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Pre-Approval Process For Essential Travel During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In response to the Chancellor's announcement regarding the Travel Policy Update, pre-approval will no longer be required for business travel starting April 9, 2021.  For business travel that occurred between October 21, 2020 and April 8, 2021, the requirement for approval outlined in the process below remains.

To request pre-approval for essential travel, academic appointees must contact their departmental Academic Personnel staff who will use Interfolio to facilitate routing and approval for these requests.   Staff should consult with their supervisors for unit-specific approval processes.

Department AP contacts and Divisional contacts are invited to consult the resources below for initiating such requests. Additionally, please consult COVID-19 Academic Affairs FAQs and Resources for more information and updates.

Please note: All requests for pre-appoval for essential travel are to be processed as quickly as possible.  Further, all academic leave approvals for upcoming trips granted before February 3, 2020 are rescinded pending re-approval via this process.

Pre-approval Request Process--AP Staff Interfolio Case Creation Process

Upon request from a faculty member or academic appointee in your unit, initiate a faculty Pre-approval for Essential Travel request in Interfolio. Once you have created the custom case, you will route this case to the candidate where they will be asked to complete the fields on the request template form.

AP Staff Interfolio Case Creation Process Guide

Pre-approval Request Process-Academic Appointee Candidate Submission Guidelines

Once the case for is created in Interfolio by your department contact, you will log into the Interfolio system to submit your essential travel pre-approval request. Please review the the required form information while filling out the request.

Pre-approval Request Process--Review and Approval Authority

Following candidate submission, each request is routed to the Department Chair and the relevant Dean before routing to the Executive Vice Chancellor for the General Campus or the appropriate Vice Chancellor for either Health or Marine Sciences.  Any leaves associated with this travel will need to be approved separately, according to the standard procedures. In the case of exceptions or appeals, for any case presented, Chancellor review will be required.