Jillian Bauhs was planning to tour hospitals in China this summer to better understand the Chinese health system.

Instead, those hospitals are crammed with patients suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome — SARS — and officials with the Kansas Asia Scholar Program have postponed the trip indefinitely amid fears of exposing students to the virus.

“The opportunity to learn about other cultures has always been a passion of mine,” said Bauhs, a Kansas University junior from Wichita. “It’s disappointing I don’t get to see that now. But I think that was probably the smartest move on everybody’s part.”

The Asia Scholars Program is one of several KU has canceled, postponed or moved this spring and summer to avoid SARS. In all, 20 students have had their summer travel plans changed.

An additional 24 schoolteachers scheduled to go to China this summer through a grant-funded program at KU also had their trip postponed.

Susan Gronbeck-Tedesco, director of the Office of Study Abroad at KU, said officials were concerned about students contracting SARS. But they also thought the precautions students would have to take would make going to China less enjoyable.

“What kind of experience would someone have if they’re wearing a mask all the time and worrying about getting sick?” she said.

She also said the Chinese government has vowed to quarantine anyone with SARS symptoms for two weeks in hospitals.

“No one from the embassy or family would be able to visit them,” Gronbeck-Tedesco said. “It’s pretty grim.”

Several programs affected

Because of the SARS virus, Kansas University junior Jillian Bauhs' trip to China has been indefinitely postponed.

There are five KU trips affected by the SARS epidemic:

l The Asia Scholars Program, a tour through China that nine students were planning to attend May 22 through June 11. It was funded by a $2 million grant from the Freeman Foundation received by KU’s Center for East Asian Studies.

Bill Tsutsui, associate professor of history, said the program might be rescheduled for later in the summer or over winter break.

The trip, in its first year, also is sending an additional 16 students to Japan and South Korea. Those trips will continue as scheduled.

l A trip by 24 Kansas school teachers to China as part of the Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia, administered by KU. Tsutsui said he expected the trip to be rescheduled, but no date has been set.

l A School of Business program scheduled for Beijing this spring in Taipei, Taiwan, was moved to Stuttgard, Germany, where KU administers other study abroad programs. There are eight students involved in the program, which began Wednesday and runs through Saturday.

l One KU student was scheduled to participate in a Columbia University program this summer in Beijing. It since has been relocated to New York.

l Two KU students were scheduled to participate in a Beijing program administered by Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., that has since been canceled. Gronbeck-Tedesco said those students are attempting to find alternate summer plans.

KU only has one student studying this semester in areas heavily affected by SARS, Gronbeck-Tedesco said. That student, in a business program at Hong Kong University, will return to KU this week, about three weeks earlier than planned.

“We’ve been in continual touch with him and his parents trying to decide what to do,” she said, noting that no reports of SARS have occurred in the area where the student is staying.

So far, nine KU students are planning to go to China for study abroad programs in the fall. Gronbeck-Tedesco said a decision about whether to allow those students to go abroad would come by midsummer.

Tsutsui, who was organizing the Kansas Asia Scholars and Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia trips, said their postponement was disappointing but necessary.

“I think the university had no choice,” he said. “Virtually every study abroad program in China has pulled out. There are a lot of us who are secondary victims of SARS.”