Vienna study abroad program suspended as COVID-19 outbreak spreads

The COVID-19 outbreak is prompting more closures and cancellations across the Church of Christ fellowship.

Oklahoma Christian University decided Wednesday morning to suspend its spring study abroad program in Vienna, Austria, according to students who reached out to Talon staff members. Students and faculty in Vienna plan to return to the United States by next week.

In addition, Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA, decided Wednesday morning to suspend in-person classes for the remainder of the semester. The last day of in-person classes will be Friday, March 13. As of Tuesday evening, there were 157 confirmed cases of coronavirus in California.

At the Talon Town Hall event held last night, President John deSteiguer said the university is monitoring the situation and will provide regular updates.

“You might hear from us in a day or two, saying, ‘Hey, when you go home for spring break, just in case, you ought to take your laptop and the other materials you use for classes in case we decide for some reason that we needed to suspend class for a few days or a week or two weeks,’” deSteiguer said. “That just means we’d be suspending classes meeting in person, and we’d still be anticipating having classes online.”

This is a developing story. Stay tuned to Talon.News and follow us on social media for updates.