SETH MICHAEL MEYER
Special to The Leader
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last Wednesday that both SUNY and CUNY will call some of their study abroad students home.
In a health alert from the State University of New York, the directive details that SUNY and CUNY students studying in China, Japan, Italy, Iran and South Korea will be brought back to the United States and will go through a two-week quarantine.
[RELATED (from nytimes.com): CUNY and SUNY Classes will be held online]
Naomi Baldwin, the director for Fredonia’s Office of International Education reports that for Fredonia, this impacts four students who were studying abroad this semester. Two Fredonia students, along with two other SUNY students will be brought home from Fredonia’s Italian program. Baldwin’s office is also in contact with another Fredonia student studying in another SUNY school’s Italian program. Another affected Fredonia student saw their program cancelled before they could depart for South Korea.
Baldwin, in reference to Cuomo’s statement Wednesday, said students abroad could either arrange their own flight home or travel on group flights being arranged by the state.
“Students coming back on NYS chartered flights have a choice to self-isolate at home or go to a dorm,” Baldwin said.
The students were expected to start returning home over this past weekend.
The extent to which the evacuations will affect the students’ academics is still to be completely determined, though Baldwin notes that many programs are switching to an online format for students to complete their semester coursework.
Baldwin, who has worked in the international education field for 20 years, says this is the first time in recent memory of a virus being so disruptive for study abroad programs. Despite this global event, Baldwin urges students not to disengage from global learning.
“When we experience global events like this, I think it underscores the importance of building global competence skills and connections to people in other nations and from other cultures,” Baldwin said. “[It’s important to avoid letting] fear cause additional disturbance or social isolation.”
Though the cancellation of study abroad programs this semester poses disruption and challenges, Debbie Dibble, Director of Fredonia’s Student Health Center, says that Gov. Cuomo made the right call.
“The health and safety of the SUNY Fredonia students is of great importance to the university, whether they are pursuing their education at our home campus or anywhere in the world,” she said.
For Dibble and the rest of Fredonia’s administration, they hope that preventative care can stop the virus from arriving at Fredonia’s doorstep, but they aren’t wasting time implementing precautionary measures. Dibble explains that there is a multidisciplinary task force that has met to discuss preparations if COVID-19 became too close for comfort.
This time of year, Fredonia students are usually bombarded with emails about getting your flu shot, but this season COVID-19 has the world’s attention. This, Dibble believes, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I think that the news about COVID -19 has enhanced the importance of taking care of yourself, and being aware that there are simple actions that you can take every day to stop the spread of not only COVID-19 and the flu, but other cold viruses,” said Dibble.
Dibble urges students to take cautious measures in their daily lives such as thoroughly washing hands and avoiding sick people. For updates about the Coronavirus, students are asked to visit the Fredonia Health Center website.
On Monday the Coronavirus was reported to have infected 111 thousand people across the word, with nearly 4,000 deaths and 62,000 recoveries.