HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Vice Provost for International Affairs Jorge Domínguez worked with Lee Ann Ross to help get Harvard affiliates out of Lebanon. (Staff file photo Justin Ide/Harvard News Office)

When Lee Ann Ross first spoke to the Kennedy School student during Israel's bombing of Lebanon this summer, the Lebanese native didn't want to leave her family and, instead of evacuating, headed to a shelter south of Beirut.

But as the violence continued and the shelling went on, the student decided it was time to head to Cambridge. Ross, Harvard's director of insurance, just had to get her out of there.

If it had been much more than a year earlier, Ross might have quickly run out of options. But in July 2005, the University contracted with International SOS, a company that provides worldwide assistance and emergency evacuation services for travelers.

So Ross picked up the phone and called International SOS, giving them the student's contact information. The organization arranged a pickup and got the student out of the country.

Ross became something of a hero for dozens of Harvard affiliates during the crisis in Lebanon this summer, as she worked the phones through days, nights and weekends for the first 16 days of violence, directing International SOS to Harvard affiliates and sometimes contacting Harvard's people in Lebanon herself to find out their situation.

When the violence broke out, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) told Ross that three FAS students were in Lebanon. As far as Ross knew at that point, the three students were the only Harvard affiliates potentially in harm's way.

Ross worked closely with Harvard's new Vice Provost for International Affairs Jorge Domínguez, and the two suspected there were more Harvard-affiliated people in Lebanon that they didn't know about. Domínguez sent an e-mail to the Harvard community, asking anyone who knew of Harvard people in Lebanon to alert his office. From three, the number quickly grew to 47.

"She's the real hero in this story and deserves a lot of credit," Domínguez said of Ross' efforts.

International SOS arranged meeting points in and around Beirut, ground transportation to the Syrian capital of Damascus, and flights out of Damascus to the United States or a person's home country.

Of the 47 people on Ross' list, seven turned out to have not gone to Lebanon or to have already left the country. Twenty were evacuated by International SOS, and another 20 got out on their own, on transportation arranged by the U.S. embassy, for example.

"I can't imagine what we would have done if we didn't have this program," Ross said.

Throughout the crisis, administrators had to make decisions on the fly. Domínguez early on made the decision to classify a Harvard affiliate broadly, as not just faculty, staff, and students, but also their dependents and incoming students. He also decided that Harvard-affiliated Lebanese citizens would also be evacuated, a change to the original policy that said ISOS would evacuate people "to" their home countries, but said nothing about evacuating them "from" their homes. Those changes required Ross to negotiate an extension of the University's coverage with International SOS.

The decision to get such travel and medical insurance was prompted by the University's new emphasis on student study abroad and the opening of new centers in far-flung corners of the world.

"With the increasing travel from the University, with the president's initiative on study abroad, with Harvard opening new offices, and with the globalization of the University, it was needed," Ross said.

For the first year, the program was used just three times, for medical evacuations of Harvard affiliates from Italy, Botswana, and Brazil. That sort of individual crisis, Ross said, is the more typical usage envisioned of such a program.

Under Harvard's contract, International SOS provides medical assistance and emergency evacuation services to faculty, students, and staff traveling on University business. If Harvard travelers want to extend a stay in a particular country to sightsee or conduct personal business, Ross said they have the option of extending their coverage with the company.

The International SOS Web page, http://www.internationalsos.com, can be useful even before people leave the United States, Ross said, as it contains information on health conditions, civil unrest, and travel advisories for individual countries.

While Ross was eventually able to track Harvard's people in Lebanon, both she and Domínguez said it's important that community members get in the habit of leaving travel details with their School or registering with International SOS whenever they travel. The insurance is free and is paid for by the University, but reaching someone in an emergency can be difficult if travel information is unknown.

Ross urged leaving multiple possible contacts, as she found with Lebanon that sometimes it was text messaging that got through, sometimes a second cell phone number, and sometimes it was a call home to parents who had been in touch with a student overseas.

Domínguez said they are considering providing all students with an International SOS card containing Harvard's policy number and International SOS contact information. Plans are in place to distribute the cards to each freshman in January. That way, even if they don't remember to register, Domínguez said, at least the students will have the cards in their wallet, purse, or backpack, available if they get sick or injured, or if there's a natural disaster or civil emergency.

Domínguez has a simple message for all Harvard affiliates:

"If we know you're there, we'll find you. If you can get out on your own, great. If not, we'll get you out," Domínguez said. "But you have to sign up, otherwise we don't know if you're there."

alvin_powell@harvard.edu

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