While studying in Perugia (in Umbria, Italy), British student Meredith Kercher was murdered. The immensely sad news was followed in 2007 by a series of colorful reports about the circumstances of her death and the constellation of suspects involved.

An American student, Amanda Knox, and her Italian friend Raffaele Sollecito, are now on trial in Italy for sexual assault and murder; another suspect, Rudy Guede, was convicted in fast-track proceedings after fleeing to Germany. (A fourth suspect, Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, a bar owner born in the Congo, was exonerated after having been accused by Knox.)

The whole affair is immensely sad, and I do hope the courts in Italy are able determine responsibility and punish the wrongdoers. From my work with exchange students and higher education programs in Europe, I'll offer some guidelines –some of which are controversial– for universities, programs, students, and their families:

  • Study abroad is not a package tour. All parties concerned should be consistent on this point. There's an expectation –probably implicit, possibly not legally enforceable– that participants on a package tour will travel safely, without serious incident; if something does go wrong on a package tour, someone will step in and act to make the situation right. This is not what study abroad programs offer.
  • Study abroad is not a vacation. Traveling to other places and mingling with new faces is enriching. But not sufficient to constitute a study abroad program. There's a temptation to market study abroad to parents as a great travel opportunity, and to students as a good time-out. This is misguided. More than enrollment in a foreign school is needed to make the program something other than a vacation. Ideally, students should put together a program themselves and present to their home school what they hope to accomplish abroad. Schools should invest resources in oversight ("supervision" sounds too disciplinary to students' ears but captures the spirit of what I'm aiming for) to: check that students are participating (going to class); help navigate administrative or daily living obstacles (especially housing); and assist in realizing a study abroad project or plan.
  • Study abroad is not shopping. Most students are on a tight budget, and study abroad imposes costs (travel costs, living costs). For many students and their families, money is tight. And in keeping with the point that study abroad is not a vacation, some schools should give thought to broadening the pool of students who can take advantage of study abroad programs. For other students –probably a minority and probably variable by home school– money isn't a problem. Except that sometimes, it is: having ample funds is a bad idea when coupled with an undemanding academic load, basically no athletic or social commitments, and lots of free time. The problem is less a generous budget than how funds are spent.
  • Study abroad is not a pub crawl. Binge drinking is an issue on both sides of the Atlantic. Mostly I see hand-wringing but little action taken to deal with the problem. (By "dealing with", I don't mean enforcing or encouraging prohibition, but thinking creatively about managing consequences and containing costs.) I see huge tensions between individual autonomy –in everyone's mind when the student goes out drinking– and institutional responsibility (whenever something goes wrong or a student needs assistance, the institutions to which the student belong quickly get involved).
  • Study abroad is not a sex tour. I'm taking a polemical stance on this point. Some students will take advantage of the opportunities presented by permissive, open-minded communities in Europe. They already have done the math and have figured out the possibilities. Study abroad need not and should not be spun or marketed from a sexual angle. I'm concerned mostly about managing prurient thoughts by school administrators about what students are up to. I see tensions on this point too between individual autonomy and institutional responsibility. Some of this flows from binge drinking or drug use. But I also see schools called in to referee or to resolve what seem like everyday domestic disturbances (live-in boyfriend won't pay rent, ex-girlfriend took possession of a portable computer).