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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1986)
(I ',! .' Page 7 telling us, at one point, we were advised not to travel." But Stitzel, like others, felt safe both on her campus and during trips. "We weren't worried, but everyone over here was just having a fit." she said. Richard Lonsdale, director of the Institute of International Studies at UNL. made several overseas calls to reassure anxious parents last spring. But Lonsdale said none of the 1 5 students he supervised in Europe seemed worried. "They were a little embarrassed that their parents were that upset." Lonsdale said. Most students seemed convinced that the chances of being hurt by terrorism "were as great as falling in the bathtub or being hit by lightning." ndirectly, all the students were affected by terrorism on the way home. All over Europe, security was stepped up, meaning longer delays tor more thorough checks. "There were questions about where you packed your luggage, who packed your luggage and did anyone JUL hand you anything to take on the plane," Stitzel said. Schuler remembered seeing guards carrying machine guns at the U.S. embassy, the American Express offices and at the airports during her travels, which took her to 13 countries. "They're everywhere and they're watching you." she said. "After a while, you just got used to it." One security check was especially memorable for Hagg blade. "They put us all in a room, a dozen at a time, and made us put all our bags and things in the middle of the room and line up against the wall. They then turned dogs out on us to sniff around us and our luggage," she said. The stepped-up security and the apparent slow-down in terrorism seems to have reassured many students who have been debating whether to study in Europe. Just 15 UNL students traveled abroad through university exchange programs last year. This year more than three times that number will study in Europe. The cost of study not terrorism was the issue at the trip orientation meetings, Lonsdale said. Fifty UNL students in late August planned to attend one or two semesters at universities in Germany, England, Spain, France, Japan and Costa Rica. Many others will visit on their own or through independent programs to travel or work, she said. The countries considered "highest risk" by travelers. Italy and Greece, have never been popular places of study for UNL students, Lonsdale said, so he was unable to measure any change in interest in those countries. Hie Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster seems to have deterred more students than the terrorism. This summer's exchange to the University of Leningrad was cancelled, said Leslie Greathouse, a junior political science and international affairs major. "I didn't want to go this summer, and radiation levels still concern me," Greathouse said. She tentatively plans to spend next summer in the Soviet Union, but if she does go, Greathouse said she'll take her own food, since Chernobyl is in the heart of the Soviet Union's food producing district. Lonsdale said he's pleased with this year's response to the university exchange programs, despite the negatives in the news about European events, most recently including Gadhafi's continued threats to the U.S. Lonsdale said he expects the numbers to keep growing. "It's a compliment to Nebraska students that they haven't been turned off by this sort of thing." Lise Olsen mm 5 & r ' .if I if rM . f .MTWl i 3 mm. 'They're everywhere and they're watching you Schuler