Body
Unit Procedure
Title
Department of Family Medicine: Procedure for Usage of Faculty Discretionary Travel Funds
Introduction
Purpose
To support faculty scholarship and enhance the department’s national reputation by providing travel funds to professional meetings where the faculty member is presenting a seminar, poster, or other dissemination activity.
Scope
Available to any Family Medicine faculty member. These funds are intended for faculty members who do not otherwise have access to travel funds through grants, contracts, or endowments.
Procedure
Fund manager: Approval is by the chair or the chair’s designee with assistance from the Manager of Program Operations.
Process Guidelines:
- Requests for discretionary travel funds are emailed to the Manager of Program Operations (budget manager for the Discretionary Travel Fund) who screens the request and then forwards to the Chair’s designee.
- Funding is considered for travel to conferences and meetings where the faculty member will make a presentation.
- A copy of the presentation should accompany the faculty member’s request for discretionary travel funds.
- Faculty members requesting discretionary travel funds should include in their email request a projected travel and registration budget. Applicants must make the effort to conserve costs such as sharing a room, limiting ground transportation, and limiting hotel nights to only those related to the presentation.
- Faculty members are required to use $500 from other available funds before discretionary travel funds are applied. This can be from the faculty member’s personal professional development account ($2000 per academic year) or from other sources including personal funds.
- The request will be reviewed, and a decision made to fund all, part, or none of the request, and the faculty member will be so notified.
- If approved, faculty members are required to stay within their projected budget.
- The expenditures should be paid in advance as much as possible through purchasing cards (“p-cards”). Any expenditures not covered in advance should be processed promptly after traveling by submitting receipts to assigned administrative support staff. The faculty member’s assigned administrative support staff will work with the Manager of Program Operations on processing activities.
- Discretionary Travel Fund balances are provided by the Manager of Program Operations upon request.
Contact Information
Primary Contact
Name: Dan Chegash – Manager of Program Operations
Telephone: 984-974-4655
Email: Dan_Chegash@med.unc.edu
Other Contacts
Name: Andrew Olsson – Manager of Financial Services
Telephone: 984-974-4880
Email: Andrew_Olsson@med.unc.edu