By Samuel Farnum
In a display of selfless concern for basic human rights, 28 Columbia University students forwent their winter vacations and instead chose to support access to medical care in one of Central America’s poorest countries: Honduras. Tragically, on Jan. 13, while en route to the Honduran capitol, a bus carrying these students stalled on a steep hill and tragically overturned in a ravine. The accident injured 12 and killed three.
With a growing number of students participating in service programs, concerns of student safety while abroad have become increasingly relevant. These concerns beg the question: how much control do universities have to ensure the welfare of their students?
The answer to this question is disconcerting.
The response from Columbia University, as well as Global Brigades, the student-run non-profit organization with which Columbia partnered with to organize the trip, was swift. Immediately following news of the accident, Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, issued a statement stating that “Dr. Samuel Seward, medical director for Health Services, and other Columbia support personnel” were on their way to Honduras to help care for the injured. Steven Atamian, co-founder of Global Brigades, issued a similar statement, promising that his organization would ensure injured students receive the best medical care available. Though responses in the wake of this tragedy were, by most accounts, competent and appropriate, the accident itself has raised questions about the safety of service trips abroad. More specifically, questions have been raised about what universities are doing to ensure the safety of their students abroad.
On the one hand, universities take several measures to protect traveling students. Universities often coordinate with on-site organizations to facilitate movements on the ground, thus confirming the legitimacy of such organizations is one of the most basic ways they ensure safety. Additionally, universities often develop codes of conduct to which students must adhere to while abroad.
As Abigail Gibson, FCRH ’16, an active member of Fordham’s Global Outreach community, explains, “I was not concerned for my safety when I participated in GO! Nicaragua or GO! Glenmary.” Global Outreach makes safety a priority when planning trips and choosing organizations to pair with. Gibson explained that while on trips, students, leaders and chaperones are expected to follow certain codes of conduct and “worksite rules” that make the trips safer. Gibson also felt that both of her teams possessed a “strong sense of community,” that allowed for very open communication. “We created an environment where everyone was able to come forward with concerns, whether it was related to being in a foreign country, doing construction work or anything else.” Gibson feels, overall, that Global Outreach prioritizes student safety in each aspect of a project. Oftentimes, however, locations that are in the most need of volunteer service inherently pose higher risks to potential travelers or service workers. For example, the State Department’s safety and travel reports for Nicaragua list concerns ranging from civil unrest, violent crime and poorly maintained roads. Even with background checks and codes of conduct, universities cannot hope to account for all the risks involved in this type of international travel.
The only way to ensure complete safety would involve restricting trips to international locations of this nature, but, as John H. Coatsworth, Columbia’s provost, stated in an interview last week, “We want our students to engage in the world…There’s no place you can go in the world without risk, including Manhattan, so we’re not going to take the position that the university can tell students where to go and with whom, because that would contradict our mission.”
If universities, like Columbia or Fordham, that take pride in ambitious missions relating to community and global outreach were to restrict the movements of their students they would pose a troubling ethical contradiction. However, the very suggestion of restricting student movement in the wake of this particular tragedy does not offer much future protection.
The nature of the bus accident that took the lives of Olivia Erhardt, Daniella Moffson and Abigail Flanagan this month is particularly troubling by way of its randomness.
An email released by Global Brigades following the tragedy stated “the accident is presumed to be a mechanical error caused by an engine stall while going up a hill.” Such a mechanical error could happen anywhere at any time, at home or abroad.
In the wake of tragedy, individuals and institutions find comfort in identifying what went wrong, why it happened and making sure such incidents never occur again. In this case, however, the “why” cannot be pinned on the irresponsible actions of the university or the students involved. Like Nicaragua, Honduras has a travel advisory listed for it by the State Department which cites decaying road infrastructure as a cause for concern. Yet, this infrastructure is a symptom of the economic disparity which brought student volunteers to the country in the first place.
In the wake of an incident caused by irresponsibility or oversight, proposing and implementing changes for how universities handle future service trips could be discussed in earnest. During this tragedy caused by mechanical failure and bad timing, we are not offered the materials for such a conversation. Instead, we are offered a macabre look at the realities and risks that all volunteer travelers face, abroad or otherwise.
Samuel Farnum, FCRH’16, is an English and Music Studies major from Ranchester, Wyoming.