Dear Students and Parents:

I write this letter to provide you with an update on the status of our off-campus programs planned for the spring 2002 term.  We are currently scheduled to send ninety-five students to nine different foreign and domestic locations during the upcoming semester.   As you may know, President Gearan has called together a group of key administrative staff involved with off-campus study.  This group which includes President Gearan, the Provost, Patricia Stranahan, the Director of Off-Campus Programs, Gary Johnston, the Associate Director of Off-Campus Programs, Jeremy Geller, the Dean of William Smith College, Debra DeMeis and the Dean of Hobart College, Clarence Butler originally met shortly after the September 11 tragedy. The group met again recently to assess the world situation and evaluate the viability our menu of programs for the next term.   It is our clear intention to move forward with the programs as scheduled including the program in which your son or daughter is enrolled.  We also wish to confirm that we continue to monitor the situation worldwide and will be in contact with each individual program on a regular basis.  

Let me assure you that the safety of our students is of the utmost importance to all of us at HWS.  All of our students will be on a faculty directed program at a site where we are linked to a local university, school or organization, or on an affiliated program or exchange where we have a standing relationship with the overseas school.  Our communications with on-site administrators is excellent and we will continue to request that they report to us on a regular basis, as has been the case with our programs during the fall term.  Resident faculty will be provided with a checklist of points to be addressed in their reports. These include, among other things, confirmation of contact with each student and itineraries for the events on a regular basis.  As was the case during the fall term programs, we will ask the resident directors and administrative contacts to verify that each student is registered at the U.S. embassy or with consular authorities in country.  We will ask for a reconfirmation of phone contact numbers of each student either at residences or through cell phone numbers.   Each student will be required to follow a notification procedure with the resident director if he or she is away from the primary site overnight, especially on weekends.  Finally resident directors will be asked to verify that each student has the emergency contact number back at the Colleges which can be used by students 24 hours a day, seven days a week if in an emergency it is impossible for an individual to contact faculty or local administrators. 

Allow me to reiterate that the Colleges have enhanced and reconfirmed our protocols and procedures and are monitoring the international situation.  We will continue to make regular contact with resident faculty directors, checking daily State Department updates and web site contact for each individual country where we will have students and monitoring our network of professional study abroad resources regularly. 

Finally, let me assure you that the Colleges stand ready to modify or even cancel a program on short notice if a situation warrants it.  An outline of our protocols and procedures will be available on our web site shortly.  In the recent past we have withdrawn student groups from off-campus locations and brought our students home, once for a small group of students in Israel and once for a larger group in India.    Both of these withdrawals were completed after careful review of each situation and a determination that we had made the correct decision.  This was done in a professional manner on reasonably short notice with as little disruption to the academic program of the students as was possible. 

As always if you have any concerns or questions, do not hesitate to contact us on the HWS campus either by e-mail, phone or fax:

Gary Johnston
Associate Provost for Off-Campus Programs
315-781-3307
315-781-3334 (fax)
johnston@hws.edu

Jeremy Geller
Associate Director of Off-Campus Programs
315-781-3634
(same fax as above)
geller@hws.edu

Patricia Stranahan
Dean of Faculty and Provost
315-781-3306
(same fax as above)
stranahan@hws.edu

Sincerely,

Patricia Stranahan
Dean of Faculty and Provost