Kim Holland explains Israel program sunset, safety review, and independent study

So first, before we address that, I just want to say that CUNY does not approve travel anywhere where we can't prepare our students to travel safely.

So we review every program and we monitor conditions continuously.

CUNY did used to have a program in Israel that was with a number of Israeli institutions.

And that was sunset.

There was a sunsetting process that happened well prior to current events.

That led to this type of pressure.

It was really much more about the difficulties in balancing the exchanges with those institutions because Israeli students had less demand to come to CUNY.

The way it was explained to me is that many Israeli students are older when they start their university careers, and they are much less likely to fit study abroad into what they do.

Now, we know that many Israeli students do wind up at many very high-profile institutions, but we've had a hard time making sustainable exchanges work.

Now, we have had some efforts to rebuild that that were interrupted since October 7th.

But those are merely on pause.

They are not.

And in the meantime, as you know, we have many students who have, from the beginning, you know, since they were in elementary school, they were told someday you will spend at least part of your time as a college student in Israel.

And those students have used our option to study abroad on an independent basis.

They do have to go through an additional step of the travel warning waiver petition, which goes through Central.

We issue a recommendation, and the campus provost makes a final decision.

So CUNY students have continued to go to Israel for study abroad, even through this interlude, which we hope is temporary.