LU Serve Makes Adjustments so Students Can Still Serve Community

After many months of lockdown, border closures and quarantine, the travel industry is finally beginning to make a comeback, but not without extreme precautions and limitations. To navigate this unique time, Liberty University’s LU Send office is working to guarantee the safety of student travel. 

As the coronavirus pandemic began its unrelenting spread across the world in late January, the LU Send office began monitoring the virus carefully. When it became clear that the safety of students overseas on study abroad placements was at risk, the office quickly acted to bring students back to the United States. 

“Some of (the students) even had to evacuate in diplomatic or military aircraft because other airports were closed,” David Welsh, executive director of LU Send, said.

Soon afterwards, LU Send made the difficult, but necessary, decision to cancel all international travel for the spring and summer to ensure the safety of students. For department-sponsored trips, the office left it up to faculty to decide whether they wanted to keep travel opportunities available in the fall, but ultimately, every department cancelled all planned international trips.

With spring and summer trips cancelled due to the pandemic, the LU Send office found itself in an unprecedented position awaiting the start of a semester with no foreseeable international travel. 

All study abroad has been cancelled through December 2020, and now, Welsh says the office is looking “hopefully, but cautiously” towards the spring to resume international travel, which would include study abroad, LU Send trips and department-sponsored trips.

While the office is still closely monitoring the spread of the virus in the U.S. and abroad, the university has approved some domestic travel for the fall semester. Although there are a smaller volume of trips than usual, students still have the opportunity to travel on a few department-sponsored trips throughout the semester. 

Looking towards the future, Welch says the Office of Spiritual Development is exploring a few “key domestic travel opportunities” in the spring semester. 

Typically, during the spring, OSD focuses its attention on serving abroad, providing many opportunities for students to serve in needy communities all over the world. But as international travel remains a questionable option for the spring, Welsh says LU Send and OSD are looking for more ways to partner with those in need around the United States and even locally in Lynchburg. 

“There are a lot of plans to put our arms around our own community, including the students here at LU who have really been hit hard by the coronavirus,” Welsh said. 

Madison Hirneisen is a News Reporter. Follow her on Twitter at @MadiHirneisen.