New registry speeds international Cornell travel

A new travel registry makes it easier – and safer – for members of the Cornell community to travel abroad.

Up until now, Cornell undergraduate and graduate students wishing to travel internationally on Cornell business had to submit up to 14 different forms or sets of information to various offices, depending on the forms each college or unit required.

Now, an online travel registry brings all the necessary information together on one form that takes about five minutes to complete. “Students no longer need to go from office to office getting the forms they need, and learning how to fill out and submit each one,” says Alexis Santí, coordinator of travel safety in Cornell Abroad.

Santí says that the registry will provide a universitywide listing of all Cornell students traveling abroad, with itinerary and contact information. “Currently, because so many departments and units have their own tracking system of their faculty and students’ international travel, it is hard to get a comprehensive snapshot of all the students who are out of country,” he says.

Santí has identified about 80 staff members and offices that deal with international travel. Before the new registry’s implementation, should an incident occur, Santí had to contact each of those offices. “In critical situations, the registry will allow us to provide fast response – contacting our travelers; providing them with emergency health, safety and security-related communications; and getting them out of harm’s way,” Santí says.

The travel registry also offers travelers access to university-approved emergency travel insurance and emergency evacuation in the event of political instability or a natural disaster. Should a traveler list emergency contacts in the registry, the university will communicate with those contacts as well.

Faculty and staff members are not required – but are encouraged – to use the travel registry for their Cornell business abroad.

Many of Cornell’s peers have already implemented travel registries, Santí says, noting that the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, in particular, have excellent systems in place.

Registration is simple: visit the website http://www.travelregistry.cornell.edu, log in with NetId and fill out a short form with about 10 questions. The travel registry provides participants with a summary of the information entered, along with emergency contact information, which they can print or email to the offices involved in that trip abroad.

For more information, contact Santí at aes357@cornell.edu or at 607-255-8830.

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