On the day that Israel assassinated the Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last month, Amy Boyles saw up close the potential dangers that face American college students studying abroad.

Ms. Boyles is one of 17 students studying at the University of Jordan this semester through the Council on International Educational Exchange. Jordan is considered a relatively safe place for American visitors, but many of its people strongly support the Palestinian cause.

While planned demonstrations against Israel were not expected to turn violent, the resident director of Ms. Boyles's program told the students that classes would be canceled that day and suggested that they leave through the campus's side entrance rather than the main gate.

Ms. Boyles, a junior at Lynchburg College, avoided Amman's shopping malls and mosques for the rest of the day, but the tension in the air unsettled her. "It was a little weird to ... walk into shops, and if they had a TV on, the TV would have Sheikh Yassin on it," she says. "People said things to me in Arabic and I had no idea what they said, but you could tell it was anti-American."

In the post-September 11 world, as terrorists strike in Turkey, Bali, Madrid, and other places around the globe, study-abroad programs have had to deal with safety concerns that go beyond reminding students not to hitchhike. Although coordinators say they have not radically changed the way they manage their programs, safety issues play a far more prominent role in deciding both where to send students and how to advise them once they are there. In essence, no place is considered safe anymore.

According to the Institute of International Education, 160,920 American students studied abroad in the 2001-2 academic year, the latest for which figures are available. In a more recent survey, most colleges told the institute that the number of their students studying abroad had increased or stayed the same in the wake of September 11, although safety issues had persuaded some students not to participate.

Today study-abroad directors field more calls from concerned parents than ever before. Coordinators encourage students to buy cellphones and to keep a lower profile than they might have in the past. Many more programs also insist on students' having medical insurance and require that they attend safety orientations before and after their arrival abroad. In countries where study-abroad officials fear that even common-sense recommendations won't keep students safe, they have suspended programs altogether.

"In general, universities are more prepared and more sure that our contact plans" are in place, and "that we're able to reach students overseas in case of a natural disaster or terrorism," says Kathleen M. Fairfax, director of the office of study abroad at Michigan State University. "We don't just depend on one method if e-mail doesn't work."

Almost all of the faculty members in Michigan State's more than 200 programs in 60 countries are required to have cellphones, she says. The university's emergency plan predates September 11, 2001, and a committee on study abroad, risk, and security assessment can be consulted at a moment's notice.

Students 'Listen a Little More'

Given the repeated terrorist threats to Americans at home and abroad, students now see a greater need to adhere to safety recommendations from their programs, Ms. Fairfax says. "Maybe they listen a little more when we say that they need to blend in, if for no other reason than you will stand out and be a target for pickpockets," she says.

Officials tell students not to wear American-flag emblems or Michigan State T-shirts, notes Ms. Fairfax, who also advises students not to speak loudly in English and to steer clear of big demonstrations. "We've always told students it might be interesting to see crowds of people protesting at American embassies abroad, but those things can turn violent," she says. "Go watch it on TV."

Like many other universities, Michigan State usually suspends its study-abroad programs in countries for which the State Department has issued travel warnings. Accordingly, it does not currently send students to Israel, Nepal, or Turkey.

But sometimes administrators take calculated risks. The university will resume a study-abroad program in Kenya this summer, despite a travel warning, because the students will live in rural areas, away from political hot spots.

Before September 11

William W. Cressey, vice president and chief academic officer of the Council on International Educational Exchange, which runs 60 programs in 29 countries, says the focus on safety and security predates the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Study-abroad coordinators started paying more attention to health and safety issues after several high-profile incidents in the mid-1990s, Mr. Cressey says. One involved the alleged rape of a participant by her "host father" in Japan. In another, several students were physically assaulted by armed bandits in Guatemala.

The events forced study-abroad coordinators to acknowledge the dangers facing their students and prompted the creation of the Interorganizational Task Force on Safety and Responsibility in Study Abroad. Its list of good practices recommends, among other things, that programs require that participants have medical insurance, and that officials provide program orientations before and after participants arrive in their host countries.

Today virtually all study-abroad programs emphasize safety. But there are differences in how much risk each university, and each student, is willing to take.

Her interest in the Middle East prompted Ms. Boyles, an international-relations major at Lynchburg, to study in Jordan. The daughter of a foreign-service officer, she became fascinated with the region when she lived in Tunisia for a year. While her father recommended that she choose Jordan -- he considered it safer than any other Middle Eastern country -- her mother was ambivalent, Ms. Boyles says.

Although she returned to class on the day after the sheikh's killing, the continuing instability in the region has limited her ability to travel, she says. She had wanted to visit Lebanon but decided against it after her father and host father said it was a bad idea. For Easter weekend she had hoped to travel to Israel, but "that's become impossible, too," she says.

Last month students in her program were supposed to visit a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, but program officials canceled the trip because of anti-American sentiment, Ms. Boyles says.

Although the State Department issued an announcement last month warning Americans in the Middle East and North Africa of an increased threat of terrorist attacks, Bradley Rink, program director for Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe at the Council on International Educational Exchange, says there are no safety-related impediments to continuing the study-abroad activity in Jordan.

It's "one of the more Western-looking countries in the region," and it has been "friendly to the U.S.," he says.

At the University of Pennsylvania, students can petition to study in any country for which a travel warning has been issued. But students and parents must sign additional liability waivers acknowledging that they have read the travel warning, says Patricia C. Martin, senior manager of overseas programs. At least eight students have successfully petitioned to study in Israel next fall, three have been allowed to study in Egypt, and a Penn student is in Nepal on a program with Cornell University.

"Our mission is to educate the students, so you don't want to unnecessarily close all learning opportunities that students and parents and some faculty feel that students should have," Ms. Martin says.

By contrast, the University of Missouri at Columbia does not send students to countries under travel warnings.

"I don't pretend to know more about the situation in these countries than the State Department does," says Barbara Lindeman, director of study abroad at Missouri. If students want to travel to one of those countries, they can take a leave of absence from the university, she says. "Obviously you can't control where people go."

Staying Informed

Study-abroad coordinators use a variety of sources to stay abreast of security situations abroad.

Many receive regular e-mail messages from the Overseas Security Advisory Council in the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Established in 1985 to help protect American business interests overseas, the council now also works with more than 300 colleges to provide timely information, says Richard J. Ingram, the council's deputy executive director. Its college membership increased 50 percent as a result of a publicity campaign in late 2002 to respond to concerns about terrorism, he says.

A growing number of study-abroad coordinators also subscribe to private security and crisis-management services, to which colleges can pay as much as $70,000 a year for medical insurance and detailed country reports. But no matter how much they prepare, college officials know they can never keep their students completely safe.

Ashley Mills, a junior at the University of Puget Sound, was riding the bus through downtown Madrid last month when a series of bombs shook the city's main railway station. She arrived at her morning class on the campus of Complutense University of Madrid to discover the horrifying news.

Almost immediately, Ms. Mills received a call on her cellphone from officials at the Institute for the International Education of Students, which runs her study-abroad program, who were checking to see if she was OK. Ten minutes later she called her parents in San Francisco to reassure them.

A politics-and-government major, Ms. Mills chose to study in Spain this semester, rather than in Latin America, because she thought it would be safer. "I never expected anything like this to happen," she says, "especially in a city like Madrid."

Her program has brought in counselors to talk to students, and Ms. Mills says she has tried to keep a low profile since the attacks.

"I have said that I'm Canadian a few times," she acknowledges. "There's a lot of anti-American sentiment . . . more directed toward Bush and his policies. In certain situations a lot of people have had some very politically motivated things to say, and I have not always felt comfortable to be American."

Another student in the program, Bryce Rademan, joined a peace demonstration held on the afternoon of the bombing. Even though program officials advised students not to participate, he is happy that he did. It was "one of the most amazing experiences of my life, especially coming from the U.S., where our instant response to terrorism is to act aggressively," says Mr. Rademan, a junior at Occidental College.

Several study-abroad directors say they have not thought about suspending their programs in Spain. "Once we are established in a country, unless there's a very good reason to leave, we wouldn't leave just because of a terrorist incident," says David C. Larsen, director of the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University.

Mr. Larsen accounted for all 30 Arcadia students studying in Toledo, Spain, an hour's drive from Madrid, by the end of the day of the bombings. But "this is not an exact science, as I tell my colleagues," he says. "We are still dependent on the best judgment of 20-year-olds. Students are not always aware of what has happened or the need to be in touch with people."

While he doubts that the bombings have diminished American students' interest in Spain, he says that if terrorist acts occur there again "on this scale and of this magnitude, I think that students will probably look for alternative sites."

As for Ms. Mills, she has no plans to come home before her program ends. In fact, three days after the attacks, she and two American friends took a train from the Atocha station, the site of the bombings, and traveled to Valencia, three hours away. "I was a little freaked out," she says, but "I already had my ticket."

HEALTH AND SAFETY RESOURCES FOR STUDY ABROAD

U.S. Department of State Travel Warnings and Consular Information Sheets
Lists travel warnings for Americans in light of political unrest or health issues in individual countries as well as announcements for particular regions.
http://travel.state.gov/travel_warnings.html

U.S. Department of State Tips for Students
Provides information on medical insurance and what consular officers can and cannot do to help U.S. citizens abroad.
http://travel.state.gov/studentinfo.html

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Infectious Diseases: Travelers' Health
Includes vaccination recommendations and information on the latest outbreaks of diseases around the world, and provides health information on specific destinations.
http://www.cdc.gov/travel/index.htm

Center for Global Education
Features a Study Abroad Safety Handbook which explains how foreign laws apply to American students and provides tips on dealing with cultural differences.
http://www.usc.edu/globaled

Interorganizational Task Force on Safety and Responsibility in Study Abroad
Provides recommendations for programs, including a requirement that participants have medical insurance and that programs provide orientations for participants both before and after they arrive in their host countries.
http://www.secussa.nafsa.org/safetyabroad