Kean suspends all Travelearn trips, cites COVID-19 outbreaks abroad and at home.
By Siobhan Donaldson | Published by March 22, 2020
Kean University along with many other universities have suspended their student trips abroad due to concerns about the COVID-19, also known as Coronavirus, outbreaks across the world.
On February 29th, students registered for travel abroad programs, also known as Travelearns, received an email from The Center of International Studies that their trips would be suspended. This email foreshadowed the closure of the university on March 10th to prevent the spread of the virus.
“The Center for International Studies is working with the travel partners for each of our programs to work out the details and determine whether the trips can be rescheduled.” the email said. It also directed those with questions to email or call the center.
There were five trips planned abroad for this 2020 spring break involving five departments- Criminal Justice, Holocaust Studies, Communication, Global Studies, and the Graduate MBA program. Jessica Goldsmith Barzilay, acting director of the Center for International Studies, was about to embark with the Global Studies department to Costa Rica when the news came.
To address student concerns, the Center of International Studies held meetings with each group of students who were about to embark abroad and answered their questions. They said that the money each student had put down for the trip, over $4,000 dollars that were paid directly by the student, will be refunded. They gave no timeline for when these refunds will be processed.
Those refunds will be sent back to students through the financial aid department and will be processed through the same way a student would receive their refund checks, according to Barzilay during a meeting with Travelearn students. That refund will act as a credit in their bill from the University.
“Students who were scheduled for Travelearn excursions are being offered other for-credit options, which vary with each Travelearn program,” Margaret McCorry, Director of Media Relations, said in an email in response to inquiries on information in those meetings. “Students can also withdraw from the course without receiving a W on their academic record.”
On the money to students, McCorry responded that the university will refund the students directly. “The Center for International Studies is negotiating refunds with our travel providers, which will be either flight vouchers or cash reimbursements for the students,” she said. “What they do not reimburse will be reimbursed by the university directly to the students.”
Travelearn students will have to complete alternative assignments to fulfill their course requirements, and the leader of these courses must submit them to the Provost before students are allowed to see them. Gina Gili, a professor in communications, had been planning the department’s eight-day trip to London, Rome, and Italy for months.
“The change to online classes (especially for this course) has been a lot of work on me, mainly because I need to make sure you have the amount of education you would have received if we went on the trip,” Gili said in an email.
The announcement of the suspension of the trips had come on a Saturday evening, giving professors running the trips a short turnaround to create assignments that would last the rest of the semester.
Gili said she was really ‘bummed out’ about the trip being canceled, she had been working on it every day for the past year and kept students updated as much as possible. Within minutes of the suspension letter being sent to students, Gili was already contacting those in her Travelearn about the news and telling them to come to their mandatory meeting that week to discuss their next steps.
Other Travelearn programs are doing the same thing due to the university shutting down and placing all classes. Online professors will need to conduct online learning for all their classes- not just this specific course.
The Center of International Studies sent out an email on March 13 to inform students of their progress. It said that the $150 insurance payment students had to give are in process to be refunded back to students by financial aid, and that they are still working with the travel companies to get their money back.
“We are still working with your trip provider to receive final updates on any financial credits or refunds you may receive directly from them,” the email said. “Please be patient as they navigate this process, as they are dealing with an unprecedented amount of cancellations due to COVID-19.”
Students can also drop out of the course by March 15 without any penalties or receive a withdrawal note on the class from the registrar, the email went on to say.