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Travel Guidance and Budget Management

The purpose of these guidelines is to align all Saint Louis University travel with our strategic priorities; permitting only travel that is essential to SLU student success, revenue generation, accreditation, essential operations, and other activities necessary to the delivery of our educational, research, and formation missions. Important factors for consideration:  

Scope of Travel Restrictions 

  • All conference trips should include an active role for the traveler (e.g., speaker, panelist, presenter).
  • International travel may be limited by funding source (e.g., fully grant-funded, Chair/Start-Up/IDC funded, or externally reimbursed), excluding travel to SLU-Madrid.
  • Encourage the use of virtual meetings and combined trips to ensure cost-efficiency as a primary consideration.
  • Travel arrangements shall be at the lowest-cost travel options and otherwise in compliance with SLU Travel Policies.

Guiding Principles

High-Level Travel Approval Guiding Principles 

To effectuate more intentional stewardship of university resources, cost centers/departments should review travel requests using the following guidelines:

1. Is the travel essential to the delivery of the University priorities of:

  • student success
  • research growth
  • revenue generation
  • essential operations
  • SLU’s national reputation

2. Is the travel needed to support faculty promotion or SLU’s national reputation? 

  • Is the traveler a member of the hosted conference board?
  • Is the traveler presenting at a conference?
  • Is the traveler collecting data or attending a research collaboration meeting?
  • Is the traveler on a review panel or national advisory board?

3. What is the funding source of the travel?  

4. Staff travel considerations:

  • If more than one SLU staff member typically attends an annual meeting or conference, can we send fewer this year?
  • Are there other professional development opportunities available online or at SLU rather than attending the in-person conference or meeting?
  • Can the staff attend the meeting every other year rather than every year, or can this year be skipped?
  • Is this part of a multi-year/multi-session commitment related to professional development for which travel has already been committed?  

5. Contractual or compliance requirement for travel:

  • Is travel contractually required?
  • Is the travel required per accreditation or other external mandates (e.g., Academic program review is a requirement of HLC accreditation)
  • Is this travel for an external SLU speaker/presenter?

Budget Management and Monitoring 

Budget Reductions

  • Division leaders are responsible for implementing their budget reductions per University leadership.
  • Divisions are responsible for managing the spending of travel budgets per the guidelines distributed by Business and Finance.