Eleven students and two administrators are headed to the Big Apple for the "culminating event" of a yearlong leadership enrichment program.

The four-day-long trip, which will begin with a flight out of Nashville Friday morning, will feature excursions to the Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero. All the students attending are Level Three participants of the university's L.E.A.D. Academy.

"There were 11 students who opted to go to New York City on what I call a study travel trip," said Dr. Katie High, vice chancellor of Student Affairs.

"It's a four-day trip and it happened to be the one that I proposed, so that's why I am going as a chaperone." The other chaperone will be UC Director Steve Vantrease, she said.

L.E.A.D, an acronym for leadership, education, application and discovery, is an opportunity for highly involved students to learn leadership skills to better help them during and after college. This is achieved by three levels of participation: Level One, involving mostly freshmen; Level Two, with primarily sophomores and juniors participating; and Level Three, consisting of mostly seniors and some juniors.

The organization, in its inaugural year at UTM, is under the administration of the Division of Student Affairs.

"Chancellor Dunagan allocated some funds for the L.E.A.D. Academy, allocated some for Freshman Studies, some for scholarships," High said. "So Chancellor Dunagan allocated this money and then throughout the year, we supplemented that budget with gift funds."

The New York City trip is just one of several culminating trips for the Level Three students, she said.

"Some went to present a paper at a math conference, some are attending special training in North Carolina to help with orientation in the fall, and some were interested in going to Providence, Rhode Island, for a conference," High said. "There was also an opportunity for students to go to work on Habitat for Humanity for five days for Spring Break. I don't think any of the students chose to go on that trip. Another option was to go to New Orleans for a cultural/travel study program."

With the threat of budget cuts affecting the campus, High said that students were chipping in for the trip. Costs were estimated by several students at $1,000 per participant.

"The students are paying part of it. They are paying part of their travel, their ground travel," High said. "We found a real good air fare and hotel. It's similar if they were going to a conference in terms of what the university pays for. The university is not paying for all of it. They have to pay for ground transportation, they will be paying for their meals and the trip to a Broadway show. The trip includes admission to the Statue of Liberty, and everything else we're attending. By going as a group, we are able to cut the cost down."

"We were asked to bring $200 with us," said Daniel Herndon, a senior Engineering major from Palmyra and one of the trip attendees.

"One of the things I want to do is establish a core of students to help raise money for the program," High said. "And if they are successful, we will have that money come in and we'll be able to fund some of these special leadership opportunities". High is optimistic about the future of the new program.

"I don't know if there are going to be trips. We always try to sponsor the travel," High said. "We'll see what our budget will look like July 1st and that's when we'll make our decision. But there's a whole list of things Level Three will be able to do next year that may not involve any travel at all, but they are special culminating experiences."

High laid to rest recent rumors about the funding source of the trip. "There is no student activities fee money going to any of these trips, the ones I just talked about," she said.

However, she agreed that students should be concerned about the impact of looming budget cuts.

"They are right to worry."