Carey Business School Cancels Planned Student Trip to Rwanda

Because of the ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health travel notice for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea urging against all non-essential travel. Less severe health travel advisories related to the Ebola outbreak have been issued for Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In August, the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School informed students that a scheduled trip to Rwanda in January 2015 would be canceled. While no outbreaks or travel advisories have been reported for Rwanda, the nature of the student projects required that a decision regarding travel to Africa be made at this time rather than waiting to evaluate conditions in January. Late cancellation would have severely affected the learning of the students, so a decision was made that would best maintain academic integrity.

The Carey Business School requires students to study abroad as part of its Innovation for Humanity program available to first-year GMBA students. For the program, students work over a six-month period to develop and research business plans to address real-world issues. International travel is one component of the program. The school’s leadership weighed the benefits of the trip to Rwanda in relation to the risks, and whether or not those benefits could be obtained at lower risk by traveling elsewhere. Impacted students will travel to Ecuador to work on their projects.