Five Dartmouth students are returning from the art history department's Foreign Study Program this weekend after the State Department warned that Florence, the location of the FSP, was a potential terrorist target on Easter Sunday.
Three other Italian cities -- Venice, Milan and Verona -- were also mentioned in the March 27 warning, which cited unspecified "extremist groups [who] do not distinguish between official and civilian targets."
Americans were warned to avoid large crowds, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools and outdoor recreation events.
"After consultation with their families, some of the students decided it was better if they returned home and to Dartmouth for the spring," Dean of the College James Larimore said.
"The folks in Residential Life are hard at work to get them housing," Larimore said of the five students who will be returning to campus on Monday.
Larimore emphasized that the FSP has not been cancelled, although faculty advisor Professor Adrian Randolph has arranged to take the remaining students out of Florence for the weekend.
"Students now participating in the FSP said they were feeling very good about getting to see other parts of Italy. ... We are dealing with the worries they have about being in public places in a different way," Larimore said.
Larimore said he did not know the names of the students who are leaving, and students who remained in Florence were unwilling to comment on the situation.
While Italian government officials argue that the State Department's warning does not constitute a serious threat, the information in the warning came from Italian investigators, according to an article in The New York Times yesterday.
Neither the U.S. nor the Italian government specified whether the threat was connected to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
