[360] Letter Urges MTSU Students to Leave Japan ASAP, Return Home

Release date: March 17, 2011

News and Media Relations contacts: Tom Tozer, 615-898-2919 or ttozer@mtsu.edu
Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
Office of Provost contact: Dr. Brad Bartel, 615-898-2953 or bbartel@mtsu.edu
MTSU Education Abroad and Student Exchange Office contact: Rhonda Waller, 615-898-5179 or rwaller@mtsu.edu

Letter Urges MTSU Students to Leave Japan ASAP, Return Home

(MURFREESBORO) — MTSU officials are urging study-abroad students in Japan to leave that country immediately and return home.
Earlier today, the University Provost and Office of International Affairs drafted an “urgent message to depart Japan immediately” in a communication sent to both the students and their parents, requesting they leave now because of “how absolutely critical it is for them to come home,” Dr. Brad Bartel, MTSU provost, said following a meeting with the nine-member Study Abroad Crisis Response Team.
MTSU has had nine study-abroad students in Japan this semester. One student returned home to Nashville on Tuesday, said Rhonda Waller, director of the Education Abroad and Student Exchange Office at MTSU.
MTSU’s decision to send the communication is based on the events of the past week in Japan – particularly the deteriorating situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on the northeast coast caused by the March 11 tsunami – and the U.S. Department of State’s travel warning issued March 16.
“We are always going to be sensitive to the response and welfare of our students, and make sure they are safe wherever they are in the world,” Bartel said. “We have reached a point where we urge these students to come home for their own good.”
Suggested by Bartel and fully supported by University President Sidney A. McPhee, MTSU plans to provide funds for airfares of the students who agree to return home as soon as they can book a flight.
MTSU students have been attending Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata, Nagoya Gakuin University, Saitama University, Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka and Toyo University in Tokyo. Eight of nine students had a yearlong commitment.
Waller said eight study-abroad students from Japan at MTSU this semester have indicated their immediate family members are OK. She said her office has been communicating with the MTSU students and their families by phone, e-mail and Facebook.
Family members can contact Waller by calling 615-898-5179 or e-mail her at rwaller@mtsu.edu. Her office hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.

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Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree — the only one in Tennessee — as a model program. MTSU recently unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

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