Middlebury junior Tik Root, who has been missing since March 18, is currently being detained by Syrian authorities, according to his father Tom Root. Although the U.S. State Department has issued no official statement concerning Root's location or the conditions of his detention, his family received word from the Syrian Embassy on March 26 confirming that he is safe and in the hands of the Syrian government.
According to a message posted on the Middlebury website by his father, Root was arrested near a mosque that was the site of an anti-government protest.
"We believe the police force rounded him up with several others on the periphery of the protest, not as part of the protest, a tactic apparently used in the past to clear out bystanders to bus in pro-government supporters," the message reads.
Root began his semester abroad in Egypt at Alexandria University, but was forced to evacuate the country due to the escalating violence of protests against former President Hosni Mubarak. After returning briefly to the United States in January, he chose to continue his study of Arabic in Syria at the University of Damascus.
At this point, Root's family has not been updated on his condition since last Saturday. There is no indication as to whether the Syrian government has charged him with a crime.
According to Director of Off-Campus Study Stephen Hall, while political unrest has long been a source of particular concern for students studying abroad, Bowdoin students have—at least in recent memory—remained largely unaffected.
"It just happens that Bowdoin did not have any students in Egypt when the trouble started, or in Morocco or Tunisia," Hall said. "We were unusually lucky in that respect."
Hall also noted that the College's crisis and disaster protocols are decidedly flexible, which allows the Office of Off-Campus study to address any emergent situation on an individual, case-by-case basis.
"So much depends on factors like what part of term the emergencies occur in, how immediate the danger is, what the advice is of the host institution...we don't want to lock ourselves into doing anything," he said.
The College also retains the services of the Executive Assistance Program, an organization that specializes in international assistance. According to Hall, however, the College has never had to invoke its membership, nor has a student ever been moved to another country due to an urgent political situation.
Currently, seven Bowdoin students are abroad in four countries—Kenya, Israel, Mexico and Lebanon—for which the U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning.
In order to ensure that students are aware of the particular risks of living in such a country, the College requires students to sign a statement indicating that they have read and understood travel warnings.
"We don't say to students who want to go to Israel, 'No, you can't go there,' but we do say that you have to have your wits about you and be better informed than if you're going to, say, Paris or London," said Hall.
Junior Connor Gallagher, who spent the past eight weeks in Kenya and is currently studying Wildlife Management in Tanzania, stressed the importance of researching the reasons for the sometimes-broad State Department warnings.
"I read up a bit on what had gone on with the violence that ensued following the elections, but I felt confident that the violence had passed, and found that Kenya had become stable and peaceful once again," wrote Gallagher in an email to the Orient.
"My parents were a little concerned with the fact that the U.S. still issued a travel warning for Kenya, but my time here has proven otherwise," he added.
Teona Williams '12, also studying abroad in Kenya, agreed. Williams stated that while she believes some travel warnings do indicate real dangers, she does not think that the idea of a travel warning should prevent students from visiting a country like Kenya.
"Personally, I feel safer here than in the U.S. sometimes, probably because here in Kenya I am much more alert and my program is much more alert about security issues," she wrote in an email to the Orient.
Hall noted that travel warnings vary based on the severity of the conditions in a particular country, and he cited Kenya as an example of a country with "the lowest degree of concern."
Ultimately, Hall advises all students to take precautions when going abroad, no matter where they end up studying.
"Things can happen even in places like Paris or London," he said. "No one is absolved of the responsibility to take the question of safety very seriously."