Legal Commentary

In today's Chronicle of Higher Ed, there's a story describing rough conditions imposed on travel on faculty at UGA:

Some faculty members at the University of Georgia at Athens are trying to understand why out-of-state and international travel must now be approved by the provost, even if professors plan to pay for conferences and meetings with their own money. The new policy comes just a few weeks after another cost-cutting move, in which administrators announced that no new faculty leaves would be approved this fiscal year (The Chronicle, <http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/08/4254n.htm>  August 15).  The tighter restrictions on faculty travel, said the provost, Arnett C. Mace Jr., were in line with a mandate from the state university system's Board of Regents, which has called for an extra layer of approval for travel. Trips should be authorized, he said, only if they are "essential to the operation of the institution." Mr. Mace said he would approve certain types of trips, like ones to present a paper, meet with a research project's out-of-state participants, or attend a meeting of an organization in which a faculty member is an officer.

I'm not sure whether the UGA policy also applies to its law school, but I am curious how other public law schools are dealing with this in a budget-strapped world. Thankfully, FSU has historically had generous research and travel budgets (varying around 5-6K), and, even in these tight times, the dean has found the resources to help me when I need to exceed that. If you're at a public law school, how's your dean addressing these issues? Feel free to weigh in anonymously but if you do, remember to put in an anonymous email address too.