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47 Arab students withdraw from WSU
Parents thought it unsafe to be in U.S., school says
Thursday, September 20, 2001
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
PULLMAN -- With preparations for war escalating, 47 students from the United Arab Emirates withdrew from Washington State University's main campus and are returning home, school officials said yesterday.
The students' parents, perhaps influenced by American television broadcasts overseas, are worried that their children aren't safe in the United States, though the worries don't appear to focus on safety in the Pullman area.
The foreign students, all men, had only been on the Pullman campus for a few weeks, and were urged by their parents to leave, school spokeswoman Sue Hinz said.
There were no reports of other Middle Eastern students planning to leave. Those departing are all freshmen who hadn't had the time to develop friendships and support networks in this country, said Paul Svaren, enrollment manager for the WSU International Program.
Efforts to reach some of the students for comment were not immediately successful. University officials said they know of no official reports of harassment of Arab students, but Svaren said he has heard "anecdotal" reports that some have been at least verbally harassed.
He said some of the students feel pressure to temporarily leave the United States once some of their acquaintances do. One told Svaren he'd had no troubles and his classes were going well but "all of (his) friends have been told to go home and (his) parents had told him to go home," so he did.
About three-quarters of the students have said they hope to return to Pullman for spring quarter and plan to maintain their housing and leave some belongings there for when they come back. He said the government of the United Arab Emirates has not ordered the students to return, though it must grant its permission.
WSU, like other universities, has recruited foreign students as part of a diversity program that is "better for everybody," Svaren said.
Of the approximately 18,000 WSU students at Pullman, about 1,100 are from overseas and 130 are from the Middle East, including the 47 planning to leave.
Checks at the University of Washington in Seattle, Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Eastern Washington University in Cheney and Western Washington University in Bellingham found no sign that students from Arab countries were leaving those campuses.
But those schools have not yet started fall classes. "I would speculate that we will have a few," said Gary Ausman, director of the UW's International Services Office. At the UW, recent enrollment tops 35,000.
There were almost 2,200 foreign students enrolled there last year, 15 of them from Middle Eastern countries, Ausman said.
UW classes begin Oct. 1, while WSU classes began Aug. 27.
Stephanie Pettit of Eastern Washington University said there was "no indication there is going to be a large no-show group."
Eastern had 88 Arab students last year, about 40 of them from the United Arab Emirates.
About two dozen students from the United Arab Emirates opted to remain on the WSU campus, spokeswoman Hinz said.
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