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Courses that involve Travel (February 1994, amended October 1995)

Philosophy: Students should be encouraged to take courses that permit them to travel in the United States or abroad. Since these courses take students away from campus, they must be offered during summer or in the intersession between the fall and the spring semesters. These courses are not required, but exist to provide an added dimension to programs. The costs of such offerings must balance the interests of the University in receiving tuition revenue from these courses against the loss of such revenue when students transfer credits from other foreign or domestic institutions.

Policy: Courses that involve travel may not be considered as part of a student’s fall or spring course load.

Regulations:

  1. Except for University employees and their dependents, each student must pay the full cost of the tuition for the course. Every individual enrolled in the course, regardless of status, must pay his or her own travel, room and board expenses, and a proportionate share of the instructor(s)’ expenses as determined by the guidelines in number 4 below. Exceptions to this requirement may only be made when the costs are subsidized by an endowment or other special purpose funding.

2.    Such courses must provide a significant academic experience and be at least as rigorous as similar on-campus offerings at that level. This requirement will be met by a syllabus and a letter from the Department Chair attesting to that.

(a) Travel courses should have more than one instructor, or at least more than one responsible adult, available for the students if not for pedagogical then at least for safety reasons. Exceptions to this requirement must be made by a written explanation and request to waive it. The waiver will be issued by the appropriate Dean.

  1. The budget for the course must be submitted by the instructor(s) indicating expenses to be incurred, including, but not necessarily limited to:

(a)  instructor(s) stipends and expenses,

(b)  student expenses including travel,

(c)  tuition revenue (credit hours fee times the number of enrolled students less those not required to pay)

(d)  the minimum number of students required to meet course expenses observing the following guideline: where there are two instructors, total expenses ought not to exceed sixty percent of tuition revenue. In an exceptional case, where there is to be only one instructor, total expenses ought not exceed thirty-five percent of the tuition revenue. All budgets forcourses that involve travel must be approved by the Vice President for Academic Affairs.

4. Grades for the course must be submitted in a timely manner.