COUNTYWIDE : Caution Urged for Students Overseas

Area colleges have advised students studying overseas to avoid traveling in large groups, wearing clothing that identifies them as U.S. citizens or venturing near American embassies or other potential targets for terrorists.

But the Gulf War and resulting international tensions have had little real impact on local study abroad programs, which generally dispatch students to “safe” countries such as England, Scotland and Spain.

“As far as I know, no one has backed out of a program,” said Gerald Bridgeman of Moorpark College, which earlier this month continued its spring semester program at Oxford University in England.

For the past four years, Moorpark College has sent two instructors and about 50 students to Oxford. Several students from Ventura College also participate in the program. “The students are absolutely unconcerned,” Bridgeman said about terrorism threats.

He said the students are rarely together as a group because they live with British families scattered across Oxford.

Five students from California Lutheran University are studying abroad this semester, in Scotland, Spain, England and Wales.

They also have been advised against traveling in large groups with Americans from other schools, said Tonya Chrislu, coordinator of the school’s study abroad program.

“There is a board posted at each of the schools . . . which gives them an update of what is happening or extra precautions they may need to take,” Chrislu said. “They shouldn’t wear certain things that will identify themselves as Americans.”