On March 9, 2020, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance for campuses to “consider postponing or canceling upcoming student international travel programs” and “consider asking current program participants to return to their home country” due to the COVID-19 crisis. Getting students home safely, especially with more than a thousand students abroad, is no small feat.
Trusteeship spoke with Martha Johnson, assistant dean of learning abroad at the University of Minnesota, about the steps and logistics in getting students abroad back to the United States. Overseeing one of the largest education abroad offices in the country, which sends more than 4,000 students abroad annually, Johnson leads the Learning Abroad Center’s innovative international learning experiences for a diverse population of students, colleagues and staff, which offers a variety of program options—250 programs in more than 70 countries—to address the diverse needs of students.
What were the decisions made and the steps you took to bring home more than 1,100 students from abroad programs in light of the COVID-19 pandemic?
This was a process and series of decisions. We started by cancelling programs in China on January 28 and finally required all students around the world to depart their programs on March 15. Between those two dates, however, we addressed programs based on a combination of State Department warnings and CDC warnings. On February 26, we instituted a daily “situation room” at 9:00 a.m. every morning for various campus and system stakeholders. That model allowed us to create a daily plan and delegate effectively. Ultimately, serious concerns about the trend towards closing national borders and cancellation of flight routes led us to determine students should depart immediately. I believe our timely decisions contributed to our students’ successful return. We had constant communication and support from university leadership, but trust and autonomy in our decisions saved time and allowed us to respond quickly.
What was the most difficult aspect of bringing home students during this crisis?
The hardest aspect was tracking the travel logistics. Flights were being cancelled as soon as they were booked, airports were closing, airline call centers were overwhelmed and unresponsive. During the height of the travel for students in Europe the TSA stopped international flights to Minneapolis/St Paul Airport, which was many of our students’ ultimate destination. Students’ flights were being cancelled and rerouted as they travelled. We also worked with the university to identify housing for students who needed to self-isolate and could not go to their homes for various reasons.
What changes will your study abroad program make in the future or lessons learned from the experience that you can share for other campuses?
We do not buy or organize individual plane tickets for students on semester programs. But we quickly saw that the usual system was not working, so we decided to have our trusted travel agency purchase tickets for students from locations like Senegal, Ecuador, and Morocco immediately rather than require the students to make the changes themselves. The system is hard enough for a student to navigate under normal circumstances and this was a system meltdown. We are very proud of this decision. There was an up-front cost to all of those tickets but compared to the cost of stranded students, both in terms of duty of care and public relations, it was one of the best decisions we made. Our philosophy was just to get the students out and sort out the finances later. We will likely add this sort of protocol to our emergency plans for the future.
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