Texas Tech suspends Brussels study abroad programs

**They aren’t the only ones, some other colleges are backing out too. It’s up to you, just be safe! To be honest, I think we’re just as much in danger no matter where we are.  But I’m probably a bad person to give advice given my whole life is now spent abroad 🙂 ***DB

“Texas Tech suspends Brussels study abroad programs”

by Sara Dignan via “USA Today

A wreath is placed in front of the damaged Zaventem Airport terminal in Brussels on Wednesday, March 23, 2016. (Photo: Frederic Sierakowski, AP)

As the world mourns those who died and were injured in Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels, universities in the U.S. continue to work on strategies to keep students studying abroad as safe as possible.

And now one school, Texas Tech University, has decided the best recourse is to suspend its Belgium programs altogether.

The school announced that its summer and fall study abroad programs there have been canceled in light of the terrorist attacks that killed at least 30 people, says Elizabeth McDaniel, the school’s senior director for International Education.

“It’s the type of thing we are thinking about all the time, so it didn’t come as an, ‘Oh my gosh, we never thought this could possibly happen’ type of thing,” McDaniel says of Tuesday’s attacks. “Of course it has happened before and will likely happen again.”

Four Texas Tech students were in Brussels when the attack happened, but all are safe and accounted for, according to a report from KCBD.

McDaniel says the department is proactive in its safety measures for study abroad students, and that before venturing out of the country students must attend a two-hour safety seminar, where among other things they discuss potential terrorist attacks.

“We reevaluate safety measures every day based on what’s going on in the world,” McDaniel says. “We just look at the situation continuously and evaluate where our programs are going, where our students are going, and then make decisions accordingly.”

Texas Tech has study abroad programs in more than 70 countries. . . . .

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