CoViD-19 related academic year 2020 – 2021 Student Mobility and Exchange policy

CoViD-19 related academic year 2020 – 2021

Effective Date: July 1st, 2020, until further notice

Dear University of Aruba community and partners,

As of July 2020, the world is still confronting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects which affected the University of Aruba the most are the new norms of physical space ‘distancing’ between persons, the ‘shelter in place’ and the ‘curfew’ measures. The University of Aruba has mobility arrangements with Erasmus partner institutions, with whom we exchange students and staff. When COVID-19 reached the pandemic status, Aruba closed its borders with other nations. This meant that no more inbound and outbound airplane flights and passenger ships were permitted. This had the extreme effect that persons could not leave Aruba and could not travel to Aruba.

As the measures reduced the spread of the virus which causes COVID-19 through our community, the Aruban government started to phase out many of the measures it had put into effect. At the moment, Aruba is preparing to open its borders again to allow people to travel to and from Aruba. As of July 10th, 2020, air travel will be possible between Aruba and the United States of America with selected airline carriers. Flights with Europe restarted at the end of June 2020.

The possibility we may or may not have to continue with our mobility programs, allowing exchange of students and staff based on our plans and programs shared with our partners, were rigorously discussed. As Rector of the University of Aruba, I also requested advice of our Office of International Affairs about the practical aspects of having guests from abroad in Aruba as well as having University of Aruba students and staff abroad. I also looked at advises communicated by Dutch universities and other partner universities and at what is happening in the Higher Education field worldwide.

All the gathered information has led me to come to the following conclusion. While it is difficult to make accurate predictions, one thing is clear about the conditions the University of Aruba will confront in the academic year 2020 – 2021. The physical distancing guideline will remain a cornerstone of prevention for COVID-19.

The risks related to exchange mobility are increased due to our limited scope of influence and our overall responsibility as both host and sending institution. This leads me to the following decision.

Decision: The University of Aruba suspends all incoming and outgoing physical student mobility exchange for the academic year 2020 – 2021.

If and when new information may lead to a different risk assessment regarding mobility and/or the pandemic, this decision will be revisited.

Kind regards,
Glenn Thodé
Rector