Travel Guidelines 2012-2013
In fiscal year 2007, the College of Arts and Sciences began an alternative in house process for funding professional travel to present research, scholarship, or creative productions at a conference. This alternative process decentralized the decision-making and resources to the department level. Chairs evaluated faculty proposals in relation to the college criteria below and to the proposal's relative worth to the department, college, and university. Chairs are accountable for the college funds transferred to the departments. This procedure has served us well for the past five years.
Beginning with fiscal year 2012, the University's supplemental support for travel for presentations was decentralized to the colleges, and the Dean believes this decentralization should continue down to the departments. This means that the sole decision about travel funding will reside with the chair, and it is expected that the chair will make awards that fairly support all members of the department who have a need to present scholarly or creative work. This influx of funds also allows the Dean to make a preliminary rebalancing of college travel funds across departments with the individual department distributions of the ORSP funds.
However, to apply some fairness to travel awards, some general principles need to apply—since the departments will be responsible for not over-spending their allocations. Travel $$ are not fungible, so any transfer of funds out of travel needs to be approved by the Dean.
As a general rule:
- particular trip awards will be up to $800.00 per conference; faculty and academic staff giving multiple presentations are eligible for a maximum of $1200.00 in travel support in a fiscal year
- a faculty or academic staff collaborative presentation will be funded as if it is a single presentation (award may be shared, however).
CAS Criteria:
- Applicant's participation should be active, not passive (e.g., presentation of a paper vs. simple attendance)
- Direct and demonstrable relation to the professional development (in scholarship or teaching) of the applicant
CAS Priorities:
- delivery of a juried paper at a national or regional conference; juried/competitive performances and exhibitions; participation at a national or regional conference as an elected officer; delivery of an invited paper at a national or regional conference; invited performances/exhibitions; informal presentations, memberships on panels, serving as a respondent, or similar activities at a national or regional conference
- active participation (see examples above) at a state conference—attendance at a conference only to take a short course, participate in a workshop, receive training, etc. will continue to be funded by ORSP, please go to the ORSP web site for information.
Even though this process limits the activity of the Deans Office in travel (and no more ORSP form), there will still be a signature step for both Travel Authorization forms and some Travel Expense Reports (i.e., Chairs, Directors, Candidates), which are migrating to BPLogix for electronic submission. Faculty and academic staff need to be encouraged to submit proposals to their chair well in advance of the planned travel. Proposals should reach the Chair at least one month prior to the planned travel.
People contemplating potential professional travel should familiarize themselves with UWEC policies and procedures regarding travel (Please consult UWEC Travel Regulations on the Web at: http://www.uwec.edu/bussvs/acctpay/index.htm). Travel Expense Reimbursement forms (TERs) should be submitted in a timely fashion (within 30 days of travel) for processing; for fiscal year accounting requirements, all reimbursement forms for travel prior to June 1st should be in Accounts Payable by May 31st. If travel is during June, the traveler should contact the Deans Office.
