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Domestic Travel Outside Chicago Area

Compliance and Pre-Departure Steps

Schedule a meeting with your advisor at least 4 weeks prior to departure date for overnight domestic travel. Be prepared to share the purpose of the trip (intercollegiate competition, group traveling to conference, vocal performance, executive board retreat, etc.) as well as trip date(s), approximate number of participants, and destination(s). 

SOA expects the advisor/student contact discussion to cover all of the following in the Student Organization Travel Discussion Checklist.

Vendors/Organizations with terms & conditions for service must be able to provide contract in order to be considered valid options. Please see the 'contracts' tab in the 'Planning an Event' section.

Please note you will have to complete any required supplementary forms including, but not limited 

Students using Â鶹´«Ã½ Motorpool should also include a completed version of Motor Pool Authorization Form (pdf) in advance of their trip.  NOTE: Defensive Driving Certification must be complete for all drivers before submitting Motor Pool Authorization Form

NOTE: All contracts must be reviewed by advisor and then submitted by advisor to Tracey Gibson-Jackson, tgibjack@northwestern.edu at least two weeks prior to proposed travel.

NOTE: All supplemental forms and/or waivers need to be submitted to advisor prior to scheduled departure date. Travel subject to cancellation by the University if all participant forms are not received at least one week prior to proposed departure.

Rental Vehicles 

Student organizations can use Â鶹´«Ã½'s relationship with Enterprise to rent a vehicle for pickup in Evanston or Chicago and bill directly to the group's chart string. A faculty/staff advisor is authorized to complete this on behalf of the org. More information is available here on the Procurement and Payment Services site.  Student organizations who need a vehicle locally will select the 'Registered Student Organizations' local pickup option. Student organizations who wish to reserve a vehicle away from Evanston will select 'Business Use - Travel Outside of Chicagoland.' Note that Enterprise may require drivers to be 21 years of age or older. Additionally, students may rent their own vehicles and seek reimbursement through their SOFO account/chart string for the purchase as long as it is within the guidelines for using their SOFO funds.

Risk management at Â鶹´«Ã½ manages the certified driver program. More information available for students to become certified here: /risk/services/university-vehicle-use/

Requests for exceptions to the University policy that prohibits travel over 150 miles on weekdays and 300 miles on weekends, travel before 6:00am or after 11:00pm must be submitted via email to Risk Management with the following information:

  • Destination
  • Number of Miles
  • Time they are leaving campus
  • Time the plan to arrive at destination
  • Time they plan to return to campus
  • Time they plan to arrive on campus

Traveling by plane?

All travel sponsored by university funding should be arranged via the University's preferred provider, .

Advisors can register their students to use this service by following the instructions below:

If you have students or part-time employees who need access to Egencia, please fill out columns A-P of this Excel spreadsheet. The completed form should be sent to Jeff Levin; j-levin@northwestern.edu. Please note that you can put more than one student/temp employee on the form and access rights can be assigned for as long as three years. If the travelers are NU faculty/staff or other students who are not in the Egencia system, also request a 'guest account.' Do not move or delete columns on the spreadsheet. After the form is reviewed it will be loaded into Egencia. Please call Jeff at 847-491-5993 for all your travel questions.

In addition, the advisor will need the chart string for which the travel will be billed (all student groups with a SOFO account have a corresponding Â鶹´«Ã½ chart string account).

If a student is responsible for purchasing a flight for other members the advisor should designate that student as the "travel arranger" when contacting Jeff Levin.