The Division of Students and Enrollment announced in a campuswide e-mail last Friday that the University has instituted new policy changes to the study abroad program, which include placing students who wish to go abroad in the spring 2010 semester into a stand-alone room selection process and making merit-based scholarships nontransferable while students are studying abroad.The e-mail was sent out by Co-Director of Residence Life Jeremy Leiferman, assistant dean of Academic Services and director of Study Abroad J. Scott Van Der Meid and Dean of Financial Services Peter Giumette. It will take effect for the students going abroad in the 2009 to 2010 academic year.

The other policy changes are that students will be required to submit a preliminary study abroad form by Feb. 15, 2009 in order to become eligible to study abroad and that all students must maintain a minimum grade-point average of 3.00 from the time they submit this preliminary form until they go abroad.

According to the e-mail, "These changes have been implemented due to a number of factors: response to student requests and a desire by our campus community to continue to house the incoming mid-year class together; the need for better academic preparedness for students studying abroad; and new economic realities."

The students who will now be placed in a stand-alone room selection process will be housed in the Village for the fall 2009 semester. The midyear Class of 2013 will move into the Village in the spring 2010 semester, according to Leiferman.

According to the e-mail, "All students who formally indicate their desire to study abroad in 2010," by checking the box in their SAGE accounts by Jan. 31 and submitting their preliminary study abroad applications, who "meet the established study abroad eligibility criteria and wish to live on-campus will be housed in the Village. If fall-only housing exceeds the capacity of the Village, additional areas will be offered."

"A few reasons influenced the changes, the greatest being finding a solution for housing for incoming midyear students in January 2010," Leiferman wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. He later wrote, "In all of our discussions with students, it was very clear that our number one priority needed to be to find housing for the midyears [to] live together-meaning on the same floor, in the same building, living as a community together." Leiferman explained that midyears always have priority in housing because they are guaranteed housing.

Leiferman also wrote that "another influence is attempting to reduce the vacancies that we typically have in housing during a spring semester, due to students going abroad."

The e-mail from the Division of Students and Enrollment also states that students who receive guaranteed housing in the fall semester but later withdraw their spring 2010 study abroad applications or do not get in to their study abroad program will have to leave their fall semester housing and will not be guaranteed on-campus housing for the spring semester.

"We cannot guarantee housing for spring semester for those who end up not going abroad, but will give them highest priority for spring semester after the midyears," Leiferman wrote.

Regarding students studying abroad during the fall 2009 semester, Leiferman wrote, "There is not a room selection process for students returning from abroad in the spring semester-there has not been one in previous years either. We will assign these students to housing where we have vacancies-from students who have graduated early, taken a leave, etc."

In addition, students will no longer be able to use merit scholarships to pay for study abroad programs. According to the campuswide e-mail, "Beginning with the students who study abroad during the 2009-2010 academic year, only those students with demonstrated financial need will be eligible to apply their financial aid towards tuition during study abroad on approved programs." The e-mail lists 14 merit scholarships that will no longer be transferable toward study abroad.

"People receiving merit scholarships that qualify for need-based aid will get it. But if they don't qualify for need-based aid, they can't use it," Giumette said.

Laura Hand '11, who is on a Presidential merit scholarship, was planning on going abroad in spring 2009, but is now unsure if she will be able to go: "Not having [the scholarship] count toward my study abroad costs but still having to pay the Brandeis tuition makes it pretty tough." Hand explained that the study abroad program was a major factor in her decision to attend Brandeis.

"It's pretty upsetting," said Mitchell Berkowitz '11, who is no longer going to study abroad in Israel next spring because he won't be able to apply his Dean's Award toward a study abroad program. "To spend the extra money and to lose the scholarship for that semester to be in another country is not practical for my family or me; it's not worth losing that money for the semester."

In order to be eligible to study abroad for any part of the 2009 to 2010 academic year, students will now be required to submit a Preliminary Study Abroad Application by February 15, 2009.

Regarding the new policy that students maintain a minimum GPA of 3.00 from the time they submit their Preliminary Study Abroad Application until they leave to study abroad, the e-mail from the Divisions of Students and Enrollment states that "the majority of our partner institutions and programs overseas have always set their acceptance standard to a 3.00 minimum GPA so this policy is a better reflection of the realities students face in getting accepted to a study abroad program."

Student Union President Jason Gray '10 said that he plans on speaking to administrators about these decisions immediately. "It's one thing to make a decision that will affect an incoming class, but it's a completely different thing, and in this case inappropriate, to bring students onto campus with a merit-based scholarship that includes an ability to study abroad but change it mid-academic experience," he said.

"Nobody's happy about this," Giumette said. "This is not what we were hoping to do or wanted to do, but I think we're forced to do something in some areas to save some funding for the people that can demonstrate need to receive it."

Van Der Meid did not respond to repeated requests for comment.