From Italy and China to a ship currently docked in Mauritius, East Africa, U.S. students and universities are grappling with the travel ripple effects of the novel coronavirus.
Syracuse to students: Leave the country, and soon On Feb. 25 students gathered outside at Syracuse University's campus in Florence, Italy, thinking university officials would host a Q&A about the coronavirus situation.
Instead, they wereMany started crying, called their parents and panicked, according to 21-year-old junior bioengineering major Sammi Abate, of New York. Abate had never been to Europe before and planned to take all her non-engineering courses during the semester. She remembers asking her parents about the new coronavirus as news reports cropped up. Then it suddenlyHer friend and roommate, Isabel Golan, a 21-year-old junior psychology major, was heading back to Florence after a trip to Interlochen, Switzerland, when she heard about Milan on Feb. 23. The bus had planned to stop in the city, ultimately stopping in an auto shop because so much of the city was under quarantine. Students felt mixed about the start of the Italian outbreak."It would go back and forth," Abate told USA TODAY."One day you would feel like 'oh it's fine it's not a big deal.' And then the next you'd be like 'Ah, it's getting kind of bad and spreading quick and like, this isn't great.'" Syracuse's Florence program included 342 students. Some students opted to stay in Europe while others headed home; classes will resume online after spring break. Syracuse is offering room and board for these students –though they aren't allowed back in any university building or facility for another two weeks upon their return to the U.S., consistent with CDC guidelines, according to Sarah Scalese, Syracuse's senior associate vice president for communications. Abate chose home, with a pit stop in London to visit friends. It was a tough choice, and she thought:"Am I gonna regret this the second I get back and have nothing to do while everyone's still in Europe?" Student booking agent Advantage Travel paid for her flight rebooking. Scalese said the school is covering change fees associated with the quick departures from Italy. Golan chose to stay in Europe and spoke to USA TODAY from London. She's planning to head to Morocco and Ireland, for spring break. "It's not necessarily safer for us to go home, especially because there wasn't really any direct danger in Florence," Golan said."I'm still here in Europe because I feel like being in Europe is just the same as me going home."Lizze Heintz, a journalism major from Emerson College, is one of about 580 students withThe current semester began in port city Ensenada in Mexico on Jan. 4, where the ship then crossed the Pacific. It stopped in Hawaii Jan. 12 and was in Japan Jan. 24 to 28. Students first heard about the virus right before stopping in Japan. The ship was supposed to disembark in China next but didn't as concerns grew because of the virus. The virus originated in Wuhan, a city in China's Hubei Province. Students headed to Vietnam from Feb. 4 to 16. Students on the ship have limited internet access , and most of the information they receive is directly from the captain and deans on board. The next two scheduled stops in Malaysia and India were canceled, and students were told the ship would stop in Seychelles in East Africa. But then came another change-up: Seychelles barred the ship from entry because of coronavirus concerns,"regardless of proof that we did not have any passengers on board with it," Heintz said."We had been at sea 11 days, but the captain offered to sail around for three additional days so we met the incubation period. They still refused." Mauritius, an island nation in East Africa, granted the ship safe harbor on Feb. 29, though not before medical screenings, including a temperature scan, for those on board. Students returned to the ship for a couple days due to port availability but went back Tuesday. This hasn't assuaged students' fears, however. It's unclear if future ports will let them in, including a scheduled stop in Cape Town, South Africa, in mid-Mach. "It’s hard to feel optimistic knowing they could turn us away at any point," Heintz said."I didn’t think the outbreak would ever get so bad to a point where we’d be turned away like in Seychelles. It caught us all really off-guard."Amanda Walencewicz is a 24-year-old student at Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center's graduate certificate program in Chinese and American studies. She had been studying in Nanjing, China, since September and was on a six-week break for the Chinese New Year in Japan when she found out her return to campus would be delayed – and then canceled. Now, she's in her second week of online classes using Zoom conference calls from her home in Detroit. The plan is for classes to be held online until at least the end of March, but as of now that timeline is indefinite."Should the predicted date be extended, we will continue to deliver course content virtually, and students will be informed of our decision no later than March 9," Miji Bell, director of communications & media relations at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, told USA TODAY. According to Walencewicz, communication has been chaotic from the university. The university says it has communicated frequently. "As a student on financial aid, trying to book a last-minute, one-way flight back to Detroit was kind of a nightmare," she told USA TODAY. The costs of it all are still weighing on her. "Hopkins has thus far not made any indication they will cover any charges," Walencewicz said. Bell told USA TODAY it shared with students the options regarding leave of absence or withdrawal applications, as well as how to work with the financial aid office regarding housing, travel costs and related expenses incurred. Students who paid for housing will get a pro-rated housing credit.Hannah Williams was going to go to South Korea for the semester, set to arrive on Feb. 25. Her host university in the country, Ewha Woman’s University, pushed the start date back a few weeks due to the coronavirus prior to the outbreak there."Of course I was devastated, disappointed and worried because now I am stuck figuring out how to replace the classes I would have taken abroad for my majors so that I can still graduate on time," Williams said. She can't return to Agnes Scott College in Georgia because it's too late in the semester, and now she can't earn credits this semester. USA TODAY has reached out to Agnes Scott College for more information. Her efforts to get a scholarship from her college to cover most of her expenses is now for naught. If it were up to Williams, she'd be in South Korea right now despite the outbreak.Not easy for universities, either Peyton Olechna, a finance and marketing double major, arrived in Florence, Italy, on Jan. 29 and was just getting used to her program at Florence University of the Arts when she found out Fairfield University in Connecticut was canceling it. She says the university wants to bring students back on March 16 and have them take online or accelerated classes. She said the university wanted them to stay on campus through the summer, even though that would be a hassle for those with internships and jobs. Some students may decide to take summer online courses, which would be at no cost to them, to stay on track to graduate, though those are individual cases, according to Jen Anderson, vice president for marketing and communications at Fairfield. Bringing the 142 students home at this point was an important factor to keep students on track for their graduation dates, Anderson told USA TODAY. The university is working to help students physically come to campus to finish their semester, setting up online and hybrid courses and working through free on-campus housing logistics. "It's very unorganized right now," Olechna said. Booking agent STA Travel absorbed the cost of her flight back to the U.S. Anderson noted that the back-end work universities face now is no easy task: Making sure students don't lose their credits, financial aid and more. "People always focus on the students and the , experience which I think is a very, very large part of it," Anderson said."But I also think when you think about the footprint of campuses and the fluctuation of students in and out, that's an important component of it, too."
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