STUDY ABROAD

Pandemic snubs study abroad

Faculty-led programs traveled to Italy between 2017 - 2021. Texas A&M students Catherine Schultz (left) and Russell Linnemeier (right) visited historic and iconic sites throughout the country. With travel restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas A&M Education Abroad refunded students over $4.2 million due to cancellations.

Education Abroad hopes to return following pandemic shutdown

By Katen Adams

Despite many program cancellations affected by the ongoing pandemic, six Texas A&M programs have allowed some Aggies to study abroad in the past 19 months.

Since the lockdown in March 2020, study abroad has been less fortunate. Holly Hudson, director of Texas A&M Education Abroad, said the program has sent four faculty-led programs that departed early fall 2021, and two field trips led by faculty departing in November. The College of Architecture sent faculty-led programs to Germany, Italy and Spain, and the Biomedical Sciences program traveled to Costa Rica, Hudson said. In November, the Psychology England, Ireland, Scotland Educational field trip is planned to run, as is the Germany International Studies field trip.

Programs began bringing students home from abroad late February 2020, Hudson said. There are over 100 faculty-led programs and 5,648 average students traveled annually, but throughout the last year, the majority of them were canceled, Hudson said.

“We returned probably 700 students from abroad,” Hudson said. “It impacted probably well over 2,500 students in terms of cancellations.” Hudson said.

Hudson said Education Abroad managed to facilitate a total of 790 experiences — 127 virtual and 663 in-person — during the 2021 academic year, mostly for students required to study abroad for their degree program.

“We want students to travel, but only if it’s safe,” Hudson said. “We want to make sure we are not being unethical … that we are making good ethical decisions and not being a burden on our host country.”

Financially, a total of over $4.2 million was refunded to students, according to the Education Abroad report. This academic year, the Education Abroad Office hopes to be at 55 percent of the normal number, with around 2,700 students traveling, Hudson said.

The lack of enrollment was the main factor in canceling the spring COMM to Italy program, Cara Wallis, program coordinator said. Wallis said many changes went into the program, such as housing two students per room instead of three, and a focus on coach- and bus-related travel instead of trains, which raised costs due to pandemic safety.

Vaccination requirements in Italy were not implemented until after the program was scheduled to run, Wallis said, and the students who had already signed up were notified.

“The last time we were able to do the program, we were not able to do the whole program because it was spring 2020,” Wallis said. “We were optimistic that spring 2022 we would be able to do it.”