For many Penn students, a semester or year studying abroad is the highlight of their college experience. More than 20 percent of the University's undergraduates participate in one study abroad program or another.
It should be no surprise, then, that at a school with as large a Jewish population as Penn, study abroad programs in Israel are extremely popular. Or, rather, were.
Citing concerns about student safety as a result of the recent violence in the Middle East, Penn suspended its Israeli programs in April, shortly after the State Department issued a recommendation that U.S. citizens avoid travelling to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
The University's decision is not unprecedented. When the programs were suspended last spring, Deputy Provost Peter Conn recalled that study abroad programs in Nigeria were suspended a decade ago in response to rising violence.
It is also not unique among its peers. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of California system made a similar move in April, Duke University canceled its programs last year, while the University of Colorado at Boulder did so in 2000. The State University of New York, under pressure from Gov. George Pataki during an election year, reinstated its programs after a month-long suspension.
For most institutions of higher education, this is not a political issue, but one of safety and liability and, as such, the reaction of Penn and other American universities to the escalating violence in Israel is perfectly understandable. No college president wants to see her students coming home in body bags, the victims of a terrorist attack. This summer's attack at Hebrew University in Jerusalem -- a popular study abroad destination -- seemed to confirm administrators' worst fears.
What's more, no university can afford to be held partially responsible for a student's death abroad, either financially or in the public's eye.
Still, for many Jewish students the violence is the impetus for a particularly strong desire to go to Israel as a show of support and solidarity. In these difficult times, though the University's aims are apolitical, its students desires are not.
To shield itself from potentially nightmarish lawsuits, Penn's leaders had every right and reason to suspend the University's Israel programs. But in light of the crucial importance this issue has for so many Jewish students and the strong desire many people may have to study abroad in another country that may be deemed dangerous in the future, the University should relax its normally strict rules regarding non-Penn programs in those instances during which its program is suspended or does not exist.
Through such a compromise, Penn could allow its students the maximum amount of freedom in charting their own educational course while protecting its own institutional interests and prerogatives. And uneasy though it may be, it is the right thing to do.
