Terrorism is a worldwide concern and is a concern for study abroad programs like the one at NIU.

Working with the U.S. State Department, the study abroad program only sends students to countries that are considered safe by State Department.

Anne Seitzinger, the director of the Study Abroad Office at NIU, said there are measures taken in the event of terrorist attacks in places where study abroad students are located.

“First we identify where all the students are and make sure they are safe, and we would either move them to another part of the country or we would start working on getting them home,” Seitzinger said.

All study abroad students are covered with the same insurance that students have on campus. In addition, they are issued international ID cards with additional health insurance and emergency evacuation and repatriation insurance.

In some cases, a travel warning is placed on a country, barring undergraduate students from going there and allowing graduate student to go with a signed waiver agreement.

Most students study abroad in faculty-directed groups, and rarely does a student study abroad alone.

“The only time we ever have one student in one place would be a direct enrollment situation where a student enrolls directly in a university overseas,” Seitzinger said.

One example of students studying abroad in the midst of a terrorist act was during the London subway bombings of 2005.

NIU has a study abroad program in Oxford, England, which is 90 miles from where the bombings occurred.

Gabriel Holbrook, an associate biology professor at NIU and college coordinator of the NIU at Oxford program, oversaw the study abroad group staying in Oxford.

“The NIU group, like everyone else, was shocked by the news, and felt compassion for those affected,” Holbrook said. “There was no real fear; just a recognition that these events happen, but rarely.”

The students did not have to be relocated because they were at a safe distance from London, but their travel was limited.

“Unfortunately such incidents occur, and we have to live with the risk, much like we live with tragedies such as the Cole Hall shooting in our own community in DeKalb,” Holbrook said.

Four NIU students who were abroad in Oxford during the bombings were contacted by the Northern Star but said they were too busy to reply or did not reply at all.