The Forum

Correction: The Forum reported in this article that students drive vehicles rented for club travel. Campus Life has informed us that this is false. Only club advisors and STLCC employees are drivers for rental cars during events that require transportation. Students do not drive rented vehicles. We apologize for this error.

Last semester, an article discussing the new policy surrounding club field trips, which limited non-local travel to five people per semester, was published in The Forum. Since then, Campus Life reached out to the staff at The Forum and provided several corrections and updates on the story. 

The new policy was not enacted by The Board of Trustees, but instead by the Division of Student Engagement, a division of STLCC that oversees Campus Life and Athletics. Campus Life also confirmed that the reasoning for capping the number of students allowed on non-local trips to five was due to limited funding of the student activities budget, which The Forum previously reported. 

While the president and vice president of a club are given preference when planning who may attend a non-local trip, any member of a club, as long as they have a cumulative 2.0 GPA or higher, may go in place of a president or vice president. A club advisor must still be present, though. 

St. Louis County and City are not the only areas considered local. As provided to The Forum during a meeting with Campus Life, to the best of our knowledge, the counties considered local across both Missouri and Illinois are Jefferson, Franklin, St. Charles, Madison, St. Claire, and Monroe. 

STLCC is contracted with Enterprise Rent-A-Car for vehicles for club travel. It is assumed that students will request a vehicle through STLCC, and then the vehicle will be provided to them by Enterprise through the contractual agreement. Students drive these rented vehicles but must be pre-approved through risk-management and are not allowed to drive for longer than five hours in a 24-hour period. If a club needs to request more funds, whether this be for travel related costs or other causes, they can submit a request through the online Student Activities Budget Committee form, which can be found on the Campus Life and Community webpage under the forms tab. Requests should be made three weeks prior to when the funds are needed. 

Aside from these corrections, non-local travel is still limited to five people, and travel request forms must be submitted 8-10 weeks in advance for approval. Thank you again to Campus Life for updating us on these facts; any further questions surrounding club travel can be sent their way.