The reverberations from drug and gang violence in Mexico have been felt among Kansas University students, after KU officials canceled the planned Study Abroad summer semester in Puebla, Mexico.

Sue Lorenz, director of KU’s Study Abroad program, said that 18 students had signed up for the summer program in the city about 70 miles southeast of Mexico City before the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning to the country in March.

While Lorenz said she was sure some students were disappointed, 15 of those students were moved to a similar monthlong program in Costa Rica. Others will likely try to participate in the Mexican program again later, she said.

Even though the violence is mostly centered in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the State Department’s warning is for the northern part of the country, KU policy won’t allow students to be sent to any country with a travel warning — even if it is region-specific.

That meant no travel to Puebla, even though the violence was hundreds of miles away.

“It is a very simple, straightforward, ultra-cautious policy, on behalf of our students with their ultimate safety in mind,” Lorenz said.

In 2001, KU student Shannon Martin died while on a research trip in Costa Rica. While she was not participating in a Study Abroad program, her death prompted a review of a number of safety issues at the university among its international programs.

Other universities have made decisions area-by-area instead of countrywide, Lorenz said.

Last summer, too, KU had to cancel the summer Study Abroad session in Puebla after concerns over H1N1 flu in the country arose.

The gang violence in Mexico has affected people not associated with any criminal activity.

“It’s been a little bit haphazard,” said Elizabeth Kuznesof, director of KU’s Latin American studies program. “There has been some collateral damage and deaths, particularly of young women.”

However, Kuznesof said she hoped that KU would not be too ready to cancel Study Abroad programs, particularly because in this case, the violence seemed to be localized to a small area of a rather large country.

“The people who chose to go to Mexico probably chose that place because they were interested in the particular culture of that place, of Mexico,” she said. “Not just some place that spoke Spanish.”

Lorenz said the KU policy put safety first, and said that even though violence was centered in one region at the moment, it was possible that it could spread.

“We can’t be on-the-ground experts for all areas of the country at all times,” she said.