The University of Illinois Urbana campus has 57 faculty and students traveling in or near Brussels, Belgium and has confirmed that all of them are safe after this morning’s explosions in Brussels that left at least two dozen people dead.
Andrea Bordeau is the U of I’s Assistant Director of International Safety and Security. She says the university has several ways to get in touch with faculty, staff, and students traveling abroad during an emergency.
“As soon as something like this happens, I reach out to our students and faculty by multiple forms. So by e-mail, by text message, and through Facebook safety check. We use those as sort of our primary, and we also have some other ways to get in touch with our students and faculty. And then we just ask for a quick check-in from them. You know, ‘are you okay, please confirm your location,’ things like that.”
Bordeau says she maintains direct contact with the U.S. State Department during crisis situations such as the one in Belgium.
She says the U of I is one of approximately 60 universities nationwide that has a position specifically designed to monitor the safety of faculty, students, and staff traveling abroad.