University travel budgets fall victim to economic recession

Given the economic downturn, scaling back on travel has become an effective method of cost containment for the University, according to Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli.

"We are tending to keep down expenses on non-essential travel," Penn President Amy Gutmann agreed.

Carnaroli wrote in an e-mail that the administration asked each school, center and business unit "to examine what is essential travel and eliminate or reduce non-essential travel."

"With no single governing travel budget at Penn, there is no mandated travel budget cuts," he wrote.

Both the School of Arts and Sciences and Wharton are cutting back on travel.

"SAS has always been prudent in authorizing travel expenses and we will continue to do so in the future: All travel expenses are subject to departmental and dean's office approval," Rebecca Bushnell, dean of SAS, wrote in an e-mail.

Wharton spokesman Peter Winicov said the same of Wharton.

"[We are] taking seriously the request by President Gutmann for everyone in the Penn community to track and contain expenses in all areas," he wrote in an e-mail. "Our travel costs are definitely among the areas on which we are focused."

Gutmann explained that Wharton has been using video conferencing as an alternative to traveling to conferences.

The administration is also cutting back on "non-essential" travel.

For example, although Gutmann traditionally attends the World Economic Forum, she chose to forgo the trip this year.

She said there is "nothing Draconian" about these policies, and they present an opportunity to pay "extra attention to keeping costs down."

Although Dean of Admissions Eric Furda told The Daily Pennsylvanian in April that he expected "to scale back [the Admissions Office's travel budget] in the fall," he said Admissions has been fortunate enough to escape a budget cut.

"When you take a look at ... some really difficult decisions some other universities have had to make, we are really fortunate that people haven't been laid off and that our budget hasn't been cut," he said.

However, the admissions office at Yale University has reduced its travel for conferences and recruitment events, the Yale Daily News reported last week. The university will ask departments to cut non-salary spending by 5 percent - on top of a 7.5-percent reduction announced in February.

This spring, other peer institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dartmouth College also announced major reductions in travel.

Last week, Stanford University said it would also ask faculty and staff to cut back on travel as a result of the endowment's 30-percent drop in value.

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