MSU Plans to Return Israel Abroad Students
MSU has decided that students studying abroad in Israel should return to Michigan. This was decided from the recent air raid activity.
“They are not in any imminent danger in Jerusalem, but we just feel that the general situation in Israel is deteriorating and it is not certain that if it does get worse that we’ll be able to evacuate them if we need to,” Fairfax said. “We feel it’s best to end it now.”
The university also offered to bring back two students and a professor who traveled there independently. The students declined.
Should MSU have forced these students to return home or would it have been best to just offer the chance?
Update:
Doing a little more searching I found another article on the matter. The early departure is mandatory, however it only cut a week of studies. Granted the final week is one of the most crucial weeks of a semester, but MSU is trying to make it up by paying for the returning trip and setting up classes on campus to make up lost time. According to one of the students they did not want to leave so early considering the conflict is about 4 hours away.
I don’t think MSU can force them to return. They are legal adults and can decide for themselves whether or not to stay.
(By the way, the link to the Freep article is broken.)
The article doesn’t give a lot of information about the situation, but it seems to me that if they are over there with a professor on a faculty-led program sponsored by MSU, MSU would be liable if something happened to them. With the other two students traveling independently, they offered but did not insist.
I thought about the liabilities, but by offering them the chance to stay or leave, I think some paperwork would be included to address the issue.
It just seems that MSU would rather not have this program at all, and that’s unfortunate.
Do you mean having the students on the MSU program sign a waiver if they want to stay at HUJI rather than returning with the group? There’s nothing in the article to indicate that they did or didn’t offer that option. In fact, the article doesn’t actually say they were “forced” to return to the US. Have there been other articles that said that? It’s vague enough that it could be interpreted that the group decided on their own to return.