Cuba: A Door Ajar
By ERIC PLATT
Published: April 15, 2011
THOUSANDS of American college students have been effectively locked out
of Cuba since 2004, when the Bush administration tightened restrictions
on travel for academic, cultural and religious purposes. Cuba was then
the third most popular study-abroad destination in Latin America (after
Mexico and Costa Rica); 2,148 United States residents studied there in
2003-4. The number plunged 92 percent in just a year.
In January, President Obama announced he was relaxing the restrictions,
opening the way for expanded opportunities to study in this Communist
island nation. Among restrictions was a requirement for a special
license from the Treasury Department, with an application process that
was lengthy and difficult to navigate. Now programs can run under 10
weeks. That's no small change: 56 percent of students studying abroad go
on trips less than eight weeks long or during winter and summer break.
Most important, students can participate in programs run by institutions
other than their own.
Only 251 Americans studied in Cuba in 2008-9, according to the Institute
of International Education's most recent survey. Most institutions
formed partnerships with the University of Havana.
Last year, several dozen colleges and universities signed a letter
asking the White House to lift the restrictions and expressing interest
in starting or expanding programs in time for the 2011-12 school year.
The University of Iowa, for one, hopes to restart a winter program that
it last ran in 2004, while Tulane is planning to start a short session
to supplement its semester program.
Sarah Lawrence College operates the largest program. Students
concentrate in the humanities and arts, particularly film. Participants
must take a course on Cuban culture and have mastered Spanish, as
classes are taught in the native tongue.
Michelle Huber was eager to experience the social laboratory that is
Cuba, and spent last semester there with 15 Sarah Lawrence classmates.
"The way Cuba was presented to me was ideal," she says. "Health care for
all, education for all. And I said to myself, 'I need to know what a
country like that is like.' "
And the reality? "It's just so different when everyone is treated the
same way and given the same resources," she says. "Everyone gets
something there, but it's averaged down." She likes to tell the story of
a student who sprained her ankle, and had to hobble around the island
for the three months. She couldn't find crutches.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edl-17cuba-t.html?_r=1
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