Case in Point:
Lessons for the proactive manager

Before we jump into our review of the events of 2017, I wanted to speak briefly about last month's column. In the nine years of publishing this newsletter, the topic of ''stupid rules'' generated more comments from readers at a wide variety of institutions than any other. I'm not sure what that means other than perhaps we all need to evaluate some things! I also wanted to say I greatly appreciated the feedback and interaction from those of you who responded. While our subscriptions grow each month, it is always nice to hear what you think. Please drop me an email if something we publish here resonates with you.

As we do each year, we will review the stories from 2017 and look for emerging risk trends and perhaps even make a few predictions of what may be coming next. We linked 491 stories in total last year. By category they break down as follows:

• Information Security & Technology: 14% (up 5% from 2016)
• Fraud & Ethics: 14% (down 2% from 2016)
• Compliance & Legal: 43% (up 4% from 2016)
• Campus Life & Safety: 28% (down 2% from 2016)
• Other: 1% (down 1% from 2016)

As we have seen for several years, the Compliance & Legal category continues to have the largest number of stories we see and link. There is no doubt our industry is among the most (if not the most) regulated out there, and while there have been discussions on ways to ease this burden, we haven't really seen much relief come to fruition. We shall see if that occurs during 2018, although in my opinion, national scandals that generate major media attention reduce the likelihood relief will occur. Unfortunately, there have been several during 2017 and now continuing in 2018.

Next month we will dive into the Information Security & Technology category. Until then, we invite you to review the events of the past month across higher education with the view toward proactive risk management. As always, we welcome your comments.

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

Information Security & Technology Events

Jan 26, 2018: The University of Baltimore has added protections to personal student data that officials had left unsecured possibly for years, according to a state audit released this month. The information on 117,793 students was kept in text form in a database that contained names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. The lapse was discovered during a routine audit by the Department of Legislative Services' Office of Legislative Audits. (link)

Jan 24, 2018: An Arizona man was sentenced to six months in prison on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to hacking into over 1,000 email accounts at Pace University in New York in an attempt to download sexually explicit photos and videos. Jonathan Powell was arrested in November 2016. Prosecutors said at the time that Powell used password reset tools to change the passwords for more than 1,000 accounts at two universities, in New York and Pennsylvania. They said he tried to do the same at 75 other institutions. (link)

Jan 22, 2018: Stephanie Jass, a "Jeopardy!" champion and former Adrian College professor, took advantage of a campus-wide password reset to access the email accounts of President Jeffrey Docking, and outgoing Vice President Agnes Caldwell, according to a Michigan State Police report. As a result, Jass had a document "that consisted of notes and comments and 'problems'" regarding faculty members, a fellow professor told a detective. (link)

Jan 18, 2018: The University of Central Florida has agreed to spend an additional $1 million annually to protect students' and employees' personal information, according to a legal settlement reached with former students in the wake of a hacking that exposed 63,000 Social Security numbers. UCF agreed to add three information security positions, designate a full-time internal senior information security auditor and tighten access to personal information, as part of the settlement filed in Orange Circuit Court late last year. (link)

Jan 12, 2018: Another laptop was apparently stolen from an employee's car. This one was from the education sector, but it contained some student health information and health insurance information. The incident was reported by Montana State University Billings to the Montana Attorney General's Office on January 5, and letters are going out today to affected students. The number of students potentially affected was not indicated in the notification letter. (link)

Jan 05, 2018: A November data breach at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences may have provided a third party with Medicaid patient information, according to OSU officials. Patient names, Medicaid numbers, health care provider names, dates of service and limited treatment information might have been included in the breach, which was discovered Nov. 7, according to OSU-CHS. After learning that a third party gained access to folders on a server that stored Medicaid patient billing information, officials removed the folders and terminated the access. They also shut down the affected server, according to the release. (link)

Jan 02, 2018: About 1,000 patients at Penn Medicine are receiving letters saying a computer with some of their personal information on it was stolen. A laptop containing patient files was reported stolen from a car at the King of Prussia Mall parking lot on Nov. 30, according to a spokesperson at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. So far, there is no indication the computer has been turned on or the patient information accessed, they stated. (link)

Fraud & Ethics Related Events

Jan 25, 2018: A historically black university in Florida has filed a lawsuit against Virginia Union University President Dr. Hakim Lucas. The 164-page lawsuit accuses Lucas and several co-defendants of "illicit and fraudulent" misconduct, regarding the role they played in the construction of a dormitory at Bethune-Cookman University (BCU), where Lucas previously served as vice president of institutional advancement. The dorm construction project that could end up costing BCU more than $300 million is the impetus for this lawsuit filed by the college this week in circuit court in Volusia County, Florida. (link)

Jan 24, 2018: Two University of Tennessee athletic department employees accepted impermissible golf trips, according to the results of an audit released Wednesday by the Tennessee Comptroller's Office. The report investigated trips that occurred in 2014 and 2016, including a pair of trips to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga. At least twice in 2016, the report states, UT's director of sports surface management accepted paid golf trips and related entertainment from a department vendor, which is a violation of university policy. University policy doesn't allow employees to accept gifts or entertainment exceeding $75 in value. (link)

Jan 23, 2018: David Hutson had it good. An employee of the University of South Carolina's athletics department, he was making $69,125 a year. As part of that job, he had an official university credit card to be used only for USC business. But unknown to the athletics department, Hutson was using that Visa Bank of America credit card to go on a nonstop internet shopping spree, according to state court and USC records obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests. (link)

Jan 23, 2018: A Chinese citizen accused of posing as someone else to take a graduate school entrance exam on her behalf pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a criminal case that arose from U.S. prosecutors investigating international students who use imposters to gain admission to American universities. Xinyan Wang, who was a student at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to charges that she misused a passport and committed visa fraud by using counterfeit travel documents to take the exam. (link)

Jan 18, 2018: The chief photographer in the University of Tennessee Athletics Department was being paid by other schools to get photos of non-UT athletes while using UT equipment during work hours, according to a report from the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. The report released Thursday said Page was also using UT student assistants and some non-students to photograph the non-UT athletes, and paying the assistants in cash. (link)

Jan 18, 2018: A former Baruch College coach admitted Wednesday to siphoning $700,000 meant for the school's athletic department, authorities said. Machli Joseph, 43, pleaded guilty to embezzlement and misapplication. The onetime basketball coach, who worked in the college's athletic department from 2002 to 2016, repeatedly rented gym facilities to outside parties, ''ostensibly on behalf of Baruch College,'' prosecutors said. (link)

Jan 17, 2018: The former treasurer of a University of Oklahoma fraternity has been charged with embezzlement after being accused of withdrawing thousands of dollars from the organization. Jacob Morgan Stephens, 21, is accused of embezzling about $32,000 from the OU chapter of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity, court records show. (link)

Jan 16, 2018: A Medaille College employee is being investigated by Buffalo police for an alleged theft of more than $10,000. Matt Carver, Medaille's vice president for business and finance, filed a complaint with police earlier this month stating that an employee in the college's admissions office used a college corporate credit card to make unauthorized personal purchases from October through December. (link)

Jan 11, 2018: A former administrator at a Columbia University-affiliated school and three students have been accused of running a financial aid kickback scheme that funneled more than $800,000 in stipends into their own pockets, according to law enforcement sources and a criminal complaint. Melanie Williams-Bethea -- who sources said was a financial aid director at Columbia's Teachers College until 2017 -- was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery and student aid fraud, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday. (link)

Jan 03, 2018: A former Florida Atlantic University student is accused of enrolling in classes using fraudulent checks and receiving nearly $30,000 worth of refunds after dropping the classes. An FAU police report says 27-year-old Denise Elizabeth Keaton registered to take classes five times in June 2014 as Elizabeth Denise Keaton and paid with about $54,000 in fraudulent online checks. The arrest report says Keaton then canceled the classes and received funds from the university in three of the five cases. (link)

Compliance/Regulatory & Legal Events

Jan 29, 2018: Michigan State University administrators have long claimed, to the federal government and public, that they have handled sexual assault, violence and gender discrimination complaints properly. But an Outside the Lines investigation has found a pattern of widespread denial, inaction and information suppression of such allegations by officials ranging from campus police to the Spartan athletic department, whose top leader, Mark Hollis, announced his retirement on Friday. The actions go well beyond the highly publicized case of former MSU athletic physician Larry Nassar. (link)

Jan 29, 2018: A young woman and her family say they are outraged by Butler's reaction in 2016, after the then 18-year-old woman said she was forcibly raped by a man twice her size. The woman, who is now 20, has filed a civil rights complaint, claiming the university failed to inform her of her options in accordance with federal law. As a result, she said, evidence was destroyed, denying her the opportunity to effectively seek criminal charges against her alleged attacker, who had a prior report of sexual misconduct. (link)

Jan 29, 2018: A federal appeals court panel has refused to reinstate a civil rights lawsuit by a former financial official at West Chester University who claims she was fired for being honest. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit made that call in concluding the university, one of its vice presidents, and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are legally immune from Colleen M. Bradley's complaint. Bradley contended she was let go for repeatedly pointing out what she believed were unethical manipulations of the university's and PASSHE's budgeting processes. (link)

Jan 27, 2018: A former professor at Weber State University is suing the Ogden school for how it handled an allegation of sexual harassment from a student in his class. Although pages of emails and other electronic messages were used as evidence in the case, Jason Fritzler, who taught microbiology before resigning last year, maintains he didn't and couldn't have sent the messages to the student, his attorney Brian Jackson told The Salt Lake Tribune this week. Fritzler alleges the sexually charged messages were fabricated, and denies the female student's assertion that they had sexual relations on several occasions. (link)

Jan 25, 2018: The University of Michigan fired a doctor after he was accused of having sex with a young patient. Mark Franklin Hoeltzel worked as a pediatric rheumatologist at the University of Michigan Hospital. He's now under investigation by university police. Hoeltzel first got into trouble in 2004 after exchanging flirtatious social media messages with an 11-year-old girl he'd examined at a U of M arthritis camp. (link)

Jan 25, 2018: A Bellarmine University student filed a lawsuit claiming the university punished him for filing a sexual harassment complaint against a professor. Attorney Josh Engel said the unnamed student was in an inappropriate six-month relationship with a professor and the two exchanged sexually provocative text messages. When the student ended the relationship, he claimed the professor kicked him off an important research project. (link)

Jan 24, 2018: A former Oakland University professor has been found guilty of three drug-related counts after he was accused last year of operating a drug house. Joseph Schiele was charged with seven different counts, including possession with intent to deliver, felony firearm and operating a drug house. According to court transcripts, a 22-year-old female college student told the court she visited the professor's home "at least 30 times" for "partying," "drinking and doing drugs" ... "usually cocaine and ketamine." (link)

Jan 23, 2018: The University of Arizona officially fired basketball coach Emmanuel "Book" Richardson. Richardson is appealing his termination notice from the school. Along with three assistant coaches from other programs, Richardson is facing up to 60 years in prison and one and a half million dollars in fines if he's convicted on bribery and other charges connected to basketball recruiting. The FBI has been investigating the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes who participate in intercollegiate basketball governed by the NCAA since 2015. (link)

Jan 23, 2018: Southern Illinois University's medical school has halted all herpes research, one of its most high-profile projects, amid growing controversy over a researcher's unauthorized methods offshore and in the U.S. SIU's ethics panel launched a "full" investigation Dec. 5 of the herpes vaccine experiments by university professor William Halford, according to a memo obtained by Kaiser Health News. Halford, who died in June, had injected Americans with his experimental herpes vaccine in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2016 and in Illinois hotel rooms in 2013 without routine safety oversight from the Food and Drug Administration or an institutional review board, according to ongoing reporting by KHN. Some of the participants say they are experiencing side effects. (link)

Jan 22, 2018: A former dean of the University of Arizona is suing in federal court, claiming she was underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars compared to her male colleagues. Patricia MacCorquodale, former dean of the school's Honors College, alleges that she was dramatically underpaid for two decades. And when university officials removed her as dean in 2016, she was replaced by a male who made nearly $70,000 more than she did. (link)

Jan 22, 2018: The woman who accused former Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez of sexual harassment has filed a second notice of claim against Rodriguez, his wife and the University of Arizona seeking $8.5 million. In the first claim, filed Dec. 29 with the Arizona Attorney General's Office, the woman, Rodriguez's former administrative assistant, alleged Rodriguez ran a hostile work place. She said Rodriguez forced her to keep an extramarital affair secret while also groping and attempting to kiss her, among other actions that made her feel uncomfortable. (link)

Jan 18, 2018: A former Dartmouth College student has sued the school, saying he was unfairly expelled after a female student filed a physical assault complaint against him. "John Doe" says in the New Hampshire federal lawsuit that Dartmouth's investigation was biased. It says the woman's complaint was filed in 2016 after what she described as a consensual sexual encounter. Doe says he was incapacitated by alcohol and unable to consent; he accused her of physical and sexual assault. (link)

Jan 17, 2018: Police in Florida issued arrest warrants for nine men on Tuesday in connection with the November hazing death of a 20-year-old Florida State University student, authorities said. The suspects, all between the ages of 20 and 22 years old, face charges of college hazing causing injury or death in the case of Andrew Coffey, a FSU fraternity pledge who died of alcohol poisoning on Nov. 3, the Tallahassee Police Department said in a statement Tuesday. (link)

Jan 17, 2018: The University of Iowa is caught up in a legal fight with a conservative Christian student group that denied a leadership position to a student who is gay. The case pits a university policy barring discrimination based on sexual orientation against the religious beliefs of a 10-member group called Business Leaders in Christ. The group sued after the state's flagship university in Iowa City revoked its campus registration in November. The group says its membership is open to everyone but its leaders must affirm a statement of faith that rejects homosexuality. The university says it respects the right of students, faculty and staff to practice the religion of their choice but does not tolerate discrimination. (link)

Jan 12, 2018: An 18-year-old former University of Maryland employee has been charged with writing racially charged words on a men's bathroom stall in the Ellicott Dining Hall in October, according to University of Maryland police. Terrell Demonte Alexander of Lanham was charged Wednesday with two counts of malicious destruction of property for the incident that occurred at the College Park campus between Oct. 22 and Oct. 23, and on Nov. 3. ''We take incidents of hate-bias in our community very seriously, which is reflected in the extensive effort to identify the individual responsible,'' said University Police Chief David B. Mitchell. (link)

Jan 11, 2018: A suburban Chicago college student is suing her school for allegedly violating her free-speech rights by prohibiting her from handing out flyers from a socialist group that read, "Shut Down Capitalism." It says the public community college violated Salazar's rights by limiting political expressions to a small campus "free speech zone." School policy includes requirements to get prior approval of flyers, and other restrictions. (link)

Jan 11, 2018: Police are investigating a rape that allegedly happened at the University of Kansas Hospital. The suspect is a Raymore man who is currently at the Wyandotte county jail. Prosecutors have charged Joshua Johnson, 35, with a single count of rape. The charge stems from an investigation led by the University of Kansas Medical Center Police Department. (link)

Jan 08, 2018: Four New York City men were given jail sentences Monday in the death of an 18-year-old fraternity pledge during a 2013 hazing ritual in Pennsylvania, with a judge saying she believes they succumbed to "brainwashing" and "indoctrination" that is rampant at fraternities around the nation. Baruch College freshman Chun "Michael" Deng was blindfolded, forced to wear a heavy backpack and then repeatedly tackled as part of the fraternity's Crossing Over initiation ceremony. He was knocked unconscious and later died at a hospital. Police charged 37 people with crimes ranging from aggravated assault to hazing to third-degree murder. (link)

Jan 08, 2018: A former Houston Community College trustee has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to accepting cash bribes of more than $225,000 to use his trustee position to steer business contracts to the school. (link)

Jan 07, 2018: Mike Leach's war against Texas Tech is headed back to court, this time to gain access to records related to his firing from the university in 2009. Leach, now the head football coach at Washington State, hired an investigative firm in Houston last year to dig up information on Texas Tech officials and pressure them into paying him the $2.4 million he says he is still owed by Tech. But that firm, Dolcefino Consulting, says Texas Tech has refused to comply with its requests for public records related to his firing. On Sunday, the firm filed a lawsuit against Tech that seeks a court order forcing Tech to comply. (link)

Jan 07, 2018: West Virginia Wesleyan College has settled a lawsuit with its former vice president of student development for $250,000. The agreement with Julie Keehner was reached in early December, according to court records. In the suit, Keehner had alleged the college violated the West Virginia Human Rights Act by compensating male employees in a senior administrative role at the college at a higher rate, despite her having more experience. The suit also alleged that the college terminated Keehner in whole or in part based upon her age. She was 60 at the time. (link)

Jan 05, 2018: A doctor at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has been placed on leave amid allegations he raped two patients when he worked at the Cleveland Clinic in northeast Ohio. A USA TODAY investigation published Friday outlined the sexual assault allegations against Dr. Ryan Williams while he was employed at the Cleveland Clinic. After leaving the clinic, he joined the Wexner Medical Center August 1, 2017. (link)

Jan 05, 2018: An executive for the University of Wisconsin System arrested for first-offense drunken driving while out of town for a regents meeting in October expects to plead guilty, pay a fine and lose her driver's license for six months, according to her attorney. (link)

Jan 03, 2018: The Arizona Wildcats on Tuesday fired football coach Rich Rodriguez after six seasons in the wake of a sexual harassment allegation the university began investigating in October and a recent notice of a hostile-workplace lawsuit to be filed against the school. (link)

Jan 02, 2018: A man prosecutors say was found with hundreds of images of child pornography in his Carthage College dorm room has reached a plea deal in the case against him. 21-year-old Austin Szczodrowski on January 2nd pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of child pornography. He'll be sentenced on March 26th. The images are believed to have been downloaded using the campus internet. (link)

Jan 02, 2018: Shortly after midnight on Oct. 18, 2013, 19-year-old Ethan P. Connolly, a sophomore at the University of Delaware, was fatally hit by a truck while walking across Del. 896. In a lawsuit, his parents want a New Castle County Superior Court judge to hold the university, the sorority and those that hosted the party liable for his death. (link)

Jan 01, 2018: Police charged two Santa Fe men Monday with stealing four company vehicles from the Santa Fe University of Art and Design campus. Police say Robert Noedel and Nestor Rodriguez, both 26, managed to drive at least three of the four vehicles off the campus during the night before a college security guard noticed one of the vehicles in question on a neighboring street and called police. (link)

Jan 01, 2018: Dean A. Tupper, a former employee of Stonehill College in Easton, was arrested Friday and charged in connection with an accidental shooting at the school in October, according to a statement from the Bristol County District Attorney's office.On Oct. 11, Tupper, 57, allegedly shot his co-worker, Dave Pigeon, in the Plumber's Shop of Stonehill College's Clock Farm, which is across the street from Stonehill's campus, according to the release and police reports. (link)

Campus Life & Safety Events

Jan 30, 2018: Authorities say several students at a North Carolina university were robbed at gunpoint in their dorm room. North Carolina Central University police issued a statement that the robbery happened around 6:30 p.m. Monday in a dormitory at the Durham campus. Police say two suspects showed firearms and took personal property. (link)

Jan 29, 2018: Open records requests filed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed that among all 13 four-year campuses and 13 two-year colleges in the UW System, nearly 100 complaints of employee sexual misconduct -- either harassment and/or assault -- have been formally investigated since 2014. The cases requested by the Journal Sentinel specifically involved teaching, supervisory and advising staff -- not all university staff. (link)

Jan 29, 2018: Just days after Sue Carter resigned her position as chair of Michigan State University's Athletic Council, in protest over the institution's handling of its sexual abuse scandal, a former student has filed a complaint claiming Carter drew her into an inappropriate relationship more than two decades ago. (link)

Jan 29, 2018: As tension peaked yet again last week over Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois' enduring but officially forsaken symbol, school officials said they plan to launch a series of events "designed to foster productive and healing discussions." Chief Illiniwek is at the center of a long-running dispute, with some claiming that the symbol honors the state's American Indian heritage, and others insisting that it is racist and culturally insensitive. The university banned the Chief in 2007 under pressure from the NCAA, but devoted supporters, including some who don the regalia for games and special events, have kept the symbol alive in the face of sometimes hostile opposition. (link)

Jan 28, 2018: A Rutgers University adjunct professor convicted of sexual assault seven years ago has been placed on administrative leave after "issues regarding his background were brought to the chancellor," a university spokeswoman said Sunday. Sombudha Adhikari, 58, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual assault in 2011 after being charged in 2009 when he was a professor at Farleigh Dickinson University in Florham Park, according to a public records search and published reports. (link)

Jan 26, 2018: Seattle University recently removed Self-Portrait 2000 by Chuck Close, an estimated (pre-allegation) value of $35,000, from the second floor of its Lemieux Library. In light of the sexual misconduct accusations from women who modeled for him, The National Gallery cancelled Close's solo exhibition along with an exhibit by photographer Thomas Roma, who also stands accused of misconduct. (link)

Jan 25, 2018: USC has fired associate head coach Tony Bland in the aftermath of his arrest last fall in the college basketball bribery and corruption probe, his attorney told The Times. Jeffrey Lichtman, Bland's New York-based attorney, said USC cut ties with the coach last week. Lichtman said the school cited the federal charges as the reason. The school placed Bland on administrative leave hours after FBI agents arrested him in September. Assistant coaches at Arizona, Auburn and Oklahoma State were among 10 people arrested. (link)

Jan 25, 2018: In the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, Lou Anna Simon, president of Michigan State University, is resigning, according to a letter posted on the school's website. Nassar is a former longtime school employee. He was sentenced Wednesday to up to 175 years in prison for the sexual assault of young female athletes. Simon had recently come under fire for what critics say is the mishandling of the Nassar scandal. They say the school's leader of 13 years had been tone deaf and needs to be among those held accountable for what happened while Nassar was employed as a sports physician at MSU from 1997 to 2016. (link)

Jan 24, 2018: A professor at the University of Texas who pleaded guilty to a felony charge of strangling his girlfriend to the point that she saw "stars" remains on the job despite a school policy condemning domestic violence as prohibited conduct that it "will not tolerate," an American-Statesman investigation has found. The case comes to light at a time of heightened concern at colleges and universities, and more broadly across American society, about sexual assault and interpersonal violence. (link)

Jan 23, 2018: Spring Garden Township Police filed charges recently against a York man who allegedly crashed into a guard shack at York College - injuring a pregnant security officer inside - and then drove off on Dec. 2, according to charging documents. Luis David Medina-Gonzalez, 30, of the 800 block of Wayne Avenue, York, faces a host of charges, including accidents involving death or personal injury, failure to stop and give information or render aid, and driving on a suspended or revoked license, documents state. (link)

Jan 22, 2018: A man accused of killing a woman during his shift as a campus safety officer at an Oregon community college pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated murder. Edwin Lara accepted a plea deal that spared him a possible death sentence but will keep him in prison for life. Authorities said Lara kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed Kaylee Sawyer, 23, in July 2016.In his plea, Lara acknowledged holding Sawyer in the back of his security vehicle, where he strangled and then killed her with a large rock. (link)

Jan 19, 2018: A woman whom prosecutors said was angry about supposed U.S. military actions abroad was charged Friday with setting several fires at a Minnesota university. A criminal complaint said Tnuza Jamal Hassan, 19, a former student at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, admitted to investigators that she started the fires on Wednesday, including one in a dormitory that housed a day care center. She's charged with first-degree arson. (link)

Jan 18, 2018: The new president of Ithaca College is speaking out after a 17-year-old criminal case has resurfaced. College President Shirley M. Collado was accused of sexually abusing a female patient in 2000 while she worked at The Center at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington, D.C., according to court documents published by the Ithacan student newspaper and the Vanderbilt Hustler. Collado was convicted a year later. The victim said they entered a five-month sexual relationship after Collado kissed her during therapy sessions for post-traumatic stress disorder. Collado allegedly said kissing and fondling would be ''therapeutic for the victim; that it would bring her out of her shell,'' according to Fox News. (link)

Jan 17, 2018: A college student who posted a video of her racist ranting to social media on Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been expelled from the University of Alabama, school officials said Wednesday. Harley Barber, a 19-year-old freshman from Marlton, N.J., recently posted two videos to her ''fake'' Instagram -- the secret, secondary account many teenagers use to show their authentic, less polished selves -- of her spewing language that sparked outrage both on her campus and across the country as the videos went viral. (link)

Jan 16, 2018: A group of UMass Boston students, professors, and alumni as well as outside advocates are raising concerns about the Confucius Institute that operates on its campus, accusing it of promoting censorship abroad and undermining human rights. The Chinese government oversees the center, one of more than 90 on campuses across the United States and abroad and one of two in the state. (link)

Jan 16, 2018: A pair of signs containing racial epithets appeared outside the University of South Carolina's African American Studies department Tuesday morning, setting off a firestorm of complaints to the university and prompting an internal investigation. The signs partially covered a display of photos of historically important black South Carolinians on the second floor of Gambrell Hall, a liberal arts building at the university's downtown Columbia campus. (link)

Jan 12, 2018: Joel Seligman resigned as president of the University of Rochester as the school continues to grapple with fallout from complaints that it bungled its response to allegations of sexual harassment by a professor. In a series of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints made public in September, current and former faculty and graduate students alleged that psycholinguistics professor T. Florian Jaeger created a "hostile environment" over the course of a decade. (link)

Jan 09, 2018: Sigma Alpha Epsilon at MU has been placed under a cease-and-desist order according to a statement last month from the national headquarters for the fraternity. The cease-and-desist order comes after an investigation into health and safety violations by the national headquarters for SAE. Three of SAE's chapters have been closed within two months by the national headquarters, including the chapter at MU. The University of Texas at Austin chapter was shut down in early November, followed by the University of Mississippi's chapter closing in early December. (link)

Jan 08, 2018: A national fraternity was banned from Pennsylvania for 10 years and ordered to pay a fine of more than $110,000 as it was sentenced Monday for its role in the death of a 19-year-old pledge during a 2013 hazing ritual. The judge and a prosecutor slammed Pi Delta Psi for calling itself a victim of rogue fraternity members, saying the organization tolerated and even encouraged hazing for years leading up to the death of Baruch College freshman Chun "Michael" Deng. (link)

Jan 03, 2018: Early Tuesday morning, the president of Hillsborough Community College received a rambling email outlining horror-movie violence to be inflicted upon HCC's campus if certain payments were not made. Across Florida, in Tampa and Gainesville and Tallahassee, other college and university presidents' inboxes were lighting up with the same extortion threat, promising an inundation of false bombing and shooting threats until, the sender claimed, one would prove real. It's not clear yet how many institutions got the 1,250-word message, or whether it was limited to Florida. Many agencies are investigating, including campus police departments and the FBI, though few specifics are available at this early stage. (link)

Other News & Events

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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