If you were thinking about studying abroad in Cuernavaca, Mexico or Honduras this summer, you will have to look elsewhere on the globe.

According to Study Abroad associate director Kim Priebe, the University has temporarily suspended these programs due to travel warnings issued by the U.S. Department of State.

“Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world,” the warning stated.

According to the Mexico travel warning, Transnational Criminal Organizations have created security risks for travelers due to illegal narcotics trafficking.

Study Abroad also cancelled the Middle East Studies Program’s summer biannual trip to Egypt after the country experienced “ongoing instability,” Priebe said. The country did not undergo a travel warning, but Middle East studies director and professor of history Akram Khater said the recent demonstrations and rise in sexual harassment posed too much of a risk for student safety.

Though the changes may be inconvenient, students who planned on studying abroad in any of the recently suspended will have other options. 

According to Priebe, the College of Education and Foreign Languages and Literature department will send students to Costa Rica, while students studying Arabic will be going to Jordan instead of Egypt.

Jordan was chosen as a viable alternative to the Egypt trip because it presented the most ideal learning environment both socially and politically, Khater said.

“[In Jordan] the way people seem to be demanding change appears to be channeled not through civil disobedience or demonstrations, but primarily through the press and legal parliamentary election process,” Khater said.

Culturally, the Jordanian dialect was also closest to the dialect that students were learning in their Arabic classes, Khater said.

If both the Costa Rica and Jordan programs go as planned, these alternative programs might become permanent study abroad programs, Priebe and Khater said.

“We are always considering new programs to do what we can to mitigate the security risks,” Priebe said.

These are not the only study abroad programs available to students. The study abroad fair Thursday in the Talley Student Center ballroom featured about 60 summer and semester-long programs for students to explore, Priebe said.

At the fair professors and study abroad veterans answered questions students had about the various programs. The Study Abroad Office also set up tables with information regarding the financial process, scholarship opportunities and the process students must go through to receive a Global Perspectives Certificate.

Several colleges within the University partnered with the Study Abroad Office in order to help students make sure their travel plans did not disrupt their degree plans.

Junior in anthropology Sidney Guerin was one of the visitors to the fair and found it to be useful.

“Everyone has been very helpful and I had a lot of fun. I’ve even been visiting [the tables of] countries that I hadn’t had much interest in,” Guerin said.

Grace Wilberding, a senior in Spanish, helped work the fair both this  year and last year and studied abroad in Valencia, Spain.

“It’s fun because I get the chance to tell people about my experience,” Wilberding said. “I get to give back to the program I went to and make sure people continue going.”

Priebe said she would advise students interested in studying abroad to plan early and start having conversations with their advisors now.

“We don’t want students to say they want to go to Australia and not know what they are doing there,” Priebe said. “Students need to participate in a program that enriches both their academic and personal goals.”