Study abroad directors at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University have students scheduled to go to Egypt but are watching developments there with the anticipation travel plans could change.
BYU may shift students to another location in the Middle East for a study abroad scheduled to depart for Cairo at the end of August. But the U.'s Egypt program, based in Alexandria, has a May 18 departure. That doesn't give the school enough time to revise its plans if the political turmoil in Egypt makes it unsafe to take students there.
"The greater likelihood is that we would have to cancel the entire program if the situation doesn't settle down," said Mark Bean, associate dean and director of the U.'s Office of International Education/Study Abroad. At this point, the U. is still accepting students for the Egypt program, which has a March 4 application deadline. There are typically 20 to 25 students involved.
Meantime, the school typically watches U.S. State Department travel advisories, diplomatic advisories from countries like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, and often talks with other universities or directly with embassies in areas where there are potential safety concerns.
The U. also requires students and faculty to carry insurance that covers evacuation costs if conditions in a foreign country devolve into the kind of chaos currently playing out in Egypt. The current State Department advisory recommends Americans avoid Egypt or "should consider leaving Egypt as soon as they can safely do so" if already there.
BYU Arabic professor Dilworth Parkinson has lived in Egypt several times and finds the unrest there "just plain upsetting."
For the scheduled Cairo program this fall, "We have not made any decisions at this point but we have 60 students who are preparing," Parkinson said. "We are going to wait and see how things settle out, but we can't wait too long because it takes three to four months to set up a study abroad program." Alternate sites for the students studying Arabic include Morocco, Jordan or possibly Oman.
Parkinson said Egypt is the preferred destination because Egypt is the cultural center of the Middle East and because the dialect there is most useful for students. "Almost everybody in the Arab world can understand Egyptian Arabic," he said. "If you learn Moroccan Arabic or Iraqi Arabic, then if you went to another country you wouldn't be comprehended as well."
BYU's study abroad program in Egypt is also pivotal to advanced students because the entire third-year Arabic program rolls into the semester abroad. "It's an intense Arabic-language learning experience," Parkinson said.
BYU student Dana Davidson is part of the group planning on studying in Cairo fall semester. "It's really important because we don't have any exposure to natives here. So a language immersion over there will really improve our speaking and comprehension, so it's really necessary for a people like this."
She and other students have been following developments in Egypt closely.
"We're obviously pretty disappointed that we might not be able to go there, but my biggest concern is that the Egyptian people get what they need and what they want out of a government," Davidson said. "So if it means we can't study there, so be it. I'm OK with studying somewhere else."