The mission of the Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy is to assist Auburn University, Auburn University at Montgomery, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (the "University") in fulfilling its vision of being a preeminent comprehensive land-grant university. Our office provides services in three distinct yet related disciplines - audit, compliance, and privacy - in support of Auburn University's three-pronged mission of teaching, research, and service.
The Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy functions in partnership with University leadership to:
Our monthly newsletter compiles relevant higher education risk-related stories from around the nation.
December 2019Every year I make the comment that it is hard to believe we have reached the end of another year. Yet it really does feel like 2019 has gone by at record pace. It is also hard to believe that this marks the completion of our eleventh year of publishing Case in Point. We continue to add new readers across the United States and from international institutions as well. We hope that we are helping improve higher education in some small way with our efforts. Last December we included the following about the goals of this publication. With the continued growth in readership, I thought it would be a good way to end this year as well.
Our goal has always been very simple: we believe it's cheaper to proactively manage risk than to react and remediate crises from risk management failures. We provide an overview that allows you to scan the news events occurring throughout our industry each month and ask yourself, ''How can I prevent this from happening here?'' If you realize you have a similar high risk exposure at your institution from this review, you can do something to proactively reduce the risk. What that ''something'' is will depend on the risk, your role, and many other factors; however, doing nothing is a dangerous thing in the world in which we now operate. Our larger goal is to help develop risk-intelligent institutions. We should note that we are not anti-risk. Risk is always going to be with us in life, but we can consider risk and be wise in the actions we take. This is important because any money we spend on remediation, settlements, and investigations is money we aren't spending on education, research, and outreach.
You might also note that we now include a topic before each article summary. This came from a reader's suggestion, and we hope this allows you to evaluate articles more quickly to determine their relevance to you and your role. You can also see select articles throughout the month if you follow us on twitter at @AUOACP. We welcome your suggestions on ways we can further improve Case in Point
We now invite you to review the events of the past month with a view toward proactively managing risk at your institution. We hope you all have a Happy New Year and we will see you in 2020.
Read this month's issue of Case In Point
The University uses the EthicsPoint anonymous Reporting System to enhance communication and empower individuals to promote safety, security, and ethical behavior. Use this anonymous, confidential system to report situations, events or actions by individuals or groups that you believe unethical or otherwise inappropriate. Frivolous or unfounded reports do not help foster a positive workplace. This hotline service does not replace our existing reporting methods for reporting fraud, waste, abuse or other potentially illegal activities. The University continues to encourage stakeholders to report concerns or suspected violations to their supervisor or other campus entities as appropriate.
If you are uncertain if a situation violates University policy, is illegal or constitutes harassment or discrimination, you may use EthicsPoint to obtain clarification. We would much rather have you ask questions than let potential problems go unchecked. However, EthicsPoint should not be used for immediate threats to life or property. If the situation presents an immediate threat to life or property call emergency -- 911
Last Updated: January 24, 2020
