A push for legislation, in Congress and in statehouses, could increase government scrutiny of study abroad and expand the health and safety information colleges must report about courses overseas.
Educators fear that such measures, along with a recent multimillion-dollar court settlement to a student who fell ill on a school-sponsored trip to China, could cause colleges and study-abroad providers to pull back from destinations or programs deemed risky.
Such a retrenchment would run counter to a drive to ensure that more American students get an international experience. No less prominent figures than President Obama and the first lady have promoted study abroad in recent years, calling student exchanges critical to U.S. foreign policy. Experts in international education are also quick to point out that there’s little evidence to suggest that going abroad exposes students to greater risks than remaining on their home campus.
Yet efforts to impose more government oversight on a field that has previously been largely self-policed could be gaining momentum. Just last week, three U.S. senators asked Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to have the Education Department develop and issue safety guidelines for college and high-school study-abroad programs.
'Our Children at Risk'
The roots of the push for greater transparency and regulation go back to 2007, when a 16-year-old student, Tyler Hill, died of extreme altitude sickness after a hike on Mount Fuji while he was on an exchange program in Japan. After his death, Tyler's mother, Sheryl, said she was surprised to learn that there were no laws or regulations compelling the programs to reveal their safety records. After hearing from other families whose children had died while abroad, she contacted various federal agencies, only to be told it wasn’t their responsibility.
"No one investigates, governs, or sanctions programs that put our children at risk," she said.
Ms. Hill—who said she continues to support international study and has hosted four exchange students since her son’s death—founded theClearCause Foundation to advocate for greater oversight. The group’s first success came this year, when lawmakers in Ms. Hill's home state of Minnesota enacted legislation that requires colleges and study-abroad programs there to publicly report students' deaths, accidents, and injuries. A similar measure is being considered in New York.
Jodi Malmgren is director of international and off-campus studies at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minn. Reached by phone this week, she had just finished leading a three-hour workshop on complying with the new law. Like many of her counterparts at other Minnesota colleges, she said she doesn’t oppose the law but wonders if it serves the purpose of making students safer.
"The challenge of the legislation is that it focuses the attention on data collection," she said, noting that colleges are already required to reportsome safety statistics for programs abroad, under the federal campus-crime law known as the Clery Act. "And data collection doesn’t make students safer. Best practices do."
Accountability and Counting
Ms. Hill agreed that data collection alone won't ensure safety, although she added, "there's no accountability without counting." She backs a bill,introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, that would go further, not only requiring the reporting of additional safety statistics to the Education Department but also imposing a biennial review of programs based on the data. The bill is unlikely to go anywhere with members of Congress busy on the campaign trail, and the current Congressional session due to end in January, but the measure could be reintroduced next year.
Such a requirement worries study-abroad officials, who fear that it could create an additional, and unfunded, government mandate. That concern is echoed in the reaction to the recent letter from the U.S. senators, asking the department to write safety guidelines for study abroad. Educators point out that there is no shortage of existing resources for best practices in study abroad, including those from Nafsa: Association of International Educators, the Safeti (Safety Abroad First—Educational Travel Information) Clearinghouse Project at the University of California at Los Angeles, and the Forum on Education Abroad, a nonprofit group recognized by the U.S. government to develop standards, including for health and safety, for study abroad.
"It's careful planning, good communication, good orientation for students and families that will do more to protect students than any legislation or regulation," said William P. Hoye, executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Institute for the International Education of Students, which runs programs in more than 20 countries for some 225 colleges. Last year Mr. Hoye's organization laid out its own practices for preparing for and responding to emergencies and crises abroad in a 45-page document.
Ms. Hill countered that the current guidelines lack the teeth that laws or governmental regulations would have.
An Unattainable Burden?
Whether such measures can make it through either the U.S. Congress or state legislatures, of course, remains to be seen. More immediately, however, colleges may have to grapple with the fallout from the decision in the study-abroad liability case.
More than two dozen education groups signed on to a brief in an appeal of the lawsuit, arguing that a judge's decision to award nearly $42-million to a Connecticut private-school student who suffered brain damage after a tick bite on a trip to China would place an unattainable burden on educational institutions to prepare for and prevent all potential risks abroad, no matter how improbable.
Brian J. Whalen, president of the Forum on Education Abroad, one of the groups that submitted the brief, said the lawsuit had the "potential to stifle education abroad." As a result, he warned, colleges and provider organizations could avoid destinations, like developing countries that lack robust infrastructure, or activities designated as higher risk, including field work, research, and internships.
"It is about the unreasonable requirement to warn students about what is, in fact, unknown," he said in an email. "Programs may limit activities because it is impossible to meet this requirement."
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Drive-to-Make-Study-Abroad/149757