Dear students studying abroad in Italy and your emergency contacts:

As you may be aware, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is now recommending that individu-alsavoid non-essential travel to Italy.The CDC has not yet specified what triggered the rating change.

We have received several notifications from program providers indicating that their leadership teams are meeting to determine next steps. We expect you will hear from your program providers soon with any changes to their position as it relates to possible program termination, refund policies, assistance with de-parture, potential options for completing the term academically, etc. Once we learn whether there will be any changes, we will provide supplementary information from UVM to assist you.

Given that you are currently in country and we have no way to guarantee you will be physically safer by trav-eling through airports or being on a transatlantic flight, we cannot require you to depart. Note that if your program is canceled, and you choose to not depart, UVM will not be in a position to assist you if the situa-tion deteriorates. The University of Vermont strongly encouragesyou to prepare for departure from Italy by researching available flights. We ask that you actively follow the CDC’s guidelines for protecting yourself for the time you remain in Italy, and, importantly, during your travels home.

We will provide additional information as we hear from your respective program providers and universities.

Sincerely,

Kim Howard

Director, Office of International Education