Latitudes: Amid boycott calls, Pitzer College pulls back from a study-abroad program in Israel

College officials cite low enrollment, but proponents of cutting academic ties with Israel declare victory. ADVERTISEMENT [Latitudes Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. As conflict in the Middle East persists, study abroad in Israel becomes a flash point Pitzer College will pull back from a longstanding study-abroad partnership with the University of Haifa, in Israel, a relationship that has been the subject of a boycott campaign by students, faculty members, and alumni of the California liberal-arts college. In a [message]( to the campus, Allen M. Omoto, dean of the faculty and vice president for academic affairs, said the decision to remove the Haifa program and 10 others from a list of preapproved study-abroad programs was the result of low enrollment or curricular overlap and was not influenced by calls to cut academic ties with Israel. “These actions,” he said, do not “reflect an academic boycott.” Students will still be able to petition the study-abroad office to go to Haifa, and the program will not be formally closed, Omoto said in the statement. But campus organizers of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or BDS, movement called Tuesday’s announcement a victory. They noted that Omoto said the decision was based on the recommendations of several committees of professors and students, which had cited concerns about whether such a partnership was in keeping with core college values. Pitzer administrators are “trying to deny the explicit BDS principles under which the program was closed,” said Bella Jacobs, a student organizer. “Please do not allow the tension between governance bodies at Pitzer to overshadow the plain fact that Pitzer is now the first college or university in the U.S. to enact a major part of an academic boycott.” In a press release and [social-media post]( the Claremont Colleges chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace called on other colleges to suspend study-abroad programs and other academic ties with Israeli universities. (Pitzer is one of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate schools that are part of the Claremont consortium.) College campuses have increasingly been on the [political and cultural frontlines]( since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, and criticized by both sides for public statements and programmatic ties. Efforts to call off [study-abroad programs to Israeli universities]( in protest of the Israeli government‘s policy toward Palestinians predate the recent conflict, however. And Pitzer’s partnership with Haifa has been a flash point for even longer — in 2019, the College Council, a body of professors and students, voted to end the relationship, but that move was [overturned]( by Pitzer’s president at the time, Melvin L. Oliver, who cited academic-freedom concerns. Last year, BDS supporters said they were renewing efforts to end the Haifa program. Jacobs, who is Jewish, co-authored a new resolution with a Palestinian American classmate to suspend institutional ties with Haifa. It said such a relationship was not socially responsible and out of step with college values. In February, the Student Senate [approved]( the resolution, 34 to 1. The College Council was slated to vote on the measure later this month. Some 430 alumni and parents also signed a pledge saying that they would not donate to Pitzer while it maintained ties to Israel, Jacobs said. At the same time, Pitzer’s Study Abroad & International Programs Committee approved guidelines for opening and closing overseas programs, which included among the criteria whether a program “aligns with Pitzer values, educational objectives, and/or student learning outcomes.” The committee includes faculty and staff members, as well as students. While Charlotte Wirth, a student member of the committee, said that low student interest was the impetus to remove most programs from the approved list during a March review, the group voted to drop the Haifa program because of broader concerns about maintaining such a partnership with an Israeli university, in addition to enrollment reasons. (No students have studied abroad through the program in the past five years.) A meeting memo shared with The Chronicle that details the recommendations states, “Additional criteria aligning with Pitzer values and adequate local resources are cited in the Haifa-specific proposal.” The committee also appended the student resolution to the memo, noting, “this latter proposal comes with considerable community support.” The study-abroad panel’s recommendations were then reviewed and endorsed by the college’s Curriculum Committee and the Faculty Executive Committee. Omoto cited all three committees’ actions in Tuesday’s announcement. On Tuesday, faculty leaders sent out a statement on the crisis in the Middle East approved at the most recent faculty meeting. While the statement did not mention the Haifa program by name, it said, “We stand firmly against any form of discrimination targeting Palestinian students and faculty, and the deliberate exclusion of Palestinian perspectives from the curriculum within Israeli universities. As a result, we will actively discourage any partnerships with institutions that perpetuate such practices.” The chair of the Faculty Executive Committee did not respond to a request for comment. A college spokeswoman said she could not comment beyond the publicly posted statement. ADVERTISEMENT NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Student-visa denials hit another record high The U.S. government continues to [deny student visas]( at a much higher rate than other nonimmigrant visa applications. The Department of State rejected 36 percent of student, or F-1, visas in 2023, breaking the previous year’s record rate, of 35 percent. In total, consular officials denied 253,355 visas to student applicants — more than were issued annually two decades ago. Student visas historically had similar rejection rates as other nonimmigrant visas. But in recent years, F-1 denial rates have spiked, and in 2023, they were double that of other visa categories. When asked about this trend last year, State Department officials blamed an “[unprecedented demand]( for student visas. However, the total number of F-1 applications is down from the peak years of 2014 and 2015, when denial rates were far lower. Refusal rates are especially high in certain world regions, such as [Africa]( where half of all student-visa applications are rejected. Denials have continued to climb despite [policy changes]( by the Biden administration that were meant to make it easier for international students to come to the United States. The failure to prove “nonimmigrant intent” — that the applicant doesn’t intend to move permanently to the United States — is the reason that most nonimmigrant visas, including F-1s, are denied. In a blog post on the [latest figures]( David J. Bier, associate director for immigration studies at the Cato Institute, noted that high denial rates have a cost. Many international students end up staying in the country and working, adding to the American talent pool. And the denials mean about $7.6-billion less in spending per year on tuition and living expenses, a hit to the economy and to college coffers. The higher likelihood of rejection could be discouraging some potential students from applying to American colleges in the first place, Bier said. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Athletics Advantage - The Chronicle Store]( [The Athletics Advantage]( For tuition-driven institutions, sports are often a key recruiting tool. [Order this report]( for insights on how small colleges are using athletics to drive student enrollment, engagement, and retention. Two decades of study abroad, by the numbers So far this century, more than 5 million Americans have studied abroad. While the world’s a big place, a significant share gravitated to a trio of countries, Britain, Italy, and Spain — in 2021-22, 45 percent of American students went to one of the big three. That’s one of the trends highlighted by my colleague Audrey Williams June, The Chronicle’s news-data manager, who analyzed two decades of study-abroad figures from the annual “Open Doors” report. Among other highlights, Americans really did study on all seven continents. [Read more of Audrey’s takeaways](. As always, nonsubscribers who [register]( for a free Chronicle account can read two articles a month. Your readership supports our journalism. SPONSOR CONTENT | Johnson & Wales University [Exploring the Genuine Challenges of the Digital Realm]( Around the globe The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a [final rule]( eliminating obsolete procedures and requirements for the system that collects information about student- and exchange-visa holders. But the department declined to eliminate or reduce the requirement that international students be [physically present]( in the United States as part of the rulemaking, saying such an action would be beyond the scope of the current regulatory process. The United States and China have avoided outright scholarly decoupling, but tensions on each side have limited research collaboration and overseas exchange, reducing mutual understanding and harming the national interest of both countries, a [new report]( concludes. Legislation being considered in Maryland would require that community colleges in the state grant degree credit for [English-language courses]( and that four-year colleges accept the transfer of such credits. [Supporters]( of the measure hope that, if passed, it could help Maryland attract international students who could earn world-languages credit for English classes. But a version of the bill approved by the state Senate last week would exempt private colleges from the requirement. Lawmakers in Australia are considering a bill that would allow the government to [ban travelers]( including students and researchers, from Russia, Iran, and several other countries, and would impose jail time and fines on those who refuse to leave. Basic and applied public research have been exempted from a controversial [technology-export law]( passed by the Australian Parliament. Higher-education groups had been concerned that the measure, as originally written, could hinder international-research collaboration, including participation at academic conferences. South Korea will be the first East Asian country to join [Horizon Europe]( the European Union’s research and innovation program. British universities could be told to [terminate overseas agreements]( if such partnerships undermine freedom of speech and academic freedom, a government official said. Britain’s higher-education minister, Robert Halfon, unexpectedly [quit](. The University of Zurich said it would no longer [submit data]( to the Times Higher Education’s international rankings, joining institutions in a number of countries in [boycotting global rankings](. Middle Eastern universities are caught in a tug-of-war between the United States and China as the two countries compete to lock up [research partnerships]( in the region. A new higher-education association will seek to facilitate academic partnerships, student and scholarly exchange, and international recruitment between universities largely in [developing countries](. A survey seeks to learn how colleges are responding to increasing global demand for degrees in science and technology. [Participate here](. ADVERTISEMENT And finally … “Their worldliness makes it harder to predict long-term outcomes, and I sense a new degree of unease.” In The New Yorker, correspondent Peter Hessler, who has long covered China, [writes]( about a group of students he taught in an international joint-degree program at Sichuan University, who later went on to finish their degrees at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s a bit of a weird sensation when one of your favorite writers takes up a subject that you’ve covered a lot, and Hessler captures the in-betweenness of Chinese students in the United States: their experiments with American pastimes like religion, guns, and driving; their continued embeddedness in Chinese online and social life; the uncertainty about their future. If a 9,000-word New Yorker piece only whets your appetite, I’ve explored similar themes in my reporting [here]( and [here]( and [here](. Thanks for reading. 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