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UD faculty, students in London safe

11:44 a.m., July 7, 2005--Two University of Delaware faculty members and 27 students currently in London on a study-abroad program are all safe after the bombings in London this morning.

They are in London studying visual communications. The coordinator of UD’s London Centre has been in touch with officials on the Newark campus to say that all of the students and faculty are fine and were not where the bombs went off this morning. All the students were advised to call home immediately, and UD officials called all the parents to assure them that no one in the UD program was hurt.

The London visual communications program is led by Ray Nichols, professor, and Bill Deering, assistant professor, both in the Department of Fine Arts and Visual Communications. They have been in London since June 4 and are due to return home this Saturday, July 9.

In an e-mail this morning, Nichols wrote, “One incident happened on the side of the block our flat is on. If you walk out of our flat and turn right and go to the corner and then right 150 feet toward the British Library, that is where it happened. That explosion seemed to be on a double-decker bus.... It was clear that something significant had happened. It looked like the top of the bus had been peeled off and set on an angle beside the bus.... There were dozens of people, both men and women, standing around crying.”

“At this point, all of us feel a bit shaken, but everyone is OK,” Nichols wrote.

There are currently 99 students and nine faculty members in Europe in UD study-abroad programs. In addition to the program in London, there are eight students and one faculty member in Dublin, Ireland; two programs in Italy with 34 students and three faculty members; 20 students and two faculty members in Paris; and 10 students and one faculty member in Salamanca, Spain.

In addition, four UD students currently studying in London through the Imperial College Undergraduate Research Exchange Program are safe. Run by UD's Undergraduate Research Program, the exchange program sends juniors and seniors for a nine-week summer research assistantship at Imperial College of the University of London.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 10:05 a.m., July 8.

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