International Programs looks
after students at home and abroad
By Tom Campbell
Michael Stitsworth watched the events unfold on Sept.
11 in stunned silence. But he didn’t stay silent for long. He couldn’t.
Stitsworth, associate director of Purdue’s International
Programs in Agriculture (IPIA), was responsible for 22 students studying
overseas in places such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany,
South Africa and the United Kingdom. He needed to account for their
safety, and quickly.
“By noon, our office had contacted each of those
students either by phone or by e-mail to make sure they were all safe,”
Stitsworth says.
“We wouldn’t put anybody in a volatile area
to begin with,” Stitsworth says. “It isn’t in the best
interest of the students and it isn’t in the best interest of the
program.
“We feel they are as safe where they are as they
would be here, maybe even safer. The movement between two places, as
far as getting them home, is the greatest danger, so we told our students
to stay put.”
Stitsworth says the events of Sept. 11 haven’t scared
students away from IPIA. “We had all of our call-outs on Sept.
20, and 40 people showed up for summer and fall programs. All 12 students
scheduled to leave this spring showed up for their orientation.
“An additional five students left for the United
Kingdom Sept. 17. We talked to every student and their parents, and
to our overseas partners in the U.K.,” says Stitsworth, who thinks
his job of selling the advantages of studying abroad got easier when
terrorists attacked the United States.
“From our perspective, part of why this happened
is because people don’t understand one another. Religious, cultural
and economic differences are some of the reasons these countries feel
oppressed by the United States. This is a time when people need to be
undertaking activities that give them a better overall global awareness.”
IPIA has made extra efforts to ensure that exchange students
on the Purdue campus are safe, too.
“We have 10 students in the College of Agriculture
who are here on exchange programs,” Stitsworth says. “I invited
them to our house for pizza and to watch the news on TV on the 11th.
We have made an extra effort to stay in even closer contact with them
than we normally do. We want each of them to know they are safe, too.”
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