Cambridge lecturers have criticised the university’s colleges for provoking “wide-scale panic” among international students and staff by urging them to return to their home countries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The condemnation from the local branch of the University and College Union (UCU) came after international students complained they had been bombarded with “aggressive” emails asking them to leave their colleges at short notice.

The president of Cambridge UCU, Jennifer Marchant, warned that the advice put overseas students from countries with weaker healthcare systems at risk and would exacerbate the global spread of Covid-19.

In a letter to the central university and college masters, Marchant wrote: “We are extremely concerned that the invitation to leave the country at such short notice, when most countries are closing their borders, will dramatically affect the most economically and socially vulnerable members of the college community who cannot afford to leave the UK at the last minute, who do not have healthcare coverage in their country of origin, who simply have nowhere else to go, and do not have clear instructions on how leaving will impact their visa status.

“Furthermore, we are concerned that some students and staff come from countries … with a much weaker healthcare system than the UK, and travelling right now would only contribute to further spreading of the pandemic.”

The UCU also criticised the confusing and contradictory advice issued by the colleges and the central university, and called on them to offer financial help to international students who were returning to their home countries and put in place safety measures for those unable to leave.

On Friday the vice-chancellor, Prof Stephen Toope, sent an email to all students advising against international travel. But an email from the senior tutor and principal of Newnham college sent on 15 March advised students to “make plans to leave your college accommodation by 19 March at the very latest and earlier if possible” unless it is “truly your home”.

A director of studies at Cambridge, who wished to remain anonymous, said the messages to students from different colleges he had seen shared the “same cold-blooded and brutal core message, basically we really don’t want you here”.

He added that international students and those from Northern Ireland had been put in a position of having to find flights “at very short notice and so at high cost”. “Colleges are very protective of their students in the good times but it now appears that in times of crisis they look after themselves.”

Marina Veličković, a PhD student at Pembroke college, said she had to scramble to get home to Bosnia-Herzegovina, as many flights were being cancelled. She said her college’s handling of the situation had been irresponsible and panic-inducing.

In a Twitter thread, Veličković complained that the college had told international students not to leave two weeks ago, when travel could have posed less risk of spreading the virus, then abruptly changed its position.

She wrote: “[T]elling us not to leave, telling us to revise our plans … and then telling us, our bad, actually leave, is irresponsible. It is also costly, it is stressful and it breaks any trust that might have existed.

“[I] now feel like [my college] see me as a drain on their resources, an inconvenience to be returned to place of origin when going gets tough.”

institutional gaslighting and back-pedalling has started and so i want to reflect on why i felt like i had to leave cambridge following my college's e-mail.



v. long thread. — Marina Veličković (@MashaVelickovic) March 16, 2020

An international student at St John’s college, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “The colleges are being inconsistent and alarmist. What disturbs me most is the callous approach and the panic they have created.

“In some cases they’ve asked students to pack up everything and move out completely in two or three days. The fact that they have sent so many emails essentially means they’re forcing people out.

In a message to students on Tuesday, the vice chancellor said that if the university moved from its current amber alert on the coronavirus to the more serious red alert that students still in Cambridge will be asked to return home, or “on an exceptional basis, will be accommodated and supported by colleges if they cannot”.



He added: “Already foreign governments are closing their borders to all but their own nationals, and students are strongly advised to make their plans accordingly.”