, Overman said, due to the escalation of violence. The group’s trip to Jerusalem was shortened by one day and, due to the fact that most suicide bombings had occurred in crowded urban spaces, they decided to stay in a hotel outside the city.
While Overman is planning to take students to Israel this summer, he said that a continued escalation of violence-including violence aimed at crowds and tourists-might cause him to cancel.
Macalester students also have the option of directly enrolling in overseas universities. Patrick D’Silva '03, a classics major, spent this past summer studying Arabic at the American University in Cairo.
“Living in Egypt taught me quite a bit about how I am perceived by other people simply by virtue of holding a U.S. passport,” he said. “I and several of my friends experienced separate incidents where we were told quite bluntly by some Egyptians that while they may like us personally, they hated our country and its role in the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
D’Silva, whose father works for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was living in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, when U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were bombed by terrorists.
“It was sort of unreal,” he said. “It definitely changed how I had thought about being an American overseas. It made me think about how others perceive my government and its policies.”
While acknowledging that study abroad poses liability problems for Macalester, D’Silva said he feels that it is imperative for the United States to send students overseas at a time like this.
“Just as it’s very humanizing for us to meet Middle-Eastern students here at Mac, it’s humanizing for Middle-Easterners to meet us when we’re over there,” he said. “If you respond to tense times like these by sending students-provided you pay attention to physical safety-all that will do is increase understanding on both sides.”
He added, “I would rather we sent students than political delegates.”
Overman said his trips try to balance a focus on safety with an awareness of contested political issues.
“Macalester students came to this college because they want to be global citizens,” he said. “We’re not trying to hide any of this stuff.
“We know people on both sides of the green line,” Overman continued. “We have contacts in a number of different communities. For example, our travel agent is an Arab from East Jerusalem.”
Yngve feels the same way.
“Because we’re politically conscious at Mac, we knew that there was anti-America sentiment out there before Sept. 11,” she said. “We want to work against that.”
Yngve points to the fact that study abroad applications, which were due Oct. 5, are up 35 percent from the previous semester.
“We can’t say that it’s directly in response to the current global situation,” she said. “Maybe it’s just because there are so few students abroad this fall. We’re not sure.
“I think that because Macalester has been committed to internationalism for so long, we’re really ahead of the game,” she continued. “Our country is just starting to realize that we need to work harder at international understanding. Congress just doubled scholarship funds for America students studying abroad because the C.I.A is so short on foreign-language speakers.”
D’Silva is one of those students. He just won a National Security Education Program David Boren Scholarship, which encourages students who are considering careers in national security to study foreign languages abroad. He said he plans to spend next semester at the School of International Training in Morocco.