Case in Point:
Lessons for the proactive manager

Last month we discussed a whistleblower case that grew out of the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal. Three days after Case in Point was published, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) published findings from their audit of Penn State's compliance with the Clery Act. The DOE began this audit of Penn State after the scandal became public. The Clery Act is a federal law that requires institutions to disclose certain crime statistics annually and issue public alerts about safety threats on campus.

The DOE fined Penn State a record $2,397,500 as a result of compliance failures, and Penn State has stated they will not contest the fine. Previously, the largest Clery-related fine was $350,000 at Eastern Michigan in 2006. It is interesting to note that less than 2% of the total fines were directly related to the Sandusky case; the majority of the fine was linked to incorrect classifications and disclosures in Penn State's Clery Reports over the past few years.

There are numerous lessons we can learn from Penn State's experience, but three elements in particular stand out to me:

1. Leadership - beginning at the board level, leadership has to create the right culture and control environment for compliance to be effective.
2. Policies and Procedures - sometimes there is flexibility in the regulations regarding how we approach a requirement; however, if we develop documented policies and procedures, there is an expectation that our institution will follow them.
3. Training - it is vitally important to ensure employees understand the regulations that affect them and the appropriate behaviors and actions that are required.

The regulatory environment and emphasis from the federal government may well change in the coming years, but there is little doubt that compliance will remain a significant issue for our industry due to the wide range of risks we face. We again invite you to review these risks and consider how you can proactively prevent problems.

M. Kevin Robinson, CIA, CFE
Associate Vice President
Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy

Information Security & Technology Events

Nov 30, 2016: Whoever hacked into a Michigan State University database earlier this month "found the Holy Grail," according to one security expert. Names and MSU identification numbers were exposed along with social security numbers, which are extremely valuable to criminals. Between providing identity protection and enhancing its security systems, MSU estimates that it will spend $3 million in response to the attack. The potential for identity theft underscores why institutions like MSU shouldn't hold onto these records for more than a couple years after someone leaves, Stephens added. (link)

Nov 18, 2016: An email sent to Michigan State University last weekend attempting to "extort money" helped the university identify a data breach that affected about 400,000 records and included names, Social Security numbers and MSU identification numbers, a university spokesman said Friday evening. The affected database was accessed on Sunday and was taken offline within 24 hours of the hack, according to a university statement. The database contained about 400,000 records, but the university said records for only 449 people were confirmed to have been accessed. (link)

Nov 14, 2016: Network security is a top priority for any company, and especially those that handle sensitive information. But it's not a DDoS attack or hack that brought the UK's National Health Service (NHS) to its knees today; it's a single, blank email sent to 1.2 million employees. As The Register reports, a blank email with the subject line "test" was initially sent out to a small number of recipients on a "CroydonPractices" distribution list. Somehow, the email then found its way into the inbox of every single employee with a NHS.net email address. And as is typically the case in these situations, some of those recipients responded (to everyone) asking to be removed from the list. (link)

Nov 02, 2016: An Arizona man has been charged with trying to hack into email accounts at over 75 universities nationwide. Jonathan Powell, of Phoenix, was arrested Wednesday and held for arraignment in Phoenix federal court. New York prosecutors allege Powell successfully mined accounts for private information at a New York school from his work computer at a Phoenix business. Powell targeted dozens of schools and successfully hacked into student email accounts at the New York school and one in Pennsylvania. He says Powell stole students' personal information and searched photos for potentially embarrassing content. Prosecutors didn't name the schools. (link)

Fraud & Ethics Related Events

Nov 28, 2016: Jeffery Hix was ordered to pay Montana State University $2,200 after pleading no contest to stealing from the school's recreational sports department. A student who worked for the MSU Recreational Sports and Fitness Department, for which Hix was the supervisor from 2006 to 2011, alerted police to discrepancies in his paychecks. An audit determined that timecards had been altered after they were in Hix's possession, and students who refereed for both MSU and Bozeman City League Basketball, a nonprofit adult league that Hix also managed, were paid for reffing using MSU funds totaling about $10,209. (link)

Nov 23, 2016: The University of Missouri is investigating a former tutor's allegations of academic fraud in the athletic department less than a year after the school sanctioned its men's basketball team for violating NCAA rules. The university announced the investigation Tuesday evening, hours after former tutor Yolanda Kumar wrote on her private Facebook account that she took entrance exams and completed entire courses for athletes at the school. (link)

Nov 16, 2016: An award-winning Marshall University professor, the president of a highway contracting business and two former West Virginia Division of Highways engineers were charged Wednesday in a kickback scheme involving companies in Putnam County and South Carolina. Federal prosecutors allege that the men illegally diverted $1.5 million worth of Division of Highways projects to Dennis Corp., a South Carolina engineering consulting firm. DOH engineers received $200,000 in bribes between 2008 and 2013, according to the charges. "It's pay-to-play corruption within the Division of Highways," said Bill Ihlenfeld, U.S. Attorney for West Virginia's Northern District. "This work was not bid out competitively; it was rigged so this corporation would receive these projects." (link)

Nov 16, 2016: A St. Louis woman faces charges of embezzling nearly $400,000 from her employer, Webster University. The money was earmarked for a joint educational venture between Webster and a Chinese government cultural agency. Deborah Pierce, 61, was director of the Confucius Institute at Webster University and was entrusted with the oversight of the institute's funding, which came mainly from the school and the People's Republic of China. According to the indictment, Pierce established a separate, unauthorized bank account which she alone controlled. Over a nearly three-year period, she directed $380,000 to her private account. If convicted of mail fraud, Pierce faces up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, or both. (link)

Nov 16, 2016: The Oberlin College Board of Trustees, after extensive consideration and a comprehensive review of recommendations from multiple faculty committees and Oberlin President Marvin Krislov, has voted to dismiss Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Joy D. Karega for failing to meet the academic standards that Oberlin requires of its faculty and failing to demonstrate intellectual honesty. (link)

Nov 01, 2016: The Community College System of NH lost $130,000 in a money-transfer fraud earlier this month. According to the CCSNH, a scammer posed as a construction contractor who receives ongoing payments by paper check. The scammer requested to transition to an electronic method of payment. Shannon Reid, a spokesperson with the Community Colleges says the documentation appeared authentic, and the community college system obliged. (link)

Oct 31, 2016: There's only one way to describe what's happened at the University of New Mexico. Bizarre. From his office in western New Mexico, Dr. Christopher Dyer heads up UNM's Gallup campus. When he's not presiding over students and faculty Dr. Dyer traipses through the outback investigating legendary creatures. In February, Dyer organized a two-day, on-campus Bigfoot conference, "Bigfoot in New Mexico: Evidence, Ecology, and Behavior." The guest speakers were billed as "renowned expert" Dr. Jeff Meldrum and "New Mexico naturalist" Rob Kryder. UNM shelled out thousands of dollars for advertising, meals for the guest speakers, airfare, hotels and per diem. (link)

Compliance/Regulatory & Legal Events

Nov 29, 2016: KOCO's Patty Santos reported in mid-October on the investigation involving Langston University's Early Childhood Laboratory. The investigation's findings this week revealed the claims of a child being locked in a closet as punishment and staff putting their feet on children to hold them down were substantiated. Langston University officials report there are 36 children, ages 5 months to 7 years old, at the day care. It costs the university nearly $400,000 per year to operate. The university has 10 days to give the state's Child Care Licensing a plan of correction. (link)

Nov 28, 2016: A third rape victim joined one of two Title IX lawsuits against Kansas State today. Jared Gihring, a former K-State student who was expelled from the university just before the fall semester according to court documents, has been charged with the rape and sodomy of Crystal Stroup, a former K-State student. Gihring is also charged with the rape of Sara Weckhorst, dating back to April 26, 2014. In April of 2016, the Collegian reported on two separate Title IX lawsuits by Weckhorst and Tessa Farmer brought against K-State, accusing the university of deliberate indifference to plaintiffs' reports of rape, deceptive acts and practices in violation of the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, and negligence. (link)

Nov 28, 2016: Yale will pay $3 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Annie Le MED '13, a graduate student murdered in a Yale research laboratory in 2009. The settlement amount was listed in a probate court document obtained by the Associated Press last Tuesday. Yale's lawyers and Le's family disclosed that the case had been settled through mediation in a court paper filed last week, but the original document did not list the settlement amount. Filed in 2011 in Connecticut Superior Court by Le's mother, Vivian Van Le, the lawsuit alleged that "sexual attacks on and harassment of women at Yale had been a well-documented and long-standing problem, and there was a widespread belief that Yale repeatedly failed to impose meaningful discipline on offenders." (link)

Nov 22, 2016: The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules. The settlement includes a corrective action plan and a monetary payment of $650,000, which is reflective of the fact that the University operated at a financial loss in 2015. On June 18, 2013, UMass reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that a workstation in its Center for Language, Speech, and Hearing (the "Center") was infected with a malware program, which resulted in the impermissible disclosure of electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 1,670 individuals, including names, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, health insurance information, diagnoses and procedure codes. (link)

Nov 22, 2016: With just over a week before it was scheduled to take effect, a federal judge has blocked the implementation of an Obama administration rule that would have extended overtime eligibility to some 4 million Americans. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant III issued a preliminary injunction in the case, siding with plaintiffs who said the new overtime rules would have caused an uptick in government costs in their states and made it mandatory for businesses to pay millions in additional salaries. Business groups said the new rule changes would have eventually led to layoffs. (link)

Nov 22, 2016: A former University of Notre Dame student athletic trainer violated NCAA ethical conduct rules when she committed academic misconduct for two football student-athletes and provided six other football student-athletes with impermissible academic extra benefits, according to a Division I Committee on Infractions panel. One additional football student-athlete committed academic misconduct on his own. The panel prescribed one year of probation, a two-year show-cause order and disassociation for the former student trainer, and a $5,000 fine for the university. During that time, if a member school hires the former student trainer in an athletically related position, she and the school must appear before a Committee on Infractions panel. (link)

Nov 22, 2016: Two women who reported being gang raped by multiple football players in 2012 reached a financial settlement on Tuesday with Baylor University, and details of the alleged sexual assaults hadn't previously been reported in the media. Baylor officials have said previously that 17 women had reported 19 sexual or physical assaults involving football players since 2011, including four gang rapes. According to university officials, the alleged incidents that led to Tuesday's settlement were included in the four gang rapes. (link)

Nov 17, 2016: A Massachusetts woman is suing Brown University, saying that administrators at the school acted indifferently and failed to adequately investigate when she reported being raped by three students on Brown's football team. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Rhode Island, said authorities later found explicit photos of one of the accused students with the woman at the time of the assault, along with text messages that appeared to show the students laughing about the reported rape hours later. The school opened an investigation, but never finished it and never doled out any punishment, the suit said. A Brown spokesman said officials were "confident" in the decisions the university had made in the case and noted that a grand jury had declined to bring criminal charges in the case. (link)

Nov 16, 2016: A court case pitting broadcasting giant ESPN against the University of Notre Dame -- and centering on the disclosure of campus police records -- has been resolved but still leaves unanswered questions. The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that a private university can maintain a police force that is not subject to Indiana's Access to Public Records Act. But the issue of whether private universities should be allowed to employ their own police force without oversight from the state records laws will likely live on next year when lawmakers gather for the upcoming legislative session, experts say. Even now, a provision of a new Indiana law governing public access to footage from police body cameras could offer a new path forward for members of the public seeking campus police records. (link)

Nov 15, 2016: Thomas More College failed to monitor its women's basketball program when it did not identify and report a women's basketball student-athlete living impermissibly with a former assistant women's basketball coach, according to a decision issued by the Division III Committee on Infractions. The head women's basketball coach also failed to fulfill his head coaching responsibilities when he did not monitor the former assistant coach and did not promote an atmosphere for compliance in his program. Penalties in the case include probation, a vacation of women's basketball wins in which the student-athlete competed while ineligible, and a self-imposed fine. (link)

Nov 14, 2016: One Iowa lawmaker has a message for any state university that spends taxpayer dollars on grief counseling for students upset at the outcome of last week's presidential election: "Suck it up, buttercup." Kaufmann plans to introduce a piece of legislation he's calling the "suck it up, buttercup bill" when the Legislature resumes in January. It would target state universities that use taxpayer dollars to fund election-related sit-ins and grief counseling above and beyond what is normally available to students. Those that do would be subject to a budget cut for double the amount they spend on such activities, Kaufmann said. It also would establish new criminal penalties for protesters who shut down highways, like those who briefly closed Interstate Highway 80 in Iowa City during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump last week. (link)

Nov 14, 2016: Ohio State University has agreed to undergo a performance audit, which would be the first of a public higher education institution. State Auditor Dave Yost performs audits to identify ways to reduce costs and improve service. Under legislation passed in 2011, the auditor must complete performance audits of at least four state agencies every two years. Legislation is pending in Columbus that would require Yost to choose a public two- or four-year college for one of those four performance audits. Ohio State's audit is contingent on the legislation passing, Ohio State spokesman Rob Messinger wrote in an email Monday. (link)

Nov 13, 2016: A renowned Middle East scholar and architecture professor at UC Berkeley spent months ingratiating himself with a graduate student before placing his hand on her upper thigh, proposing they become "close friends" and suggesting they go to Las Vegas, a campus investigation has found. Nezar AlSayyad, an internationally recognized scholar and a frequent public voice on global issues, is the latest prominent faculty member at UC Berkeley found to have sexually harassed a student or colleague in violation of University of California rules, The Chronicle has learned. (link)

Nov 10, 2016: This afternoon, the Psychological & Counseling Center sent an email out to 468 of its clients without blocking the recipients from seeing each other's names. The content of the email was a satisfaction survey regarding the student's recent visit to the center. Several students responded to all recipients of the email with sarcastic and angry messages regarding the breach of their privacy. This incident is a potential violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which provides privacy of medical information. The HIPAA Privacy Rule, formally called The Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, "establishes national standards to protect individuals' medical records and other personal health information and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain healthcare transactions electronically," according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website. (link)

Nov 09, 2016: Officials with the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety have identified and arrested the mother of the newborn baby that was found in a trash bag at Claflin University. Officers say Amber Fulton, a 19-year-old Kingstree native who attends Claflin, faces charges of unlawful conduct towards a child and attempted murder. She was taken to a medical center for evaluation. Arrest warrants indicate that Fulton gave birth to the baby boy between the hours of 4 a.m. and 8:25 a.m. Wednesday on the Claflin campus. Officials say after she gave birth, Fulton cut the umbilical cord with paper scissors. Once the baby began to cry, she used tissues to clean the baby, and then she placed him in a plastic bag and put that bag in another large trash bag which she tied with a loose knot. Fulton then placed the bag with the live baby in a dumpster at the student residential center, behind the Claflin dining facility. Custodians with Claflin University were collecting garbage for the week when they made the discovery. (link)

Nov 08, 2016: An Indian-American doctoral student at the University of Chicago has filed a $1 million discrimination lawsuit against its board of trustees, alleging she was fired from a job at the school after she complained that white employees got preferential treatment.Sameena Azhar's lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, alleges retaliation and race and national origin discrimination. Azhar is a doctoral candidate at the School of Social Service Administration and, starting in March 2015, worked for the university's Center for HIV Elimination. (link)

Nov 07, 2016: A group of Baylor alumni and major donors -- including Drayton McLane, for whom the school's football stadium is named -- is scheduled to launch a nonprofit organization that will demand an overhaul of the university's board of regents as well as full details of the school's sexual assault investigation. Bears for Leadership Reform is going to be "demanding transparency and accountability," spokeswoman Julie Hillrichs said. "They believe the only way we can do this is to have true reform of the board. They want a seat at the table when the board selects its next president, and then they want a best-in-class Title IX program on that campus," she said, referring to the federal gender-equity law that requires schools investigate reports of sexual violence. (link)

Nov 03, 2016: Four years after Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, was convicted of sexually abusing 10 young boys, the federal government is seeking to fine the university nearly $2.4 million for failing to alert the public about Mr. Sandusky's conduct and other campus dangers. In announcing the proposed fine -- the largest ever for failure to comply with the Clery Act, a federal law requiring prompt public alerts about safety threats as well as annual disclosures of campus crime statistics -- the United States Department of Education painted a damning picture of how university officials permitted Mr. Sandusky "unfettered access" to campus buildings and facilities even though officials knew he posed a danger to the campus community. (link)

Oct 31, 2016: Hunter College agreed to revise procedures for addressing sexual harassment and assault allegations after a U.S. Department of Education investigation found it failed to properly handle more than a dozen cases in a two-year span. Under a settlement, the largest college in City University of New York must provide training to staff and students to address sexual misconduct and re-examine all complaints of sexual harassment and assault filed in the past three years. (link)

Campus Life & Safety Events

Nov 28, 2016: A Hamilton man charged last year with fondling women as they slept in Rider University dorm rooms has resolved the case through Pre-Trial Intervention, or PTI. Jon Cannon was charged in October 2015 with touching two women the month before in separate incidents on Rider's campus. In one, a young woman awoke about 3 a.m. to a man who pushing on the right side of her chest and tried to kiss her. About 10 days later, a second woman awoke to a man roughly touching her breasts over her nightshirt, authorities said last year. Cannon was also charged with entering a Rider sorority last fall, but fled when spotted, police have said. (link)

Nov 28, 2016: Tyrell Nathaniel Brown, 29, accused of trying to force himself on a student in a restroom at Mt. San Jacinto College's Menifee campus pleaded guilty Monday, Nov. 28, to false imprisonment and was immediately sentenced to a year in jail and three years' probation. On the morning of Oct. 3, Brown went into a gender-neutral restroom on the Menifee campus and confronted an 18-year-old student in one of the stalls, according to sheriff's officials and Marriott. The young woman wrestled free of Brown's clutches and bolted from the bathroom uninjured, the release said. Brown was not a student at MSJC, Marriott said. (link)

Nov 28, 2016: An Ohio State University student was shot dead by police after he plowed into pedestrians with a car and then stabbed multiple people with a butcher's knife at the OSU campus in Columbus this morning, officials said. The scene is now secure, officials said. Eleven people were transported to local hospitals, officials said. One is in critical condition. The suspect was identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an OSU student, officials said at a press conference this afternoon. (link)

Nov 25, 2016: A 31-year-old man has been charged with murder and other crimes in the fatal shooting of a college police officer in Detroit. DeAngelo Davis is accused of shooting Collin Rose, 29, in the head when the Wayne State University officer tried to arrest him Tuesday. Prosecutors say Davis then fled on foot and was taken into custody several hours later. Rose was investigating possible thefts of navigation systems from vehicles near the Wayne State campus. The prosecutor says he was "respected" and "admired." (link)

Nov 18, 2016: A Rutgers University professor who was given a psychological exam after posting statements about gun control and flag burning on his Twitter account has been placed on administrative leave and is no longer teaching, campus officials said Friday. Kevin Allred, an adjunct part-time lecturer on Rutgers' New Brunswick campus, made international headlines Wednesday after police came to his Brooklyn home and took him to Bellevue Hospital for a psychological exam. (link)

Nov 16, 2016: Two University of Maryland football players have been charged in connection with a series of BB gun shootings in College Park, University of Maryland police said. Darryl Turner II, 19, of Glenarden, and Lorenzo Harrison III, 19, of Clinton, are each facing second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and related charges connected to the incidents. Police said the shootings were reported on Nov. 6 and officers investigated three reports where College Park students were hit by what they believed were BB pellets. (link)

Nov 14, 2016: The University of Michigan's law school has cancelled a planned "self-care" event, designed to help students cope with Donald Trump's election, following a wave of Internet ridicule. The event, called "Post-Election Self-Care With Food and Play" appeared Friday on the school's website, entreating students to work out their Trump-driven anxiety with "stress-busting self-care activities" including coloring, blowing bubbles, sculpting with Play-Doh and "positive card making." The event has now been removed from UMich's website, though a version still lives on Google cache. (link)

Nov 14, 2016: Columbia University's wrestling team, which bills itself as the nation's oldest intercollegiate program, has had its season suspended by the university while officials investigate text messages sent by team members that included the frequent use of racist, misogynistic and homophobic terms. On Monday, Columbia released a statement saying that the university's athletic department "has decided that Columbia wrestlers will not compete until we have a full understanding of the facts on which to base the official response to this disturbing matter." A university official confirmed late Monday that the team was still practicing, which raised the possibility that the season would continue once the investigation was completed. (link)

Nov 13, 2016: A University of Alabama student has been arrested in connection with the rape of a teenage girl on Saturday. Capt. Gary Hood with the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit said university police requested Tuscaloosa investigators respond to DCH Regional Medical Center yesterday morning around 10:30 a.m. When investigators arrived, they met with an 18-year-old female who said she was raped. University spokesman Chris Bryant said Monday, "The accused student has been placed on interim suspension and is banned from campus while the investigation continues." (link)

Nov 11, 2016: A noise complaint led to the arrest of seven University of Albany students for hazing, police said. Police said they arrived at an off-campus sorority house and found four young women being forced to eat mud and garbage. Sorority members were also accused of pour fowl smelling liquids onto the women. Seven women, ages 19 to 21 years old, were arrested. "Hazing is not only dangerous, it's against the law," Albany Police Officer Steve Smith said. A spokesperson for the university said the sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, is not recognized and hazing is not tolerated. (link)

Nov 11, 2016: Racist group messages that sent black students at Penn reeling appear to have been connected to a student at the University of Oklahoma, Penn notified students early Saturday morning. Several black freshmen found themselves this morning being added against their will to a GroupMe message, labeled "Mud Men," rife with racially explicit content. Following an investigation coordinated between Penn Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gutmann received a call from Oklahoma President David Boren, the email said, notifying her of the suspension, which would be effective immediately. (link)

Nov 10, 2016: The fliers depicting men in camouflage, wielding guns and an American flag, appeared in men's restrooms throughout Texas State University: "Now that our man Trump is elected," they said. "Time to organize tar and feather vigilante squads and go arrest and torture those deviant university leaders spouting off that diversity garbage." A year after students at campuses nationwide pushed for greater sensitivity toward cultural differences, the distribution of the Texas State fliers was just one of several episodes this week suggesting that the surprise election of Donald J. Trump is provoking a round of backlash on campuses. At the same time, universities are trying to address more generalized fears about the country's future, organizing campus meetings and counseling sessions and sending messages to students urging calm. (link)

Nov 09, 2016: Universities across the country organized post-election sessions of meditation, talks and tea. Teachers sent notes to students postponing tests and offering support. Welcome to Day 1 of the Trump Era on college campuses. "The nation in which you currently reside decided last night to elect a president whose own words have painted him a moral and possibly physical hazard to many of us," University of Maryland professor Alan Peel wrote to students, postponing all assessments. (link)

Nov 07, 2016: A 25-year-old Mountainside man has been charged with stabbing a Rutgers University faculty member and student Friday afternoon at the college's business school in Piscataway, authorities said Monday. Joshua S. Thompson faces two counts of attempted murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon, Rutgers police said in a news release Monday afternoon. Thompson allegedly entered the Rutgers Business School on the Livingston campus and attacked the faculty member and student with a knife in an office about 2:30 p.m., authorities said at the time. (link)

Nov 04, 2016: A college freshman died Thursday night after falling from a third floor window at Campbell University. Officials said 18-year-old Ezra Goldbach, from Stokes County, fell from a window at Kitchin Hall, an all-boys dorm, around 9:30 p.m. University officials said the Harnett County Sheriff's Office is investigating the death to determine if Goldbach fell, jumped or was pushed out of the window. (link)

Nov 03, 2016: Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said the school would change its stadium policies following last Saturday's incident where a fan wore an Obama mask with a noose around its neck. The changes to stadium policies will go into effect before the Badgers return home for a Nov. 12 contest against Illinois. Under current Camp Randall Stadium policies, fans are not allowed to wear masks upon entering the stadium, but are allowed to wear them once inside. The entire costume included one person dressed as Donald Trump holding the hangman's noose, which was placed around the neck of the person wearing the Obama mask. (link)

Nov 03, 2016: Harvard has cancelled the men's soccer team's season after an Office of General Counsel review found that the team continued to produce vulgar and explicit documents rating women on their perceived sexual appeal and physical appearance. Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise wrote in an email to Harvard student athletes that he decided to cancel the rest of the team's season because the "practice appears to be more widespread across the team and has continued beyond 2012, including in 2016." (link)

Nov 03, 2016: Authorities are investigating after a robbery was reported during a food delivery Wednesday night on the Duke University campus. Authorities said a man, who was armed with a knife, called in the order which was delivered to the parking lot of 1911 Yearby Street on the Central Campus at about 10:15 p.m. The man is described as being about 18 years old with a dark complexion. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray or brown shirt. He was last seen running toward Anderson Street. (link)

Nov 02, 2016: A University of Oregon law professor wore a costume that included "blackface" at an off-campus Halloween party, prompting outcry from student groups and a decision to place the professor on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. President Michael Schill sent out a campus-wide message commenting on the incident Tuesday, condemning the unnamed professor's actions as an "anathema to the University of Oregon's cherished values of racial diversity and inclusion." The faculty member apparently wore blackface to an off-campus private party where other faculty members and students were in attendance, according to Schill's message. (link)

Nov 02, 2016: Drinking games with red Solo cups of beer, "pregaming" with Fireball shots, swigging 190-proof grain alcohol punch on the way to blacking out: It's party time at college campuses across the country, even when there is no football game. But this year, dozens of universities are taking new measures to kill the party mood, increasingly worried about student safety and the relationship between alcohol and sexual assault complaints. To capture the uneasy balance between the forces promoting alcohol and those trying to control it, The New York Times sent reporters to five campuses. Here is what they found. (link)

Oct 30, 2016: NYU has put a Liberal Studies professor on paid leave one week after revealing he was the creator of a controversial Twitter account "Deplorable NYU," as reported by the New York Post Sunday. NYU professor Michael Rectenwald insists the administration's decision to put him on temporary leave was based off his controversial opinions. "They are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective," he told the Post. NYU spokesman Matt Nagel, however, insists the opposite. The leave, he told the Post, had "absolutely zero to do with his Twitter account or his opinions on issues of the day." (link)

Other News & Events

Nov 07, 2016: Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said Monday he plans to investigate college students voting in his state to ensure they follow the law. "Casting ballots in two different states is voter fraud, which is why Maine law requires anyone voting here to establish residency here," the governor's statement said. "We welcome college students establishing residency in our great state, as long as they follow all laws that regulate voting, motor vehicles and taxes. We cannot tolerate voter fraud in our state." "After the election, we will do everything we can that is allowed under state and federal law to verify college students who voted here are following Maine law, which is clearly displayed on the Secretary of State's website," it concluded, after listing residency requirements for voters. (link)

If you have any suggestions, questions or feedback, please e-mail me at robinmk@auburn.edu. We hope you find this information useful and would appreciate hearing your thoughts. Feel free to forward this email to your direct reports, colleagues, employees or others who might find it of value. Back issues of this newsletter are available on our web site at https://www.auburn.edu/administration/oacp.

If you have any suggestions for items to include in future newsletters, please e-mail Robert Gottesman at gotterw@auburn.edu.

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