As Syracuse University’s campus opened its arms in a warm welcome to its students this fall, accompanying university-wide activities are in the process of being rolled out. This is despite  COVID-19 cases rising amongst a mostly vaccinated population of students, faculty and staff. 

Large planned events such as SU football games and prospective student tours are, as of now, projected to move forward at full steam ahead on the university’s main campus. With SU’s home campus returning to mainly in-person activities, should its study abroad locations in countries across the world do the same?

Currently, the school’s programs for London, Madrid, Florence, Strasbourg and Santiago are slated to accept students for the spring of 2022, for a complete semester of study in their respective regions. But these plans appear particularly tenuous when considering the fact that these countries have not rolled out mandated vaccine requirements for incoming travelers. These issues are not just going to affect SU students in the future — they are happening right now. Currently, SU abroad has students in multiple countries that do not have full vaccine requirements for travelers.

SU Abroad, however, requires all participants to be fully vaccinated at least two weeks before departing for any program unless they have an approved medical or religious exemption. “Not only will the vaccine have a direct and positive impact on the quality of your study abroad experience, we anticipate vaccine requirements being issued by destination governments in the very near future,” an April 15 update from SU Abroad reads.

These statements seem to be pragmatic words of guidance to prospective study abroad students, but they underscore an essential question of what studying abroad is like today. Are we sacrificing host countries’ overall stability, well-being of their citizens and socioeconomic stability in order to host entire campuses of foreign students, purely for the sake of traveling experiences? 

“COVID-19 will be a feature of our lives for the foreseeable future, so we need to learn to live with it and manage the risk to ourselves and others,” the United Kingdom’s government website reads. Guidance from other countries with SU Abroad campuses, such as Italy, echo these warnings and notices. 

For the most part, regions in Europe seem to be recovering well amidst rising vaccination rates despite the ever-spreading nature of the delta variant. About 64.4% of the United Kingdom’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Friday, according to Our World in Data. The countries of France and Spain, where Syracuse has its Strasbourg and Madrid partnership sites, respectively, have comparable vaccination rates. 

Spain is sitting at 75% fully vaccinated as of Thursday, and France follows at about 62.5% fully vaccinated. Compare these statistics with that of the United States, whose population is 53% fully vaccinated, and the concept of inviting legions of students to pass through various international borders perhaps becomes a great deal more complicated.

SU as an institution has been actively taking a stance of endorsing widespread student travel. The marked uplift in restrictions to the university’s operations comes as a great relief to many students, who have been trapped behind screens for the better part of a year. It may be too soon, however, for sanctioned international travel to become a priority and an accepted practice. 

Given these countries’ own efforts to restore some semblance of economic and civic balance back into daily life, it is therefore both SU and its students’ responsibility to safeguard the tentative trust that these countries have given them — especially as it represents an ethical obligation to be safe in a world still recovering from COVID-19. Regardless of the fact that I personally have hopes of studying abroad in London in the spring, it remains crucial that I, along with every other student representing SU, stay cognizant in remembering the moral considerations of international travel during a pandemic.

Study abroad programs do offer a certain degree of immersion within exciting cities and countries, but we cannot forget that students studying abroad are guests within their respective locations. It is a privilege, not a right, to be able to study in a country other than your own. This is particularly true in a pandemic, where vaccine inequity and economic instability present themselves as all-too-real obstacles in countries’ progressions towards recovery.

Ultimately, SU students should begin their ventures into abroad experiences with respect for their host countries and the efforts they’ve taken to curb the spread of COVID-19. During a pandemic, exercising caution is essential for ensuring the well-being of the campuses they’re attending and the citizens of their host countries.
Eleanor Chapman is a junior english and textual studies major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at [email protected].

Published on September 12, 2021 at 8:55 pm