Indiana University Bloomington has taken numerous precautions due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak. One of the precautions that the university took, left affected students with mixed feelings.
On March 5th, the university announced that all university-sponsored international spring break trips were cancelled due to COVID-19.
IU spokesperson Chuck Carney says that this decision was not an easy one to make, but as a safety precaution for both students and faculty going on these trips, it had to be done.
For IU junior Bella Realey, feelings of excitement and anticipation changed suddenly when she was notified that her trip to Little Cayman Island was called off, just hours after receiving the go ahead for travel.
Realey’s trip was focused on ocean conservation and research. Throughout the whole semester leading up to the week-long trip, she’s worked on research papers in preparation for the trip.
Now with the trip no longer happening, she has no idea how the rest of the semester will pan out.
Realey believes that IU’s decision to cancel her trip is excessive and that as long as people are in good health, have no underlying issues and that the location isn’t a highly affected risk area, that travel shouldn’t be affected.
She says she still hasn’t received any more communication from the university since receiving the bad news and that many of her questions are still left unanswered.
Bella Realey talks about how she was affected by the spring break trip cancellation.
Just days later on March 7th, IU senior Lexie Borja, who was suppose to go to New York with her fashion reporting class, shared similar feelings of disappointment when she received an email that her trip was also cancelled.
Borja says that many of the places that her class was suppose to visit canceled on them as a safety precaution, which is why IU made the decision to called it off in the first place.
She says that there’s been discussion about the trip being rescheduled, but that things are still up in the air due to the virus.
Borja understands why the decision was made, but says that she wishes that it would’ve been made sooner.
IU is currently working on developing policies and procedures to address the academic and financial impacts of these cancellations.
Lexie Borja talks about why her spring break trip was cancelled and what her biggest concern is moving forward.
On March 10th, IU announced that due to the rapid changes with the coronavirus, that all face-to-face classroom teaching is suspended until April 6th, along with other news that the rest of the domestic spring break trips have also been cancelled.
According to IU’s announcement, these decisions are being made to help mitigate and slow the spread of COVID-19 and to help protect the IU community.
IU is also discouraging travel to coronavirus hotspots over spring break.
IU spokesman Chuck Carney is asked that any student traveling for spring break take precautions to keep themselves and other people around them healthy.
Any student, faculty member, or staff member returning from a country under a CDC Level 3 warning must self-quarantine off campus for 14 days before returning to any IU campus.
For IU’s public safety announcements, or to read about about COVID-19 in general, you can visit coronavirus.iu.edu.
