UC Davis Summer Abroad plans to send its first-ever contingent to Israel this year, a decision made after an unprecedented review of safety — and a second hard look spurred by the recent conflict between Israel and Gaza.

“Right now it seems that Israel and Hamas are close to a long-term cease-fire agreement, although there are last-minute snags,” Professor Zeev Maoz said in a Feb. 19 e-mail to Dateline UC Davis.

Come July and August, if all goes according to plan, Maoz will be teaching Political Science 136, The Arab-Israeli Conflict, in his homeland of Israel.

Home base for the UC Davis contingent will be Tel Aviv and environs, about 40 miles north of the Gaza Strip, and the Summer Abroad group will be prohibited from visiting Gaza and the West Bank.

Professor Jean-Xavier Guinard, associate vice provost for International Programs, said the incidence of violence in Tel Aviv “has been very, very low. … We felt that our students would be as safe as they could be.”

Before his office granted initial approval for the summer program in Israel, Guinard convened a committee that heard from Moshe Rosenberg, a professor and extension specialist in food science; he is from Israel and travels there frequently.

Then, in January, because of the new fighting between Israel and Hamas, Guinard gathered the committee again, to review the situation and to hear once again from Rosenberg.

“We concluded that the proper security measures were in place in Israel to deal with any potential terrorist attempts,” Guinard said. “That is, we concluded that the level of risk for our students would not be increased as a result of the recent conflict.”

As UC Davis prepares for its first program in Israel, the UC system’s Education Abroad Program is preparing to return to Israel for the first time in seven years.

“We continue to monitor the situation using our risk management tools, and will continue to do so not only in Israel but throughout the world wherever our students and faculty and staff are studying,” said Chris Harrington, a UC spokesman in Washington, D.C.

The UC system contracts with a company that specializes in risk management technology, integrated crisis response, and analysis and assessment of intelligence and changing political and social conditions around the world.

The company provides a Web-based tool with which UC and its campuses can monitor specific regions, so as to make informed assessments of risk, based on the latest intelligence.

UC Davis and the UC system are acting independently of each other in arranging and sponsoring student programs in Israel. And they are being organized despite the fact that Israel is still subject to a State Department travel warning.

UC Davis Summer Abroad Director Eric Schroeder said: “We are convinced the program can be done safely for our students.” Safety concerns are being addressed, in part, by a number of special conditions, like requiring two or three armed guards (a request from Israel Defense Forces) plus a medic on field trips.

800 total enrollment projected

Schroeder said he is certain the Israel program will fill all 24 spots. The Israel program is one of 41 programs in 28 countries on Summer Abroad’s 2009 calendar. Schroeder said he expects total enrollment of about 800.

“Interest among UC students for study in Israel has remained strong … with inquiries coming in regularly,” Schroeder said. “I’m glad that we can now answer those questions with an emphatic ‘yes.’”

Guinard, a food scientist who leads a Summer Abroad program in Spain, said Maoz’s Political Science 136 “is a popular course at UC Davis, and now our students will be able to take the same course in Israel, hearing from experts on both sides.”

Similarly, the UC system’s Education Abroad Program “concluded it is in the best interest of our students to once again provide educational opportunities in Israel,” the program’s acting executive director, Michael Cowan, said in a Nov. 25 news release.

The Education Abroad Program pulled its students out of Israel in April 2002 “in view of the dramatically escalating violence in the Middle East,” according to a UC Office of the President news release from that time. The decision affected 27 students; an additional 28 students had already left the program voluntarily.

UC policy required the pullout: The Education Abroad Program is not allowed to operate in any country on the State Department’s travel warning list. However, UC students can participate in non-UC programs in Israel — with their coursework eligible for transfer credit.

UC to continue monitoring risks

In August 2008, the provost of the UC system asked an ad hoc working group to advise on whether the university, as an exception to policy, should re-establish the Education Abroad Program in Israel.

“After reviewing the risks and the means available to the university for managing them, the working group advised that an exception to policy would be warranted for an EAP program in Israel, contingent upon implementing certain provisions pertaining to the university’s ongoing monitoring and management of risk,” UC officials said in announcing the program’s return to Israel.

UC Davis began a similar review around the same time, after Maoz put forth his proposal for a Summer Abroad program in Israel.

The mechanism for such a review was already in place, according to Guinard, after officials decided “it was time to go beyond the travel advisories and look at individual proposals for study abroad.”

So, in 2007, UC Davis Vice Provost Bill Lacy established a committee for this purpose — and the panel’s first review dealt with a proposal (since withdrawn) for graduate study in Haiti.

Guinard is the chair of the committee, and it also includes representatives of Risk Management Services and Campus Counsel. For each proposal, Guinard said, he brings in a campus expert with intimate knowledge of the program location, and who has no stake in the program.

Maoz said he is confident the summer program in Israel will be quite safe. “There haven’t been any terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv for a long time. Israel expects over a million tourists this year, and the security at the Interdisciplinary Center is quite good. We will have armed escorts for our trips.”

The Interdisciplinary Center, where Maoz will hold his classes, is in Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The students will stay nearby at Hakfar Hayarok (Hebrew for Green Village), a kibbutz-like complex.

Maoz said his Summer Abroad students will hear from Israelis and Palestinians (including academics, diplomats and students), discussing such topics as the 1948 war, Israeli policy in the occupied territories and Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

Also, Israeli experts will discuss the country’s security conception and nuclear policy, and students will visit many of the places at the heart of the conflict.

Academic, cultural opportunities

For an accompanying course, Political Science 198, Maoz plans to have his students work in subgroups on specific aspects of the conflict, do interviews and write position papers. Field trips are planned to the Golan Heights, Galilee, Jerusalem, Masada and Eilat.

The UC system’s Education Abroad Program runs longer courses in more than 30 countries. For the Israel program, UC is in discussions with the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the intention of reopening UC’s study abroad program there in the fall.

“In today’s richly interconnected global economy, a study abroad program at Hebrew University of Jerusalem would provide a unique academic and cultural opportunity for UC students,” Cowan said. “UC once again will be connected to a leading higher education institution in Israel and is continuing to provide international opportunities to students to study abroad in more than 34 countries supported by the university’s Education Abroad Program office.”

Mumbai, India, is another first-time destination for UC Davis Summer Abroad.

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