Tamara Falicov thought she’d be spending part of this month in Havana attending an international film festival with her Kansas University students.

After all, a similar trip last December — KU’s first official visit to Cuba — had been a hit with the dozen students and four faculty members who went.

But new travel restrictions put in place this summer have abruptly halted KU’s Cuba program, and KU officials aren’t expecting to resume trips anytime soon.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Falicov, an assistant professor of film studies. “We led what I thought was a successful trip in December. I think it went really well, and the students got a lot out of it.”

Falicov was scheduled to teach the same Cuban cinema class this fall, and students already had enrolled when the travel policies were changed in June. Students — who were encouraged but not required to go on the trip to Cuba — were notified of the trip’s cancellation, but Falicov said none dropped the course.

Many universities, including KU, cut their study abroad programs when the travel restrictions changed. The policies require American study abroad programs in Cuba to be at least 10 weeks in length and enroll students only from the university organizing the program.

Most programs were shorter than 10 weeks. KU’s trip in December 2003 — which sent students to visit the International Festival of Latin American Film — was six days in length. A second group of faculty and administrators traveled to Cuba for 10 days in late May and early June to plan additional study abroad opportunities.

“It was a great experience,” Susan Gronbeck-Tedesco, director of the Office of Study Abroad, said of past trips. “Cuba’s just very interesting. They have a better literacy rate and lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. They know something about health care and education we could learn about.”

Gronbeck-Tedesco said she didn’t think it would be cost-effective for KU to have a long-term program in Cuba.

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The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has said the changes were necessary to ensure those who were going to Cuba on educational licenses were truly there for educational reasons, and not for reasons such as vacation or business.

But Falicov said she thought the new policy was politically motivated, with the Bush administration looking for support from Cubans living in Florida, who largely oppose the dictatorship of Fidel Castro.

“It’s very short-sighted for the U.S. government to do this,” Falicov said. “There are plenty of countries that look beyond politics and make headway, but our government is taking a step back.”