Shanghai
As severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, continues to spread globally, universities in China are stepping up measures to protect students and faculty members, and colleges elsewhere are continuing to scale back or call off programs in Asia.
The University of California system suspended its study-abroad programs at Peking University and Beijing Normal University on Thursday, citing student safety as a concern. Several cases of SARS have been confirmed in Beijing’s Haidian district, where most of the city’s universities are located. The 44 students in the California programs have been instructed to leave immediately.
The California State University System also has suspended its program at Peking University, and is urging students to leave by Friday. Currently, there are eight Cal State students and one faculty member at Peking University. The students are from campuses at Northridge, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose. The faculty member is from the Humboldt campus.
At the Inter-University Program at Tsinghua University, about a quarter of the students have decided to return to their home institutions in the United States, although classes are continuing, said John Thomson, the American director of the program.
The Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, in Nanjing, is urging students to wear surgical masks and to wash their hands more regularly than normal, but none of its students have decided to leave, said Robert Daly, the American co-director of the center. The center is jointly administered by Nanjing University and the Johns Hopkins University.
“The uncertainties [about SARS] are perceived to be large,” said Keith Clemenger, director of the Institute of International Education’s Beijing office. Students and professors “are having to evaluate their ability to travel and get adequate medical care.”
SARS has infected 3,300 people and killed 165 globally, with almost half of the cases reported in China.
In Beijing, Peking University canceled classes at its School of Economics after the department’s secretary became ill, and officials suspected that she might have SARS. According to one visiting professor who insisted on anonymity, 30 faculty members who had been in contact with the secretary -- including one American -- have been put in isolation.
Peking University’s cancellation of economics classes, which affects 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students, will continue through the weeklong May Day holiday, ending on May 7. The university will re-evaluate during the holiday whether to extend the shutdown.
Most activities besides classes have been canceled at Peking University, although administrators are allowing each department to decide for itself whether to cancel classes.
Tsinghua University is prohibiting any gathering of more than 200 people, but has not suspended classes. Two students at the university’s affiliated elementary and junior-high schools, which are located on the campus, have been confirmed to have contracted SARS, and the university reported on Thursday that a suspected third case, a support-staff member under quarantine, has surfaced.
Elsewhere in China, Fudan University, in Shanghai, is operating normally, although classrooms and dormitories are being disinfected, and information on SARS is being posted on the university’s Web site, according to a spokesman.
Classes at most universities in Hong Kong -- which were halted for two weeks -- resumed last week, and life on campuses there is returning to normal, albeit with surgical masks, said Glenn Shive, director of the Hong Kong-America Center at Chinese University in Hong Kong. He estimated that 95 percent of students and faculty members on his campus are wearing masks. But, he added, as SARS apparently is here to stay, “there is the feeling that we can’t get immobilized by the fear.”
In Canada, more than 300 probable or suspected SARS cases have been reported and 14 people have died, most of them in the Toronto area. About a third of the Toronto region’s SARS cases are health-care workers, and nursing schools that depend on Toronto hospitals have either canceled the spring term completely or postponed classes until next month (The Chronicle, April 7).
There was concern last week about the possible spread of the virus over the holiday weekend, and Ontario public-health officials urged all Toronto-area residents to stay home if they have any of the symptoms of SARS. With most colleges now in the midst of examinations, the stay-home directive could complicate schedules, and university administrators are advising departments to remain flexible.
The latest notice from the University of Toronto says, in part: “Supervisors and faculty are asked to accommodate the absences of staff and students who may fall under these new public-health guidelines.”
There are about 100,000 international students on Canadian campuses, and many from Asia are still unsure whether to return home when the semester ends.
In the meantime, colleges are preparing for the annual influx of international students for summer courses, and are taking precautions. Most are depending on screening by public-health officials at airports to detect anyone possibly infected with SARS, and some are planning secondary screening at registration. One institution, Acadia University, in Nova Scotia, has announced that it will put all incoming students from Asian areas with SARS outbreaks into a 10-day quarantine -- a move that has been criticized by public-health officials as excessive.
Karen Birchard contributed to this article.
Background articles from The Chronicle: