Syracuse University Abroad hosted a forum Thursday to address concerns about studying abroad in countries experiencing unrest.

Four students who attended SU Abroad programs in Santiago, Chile and Hong Kong last fall discussed their experiences at the forum. Violent and nonviolent demonstrations have occurred in both Hong Kong and Santiago over the past few months.

“We are looking at uncertain times in various places in the world right now including the United States,” said Erika Wilson, assistant provost and director of SU Abroad. “We want to address concerns people have because an abroad experience should really be part of an SU experience.”

Administrators’ are mainly concerned with how students abroad are doing, not what’s going on in the country itself, said Seth Tucker, SU’s director of global safety and security. Students are provided with resources to keep themselves safe so they can make the right choices and be aware of the situations they’re in, he said.

When students go abroad, SU pays for International SOS, a medical and travel security services firm that provides administrators and students with information about countries they travel to, Tucker said.

SU Abroad is also a member of the Overseas Security Advisory Council, an organization that shares information between the U.S. State Department and the private sector about security concerns around the world.

“OSAC is a large part of the information we get in issues on the ground,” Tucker said.

There are also local directors for SU Abroad’s individual programs who understand the city and know the best way to deal with risks in the area, he said.

When there’s unrest in places where students are studying abroad, administrators gather information and come up with a plan to ensure the students are safe and well informed, Tucker said.

Protests in both Santiago and Hong Kong suspended public transportation. Local directors informed students about any changes in transportation and offered alternate routes, said panelist Pritika Seshadri, a junior who studied in Santiago last fall.

Panelist Eden Tafesse, a senior at SU who studied in Hong Kong, said SU Abroad staff sent emails and texts every morning explaining which city areas would be occupied that day.

“Although the protests were still going on, everything was very much predictable and regulated,” Tafesse said.

Students in Hong Kong had an app on their phones that told them how intense the protests would be each day. All the student panelists at the forum emphasized that they almost never felt unsafe abroad.

“As a woman of color, I would have definitely felt less safe being at Syracuse last semester than I felt in Hong Kong,” Tafasse said, referencing the string of bias-related incidents that have occurred on SUs campus since last November.

Student panelists also addressed how their experiences abroad impacted their perspectives and knowledge of life outside of the U.S. Students were able to learn about issues in the country with a better understanding of why they were occurring, said panelist Brian Bauer, a sophomore who studied in Hong Kong last semester.

“Having these first-hand experiences really heightened that sense of needing to be politically active and aware because there are a lot of people in the world who don’t have that privilege,” he said.

All panelists encouraged the audience to study abroad. Many described their experiences as “life-changing.”

“It’s not that you should study abroad despite uncertain times,” Seshadri said. “You should study abroad because of the potential that you will learn a lot and grow a lot from them.”

Published on February 6, 2020 at 7:07 pm

Contact Maggie: mehicks@syr.edu | @maggie_hickss