Renee Tornatore ’13, studying abroad at the University College London this semester, noticed a burning van on a cordoned-off road near her dorm while out jogging on Jan. 25. Thinking nothing of the event, Tornatore continued jogging — but upon returning to her dorm, her flatmates told her that the explosion may not have been an accident. 

“At the time, I didn’t even think that it could have been a terrorist threat,” Tornatore said, recalling how the explosion evoked memories of the 2005 London subway bombings. Though Tornatore never found out what exactly happened, the experience rattled her.

“I’ve gathered that students in London are very aware of terrorist threats and have been educated more thoroughly [about terrorist threats] than we have been,” she said.

In the wake of terror scares, floods, earthquakes and riots that may threaten Cornell students abroad, the University issued a new travel policy on May 26, 2011, to help protect the 1,400 Cornellians studying abroad.

Under the policy, the University is working to create a travel database that streamlines the contact information of all Cornell students studying abroad. The new policy would require “all Cornell and Cornell-facilitated undergraduate and graduate students traveling abroad ... to register their travel [plans].”

It also allows anyone traveling on University business to register with the database.

Responding to heightened security concerns, the University also created a new position in the Cornell Abroad Office, coordinator for travel safety, to oversee the travel database’s creation and management. Alexis Santi was hired to fill the position two months ago.

“We are concerned and aggressively moving forward to understand the big picture of students going abroad and support departments and students who are pursuing their international education,” Santi wrote in an email to The Sun.

Cornell directly oversees study abroad programs in Paris, Seville, Berlin and Kathmandu, among other cities, according to Cornell Abroad Director Richard Gaulton ’67, Ph.D. ’81. In other countries, like Britain and Israel, Cornell coordinates with universities to indirectly enroll students in study abroad programs.

The University has taken several measures to address increased security concerns in Cornell managed programs, including setting emergency contingency plans in place for programs and sending a risk management team to inspect study abroad sites.

Under the new travel policy, all Cornell students travelling abroad are required to carry an insurance card from Frontier MEDEX, an international travel assistance organization. Frontier MEDEX is contracted by Cornell to provide international travel security, medical aid, travel insurance and assistance in the case of political evacuations, according to Gault.

Tornatore said that she carries a Frontier MEDEX card and keeps all emergency phone numbers on her wherever she goes.

“I have also registered with the State Department as a student studying abroad until June, which keeps me on a national file in case of emergency,” she said.

Gaulton said that information sharing is a critical addition to the University’s new travel policy, calling it the best way to manage risk while students travel abroad. After the 2005 terrorist bombings in London and last year’s revolutions in the Middle East, the University increased the amount of information exchanged between students and the Study Abroad Office.

“Not only will the database let us know where people are, but it also lets us send information to them. If we learn about a threat from security services and a student still had communication [with us] ... it is possible they could feel safe knowing [that] Cornell knew a situation was boiling up nearby,” Gaulton said.

Santi stressed the importance of planning before students  leave the country.

“The best we can do — and I believe we are doing it — is [to] prepare and gather information before a program leaves, work with our partners abroad and … ensure communication and programmatic support from here in the states,” Santi said. “When something does happen, we have the very best resources waiting in the wings to serve our community and as a community we should expect nothing less.”

Despite the preparations and safety measures the Study Abroad Office has put in place, both Santi and Gaulton said that the unpredictable elements of study abroad lead them to worry about Cornellians out of the country.

“Terror events are statistically not even in the same ball game as [the risk of] a student that decides to rent a motor bike and cruise around on Greek roads in a rain storm after consuming a sixer of Stella Artois without a helmet, or say someone who decides to go swimming at a local Kenyan river because ‘That fast water doesn’t look so tough!’” Santi wrote in an email.

Furthermore, Gaulton said, since Cornell students often do not understand cultural norms as well as the local students in the countries they are studying in, University administrators try to straddle the line between “appeal[ing] to the rationality and common sense of students to stay out of trouble, but not lock[ing] students in their rooms.”

Gaulton called the University’s new travel policy “a work in progress.” But many students travelling abroad have called for more information sharing and security briefings to acclimate them to their host countries.

Kelly Gordon ’13, studying abroad in Paris EDUCO — a consortium run by Cornell, Emory, Duke and Tulane — lamented the lack of detail she said the University provides about security concerns.

“There was a security briefing from Cornell about security issues and how to blend in in a foreign country, but I feel like they could do more besides one two-hour meeting in early November … because I would have no idea what to do if I got in trouble besides contact EDUCO,” Gordon said.

While Gordon acknowledged that Cornell warned her to avoid strikes and other potentially dangerous activities, she said the University could have done more to help her adjust to conditions in France.

“I kind of wish … that we had a meeting right when we got here just to remind us and refresh us of all the different numbers and actions we should take in any given situation, because it is hard to figure out what exactly to do sometimes in a foreign country,” she said. 

Tornatore echoed Gordon’s sentiments, saying the advice she received from Cornell Abroad was “pretty generic and just a broad overview of what to expect upon my arrival.”

She said that women traveling abroad should also be educated in protecting themselves in unfamiliar urban environments.

“I wish I came a little bit more prepared in terms of knowing basic tenets of self defense,” Tornatore said.

Tornatore also said that the Cornell Abroad Office did not communicate with her once she left the country, a fact she attributed to being directly enrolled in UCL instead of through a Cornell program.

“I think [that] as an institution, Cornell could provide more options to educate its students on how to protect themselves in compromising situations,” Tornatore said.

A previous version of this article contained several errors. The article incorrectly stated that the University has created a travel database for students studying abroad. In fact, that database is still being created. Additionally, the article misattributed two quotes regarding the University’s study abroad policy to Alexis Santi, coordinator for travel safety. In fact, the statements were made by Cornell Abroad Director Richard Gaulton ’67, Ph.D. ’81.