Mexican Universities Shake Off Swine-Flu Fears at International-Education Conference

Los Angeles — Mexico’s inaugural pavilion at the annual conference of Nafsa: Association of International Educators turned out to be nothing to sneeze at.

Mexican officials had been worried that fears of a swine-flu epidemic could drive away potential overseas university partners and disrupt the international-education meeting, which wraps up here on Friday.

Instead, Mexico’s jauntily colored exhibition signaled decisively that the country’s universities are open for business. The display occupied a prominent corner of the sprawling expo hall and featured 26 of the country’s institutions.

Thomas M. Buntru, president of the Mexican Association for International Education, said he had long pushed for the country to have a “unified” display at the Nafsa conference, which drew nearly 7,000 international educators from around the world.

Yes, the swine-flu outbreak had come at a bad time, Mr. Buntru, who is also director of international programs at the University of Monterrey, agreed. But, he said, “most people have realized that it was not as dangerous, not as lethal as they originally thought, and that the government has taken significant measures to deal with it.”

In fact, he noted, foreign-university administrators have expressed more concern about violence along the Mexico-United States border than about the influenza outbreak.

Indeed, on a recent afternoon most of the shiny modular desks scattered through the pavilion were occupied, as Mexican university officials talked about building relationships with peers in the United States and elsewhere. Many of the discussions have centered on student exchanges, Mr. Buntru said. —Karin Fischer