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Office of the Provost

Office of the Provost

Loosening Domestic Travel Restrictions for Faculty from May 23, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

The pandemic disrupted many activities that are integral to the normal work of UConn faculty, including travel. I know that many of you are anxious to know when and how current restrictions on work-related travel will be lifted. Although we continue to have some degree of uncertainty, I am writing today to let you know that we anticipate that faculty, along with postdocs and graduate students, will be able to undertake domestic travel for work-related purposes as of May 23, 2021.

I recognize that any decision whether to travel or not in the coming months will involve many factors, including personal ones. The intent of this email is not to encourage or discourage travel plans, but instead to give as much clarity as possible and to allow you to make plans for the coming months.

One of the lessons of the swift change brought by the pandemic was the importance of knowing where employees are when they are traveling for work-related purposes. For this reason travel requests must first be submitted into the Concur system for pre-approval by a supervisor, usually a department head (until May 23, deans will also have to approve travel). This approval process is particularly important in support of the University’s responsibility for “duty of care” with respect to employees who are traveling. Please note that per the University’s travel policy, travel requests not pre-approved may not receive reimbursement of expenses.

UConn has engaged Anthony Travel, a national leader in university travel management, as our new full-service travel management provider. There are several benefits of our partnership with Anthony Travel:

  1. Anthony Travel integrates with our new travel system – Concur
  2. We now have a dedicated travel agent on site
  3. There are no booking fees passed on to travelers and departments

We highly encourage travelers to obtain a UConn-sponsored Travel Card if they plan on traveling on the University’s behalf.

Refresher training sessions are now being held for Concur requests, travel booking, and expense and approvals. We also encourage all travelers to become familiar with the updated UConn travel policy.

If traveling, you should continue to follow any guidelines that remain in place at the state level regarding quarantine and/or testing requirements for out-of-state travel. If you are returning to campus after travel, you must still follow requirements laid out by HR in relation to appropriate quarantine and testing. These will be updated by the end of this week and apply uniformly regardless of whether travel is for personal or professional purposes. In addition, you should continue to follow sponsor guidelines and requirements for any grant-funded travel.

For now, international travel restrictions will remain in place following guidance from the State Department and CDC. As such, international travel will continue to require a travel waiver and approval from Global Affairs.

Funding requests for out-of-state domestic travel can now be submitted to the AAUP/OVPR Faculty Travel Funding Program following the standard pre-pandemic process. The fund will continue to support requests to attend virtual conferences or other remote professional-development opportunities.

A range of useful links have been provided at the bottom of this email to assist with your travel plans, but if you have specific questions you are welcome to reach out at any time.

Best wishes,

Jeffrey Shoulson,
Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

Useful links & contact information:

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