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Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy

Case in Point:
Lessons for the proactive manager

July 2017
Vol. 10 No. 07
Quotable...
“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.”

-- Potter Stewart

I believe the biggest risk facing higher education institutions today is that someone (faculty, staff, or administrator) is aware of a major issue and keeps quiet. An ''issue'' here is very broadly defined as anything that can harm the institution or its stakeholders, from compliance failure, to regulatory violation, to whatever else you can imagine. Many in higher education assumed that after the Penn State scandal, no administration would let similar circumstances develop at their institution; however, we continue to see large and prestigious schools incurring major reputational damage due to a known issue not being appropriately addressed or, in some cases, completely ignored. That got me thinking about the importance of institutional culture.

Perhaps now more than ever it is imperative that we create a culture where people are willing to come forward when something doesn't seem right. It only takes a few people unwilling to speak up to create an institutional crisis. Therefore, I thought it wise that we ask ourselves three questions this month:

  1. Am I creating a culture within my sphere of influence that encourages people to come forward with concerns?
  2. Are the people I lead willing to speak up if they become aware of a problem?
  3. Do I take concerns brought forward seriously?

Ideally, you have a culture where employees work through the chain of management to address problems; however, most institutions today have ways stakeholders can report problems anonymously. At AU, we use EthicsPoint, which is managed by an outside hotline provider and completely anonymous.

We invite you to scan the news stories we've linked from the prior month with a view toward proactive risk management. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

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



Information Security & Technology Events

Jul 30, 2018: A data breach happened at Yale University between April 2008 and January 2009. During that breach, intruders gained electronic access to the Yale database and took Social Security numbers, names, and dates of birth. The database that was accessed did not have any financial information. Yale discovered the breach on June 16, 2018 during a security review of the Yale servers. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: Clark University in Massachusetts began notifying some students whose personal information, including Social Security Numbers, were in an employee's email account that had been accessed. According to their notification dated July 20, the university's investigation revealed that an unauthorized individual could have accessed the employee's email account between March 19 and March 23rd. From the wording of the letter, it appears that one employee fell for a phishing attack. (link)

Jul 16, 2018: A total of 111,499 people were affected by a computer security breach at Algonquin College earlier this year, according to college officials. The announcement was made on Monday after a lengthy investigation into the data breach in order to determine exactly what kind of personal information hackers may have gained access to. Officials from the college said they did not believe that hackers gained access to financial information, Social Insurance Numbers, banking or credit card information, or personal health information. However, they said the data breach may have revealed birthdays and home addresses to those behind the attack. (link)

Jul 16, 2018: UPMC Cole has notified 790 patients treated at UPMC Cole that their personal information may have been inappropriately accessed. As a result of UPMC Cole's internal investigation, it was determined that there were two phishing attacks (e-mails sent from an external source that look like they are from a trusted source attempting to obtain sensitive information and often contain links to a phony login page or fake website) on June 7 and June 14 that were discovered through staff reports of the receipt of the e-mails. The phishing attacks were isolated to e-mail accounts and no medical records systems were breached. (link)

Jul 12, 2018: Personal information of 26,598 prospective Purdue students found its way to a parent of a possible student, Purdue spokesman Jim Bush said Thursday in a news release. The file with the personal information was mistakenly sent to a parent of prospective student on May 17. When the parent received the file, he or she immediately contacted Purdue and cooperated with the university to destroy the file without any further breaches, according to the news release. "The university filed a report with the state's attorney general office and is providing required notifications and offering credit monitoring for a period of one year," the release states. (link)

Jul 02, 2018: Notre Dame de Namur University is notifying some financial aid applicants that their information may have been compromised when an employee fell prey to a phishing attack. In its notification letter (reproduced below), Henry Roth, the Chief Financial Officer and VP of Administration, writes that the university learned of the possible compromise on May 18. Investigation determined that the affected email account contained names, Social Security numbers, and other information provided with financial aid applications. The number of students affected was not disclosed in in the notification to the California Attorney General's office. (link)


Fraud & Ethics Related Events

Jul 27, 2018: For years, high-ranking Georgia Tech officials earning six-figure salaries used their positions to line their pockets, internal investigations have found. With little or no accountability, three misused taxpayer funds and exploited relationships with vendors. There were parties in a football suite, courtesy of a bookstore vendor. Golf outings during work hours. Routine meals and after-hours drinking billed to taxpayers. A fourth official went on jaunts to China to shill products for a vendor whose board of directors he sat on, and he charged the school for his travel expenses. He also steered a Tech contract to the company and pressured employees to use its services. Those are findings from a Tech internal audit and a review by The University System of Georgia, both prompted by complaints from employees. All four men are now out of their jobs. They may face more serious repercussions. (link)

Jul 26, 2018: The University of Oklahoma's former chief diversity officer illegally used a university vehicle hundreds of times to commute to and from work and make personal family trips, according to an internal OU audit released on Thursday. The audit was requested after allegations surfaced about improper use of an OU vehicle by Vice President of University Community Jabar Shumate. The former state senator was hired three years ago amid campus unrest after videos surfaced showing fraternity members singing racist chants. (link)

Jul 25, 2018: At least five more programs in Temple University's business school provided false data to improve their ranking in a national report, the school's president said Wednesday. Earlier this month, Moshe Porat, the dean of the Fox School of Business, was forced out after the university reported the business school knowingly submitted inaccurate data to U.S. News & World Report in order to improve the rankings of its Online MBA in the magazine's "Best Grad Schools" list. Porat was replaced and the university hired a law firm to investigate the business school's data and processes. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: Two members of the Bowling Green State University football team were dismissed from the program as a result of an investigation into the illegal use of credit/debit cards that belonged to the school. Redshirt sophomore linebackers Armani Posey and Dirion Hutchins no longer are on the team, according to BG officials. The charges are the result of a police investigation that began after the university discovered irregular charges on debit card accounts designated for athletic book scholarships. Investigators think the cards were used by those who had the card numbers and security codes. (link)

Jul 19, 2018: Qingyou Han and his wife, Lu Shao, used National Science Foundation grant money to buy a West Lafayette house and pay off the mortgage, according to a charge filed Wednesday in federal court. Han, a mechanical engineering technology professor at Purdue University and director for the Purdue Center for Materials Processing Research, and Shao managed to skirt National Science Foundation oversight rules through false reports and shell research companies that Han created, according to the indictment. They listed their minor children as a technical assistant and secretary. (link)

Jul 12, 2018: A federal grand jury in Milwaukee has indicted two Texas residents in connection with textbook thefts at colleges around the country, including books from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. Federal prosecutors said the grand jury indicted Ryan Lewis and Genisis Abellar, both of Houston, on Tuesday on charges of conspiracy to transport stolen goods and interstate transportation of stolen property. Prosecutors said the two stole textbooks from instructors' offices at several University of Wisconsin System schools and shipped the textbooks to a Texas business, which sold them to college students. (link)

Jul 11, 2018: A man has been charged after allegedly stealing a a trailer full of livestock from an Oklahoma university. Cody Joseph Porter, 32, has been charged with larceny of implements of husbandry, larceny of livestock, burglary in the second degree, cruelty to animals, knowingly concealing stolen property and pattern of criminal activity, according to District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas. Porter, and Michael Demaro, are accused of stealing a truck and trailer containing 38 Angora goats and two sheep on July 3 from Langston University's Goat Research Center. (link)

Jul 10, 2018: A University of Colorado mechanical engineering professor pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to mail fraud related to a contract he obtained with Los Alamos National Laboratories in 2008 and used for personal expenses, including international travel. Oleg Viktorovich Vasilyev, 50, is expected to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in October, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He could be sentenced to as many as 20 years in prison. (link)

Jul 09, 2018: Two congressional watchdogs early Monday called on the Office of Congressional Ethics to conduct a preliminary inquiry into reports that U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan ignored complaints of sexual harassment by a former doctor for Ohio State's wrestling team. In the complaint, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer and former White House chief ethics lawyer Norman Eisen say Jordan violated a clause in House rules requiring members of the House to conduct themselves "at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives." (link)

Jul 06, 2018: A former professor at Colorado State University is facing a felony charge for fabricating an outside job offer to improve his status at CSU. Professor Brian McNaughton, 40, ran the McNaughton Lab, a biochemistry research group at CSU. He is now charged with attempt to influence a public official, for presenting his employers with a fictitious offer letter from the University of Minnesota in order to get more money from CSU. The falsification was determined through a series of emails between leaders of the two schools. (link)


Compliance/Regulatory & Legal Events

Jul 30, 2018: Four current and former Stockton University students have sued Stockton and the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity -- which is no longer associated with the school -- claiming rape, sexual assault, and discrimination incidents in their separate civil lawsuits. The school in Atlantic County, New Jersey, has faced four sexual assault-related lawsuits in one month. Two women allege the same man, a member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and now an alumnus of the school, raped them after parties at the fraternity. The third lawsuit alleges another fraternity member used a date rape drug against the plaintiff in that case. And the fourth plaintiff, in a suit filed Friday, alleges an unnamed fraternity member drugged and raped her several times. She then dropped out of the school after her first semester. (link)

Jul 26, 2018: After two days of deliberation, a jury determined on Thursday that a Columbia University professor retaliated against a former assistant professor who accused him of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The jury also decided that Columbia is liable for the retaliation under the New York City Human Rights Law. Enrichetta Ravina, a former assistant professor of finance and economics at the Columbia Business School, had filed a lawsuit against Columbia University and Prof. Geert Bekaert in 2016, seeking up to $30 million in damages. (link)

Jul 24, 2018: Foreign spies, allegedly being sent to the United States as students to steal secrets, include a Chinese student who built a multi-billion technology empire after studying with a Duke University professor. Academic espionage is of particular concern, that some Chinese graduate students, at the direction of the Chinese government, are stealing research, most of which is funded by the U.S. military. An FBI document highlights a case at Duke University, in the lab of Dr. David Smith. (link)

Jul 23, 2018: In the final filings before a hearing Wednesday on whether University of Missouri employees can bring their guns to work, attorneys for the university took aim at the legal reasoning of Attorney General Josh Hawley's main argument in support of a law professor who initiated the suit. A major part of the case involves the meaning of a statute intended to allow state employees to have concealable weapons in their locked cars while they are on the job. Attorney Logan Rutherford wrote on behalf of UM that the state incorrectly views a provision barring criminal prosecution for having the gun in the car as a statutory right that overrules university regulations. (link)

Jul 21, 2018: Former Penn head coach Jerome Allen allegedly took bribes from a Miami businessman who wanted his son to get into the school as a "recruited basketball player" -- increasing his chances to gain entry to the Ivy League school. According to a report from Bloomberg's Michael Smith, David Voreacos and Eben Novy-Williams, Allen was involved with Miami businessman Philip Esformes, who had a son, Morris, who was allegedly recruited by several Ivy League schools. When Philip Esformes was accused of health-care fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and bribery, the government uncovered more than $74,000 in gifts that Esformes gave to Allen in 2013 and 2014. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: More than 100 former Ohio State University students have come forward with allegations that a team doctor and professor at the school committed some form of sexual misconduct with them, university officials announced Friday, as the university begins to grapple with the sheer scope of a scandal that continues to grow. It is the latest in a series of sex abuse scandals that have rattled prominent universities, including the University of Southern California, where more than 50 women have accused a former campus gynecologist of misconduct; Pennsylvania State University, where child sex abuse sent one football coach, Jerry Sandusky, to prison and felled a legend, Joe Paterno; and Michigan State University, which is still contending with the fallout from the predations of a team doctor, Lawrence G. Nassar. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: A Murray State University Public Safety police officer was arrested by Kentucky State Police Thursday afternoon on a sexual abuse charge. Mark A. Johnson, 39, of Murray, was arrested and charged with first-degree sexual abuse, which is a Class D felony. If convicted, Johnson could face between one and five years of jail time, according to Kentucky statute. According to Kentucky State Police, the investigation began upon receiving a complaint from a 24-year-old female. (link)

Jul 17, 2018: A Christian student group kicked off the University of Iowa campus last year for barring a gay student from becoming a leader will be allowed to continue functioning as a registered student organization -- despite a UI request it lose that status by the end of June. The university earlier this year agreed with Business Leaders in Christ, or BLinC -- the UI faith-based group at the center of the controversy -- to extend through June 30 a court order nullifying its deregistration. In siding with BLinC, Judge Rose is allowing the group to remain on campus and continue receiving benefits of registered student organizations -- including access to campus facilities and student fees -- through the summation of the case, which is set for jury trial March 4, 2019. (link)

Jul 16, 2018: The highest-paid public university president last year, James Ramsey, 69, of the University of Louisville, made a total of $4.3 million, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education's eighth annual survey of public university presidents' compensation. Good thing for Ramsey that he has plenty of cash on hand. U of L forced him out in July 2016, and he is facing a lawsuit that charges him with breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent appropriations and improper diversion of funds for personal gain. Ramsey's lawyer, former lieutenant governor of Kentucky Stephen Pence, calls the suit "unfounded." (link)

Jul 13, 2018: A Lawrence University student has sued the institution, alleging it allowed a sexually aggressive student to remain on campus, despite repeated complaints about him, until months after she reported to police that he had raped her. The woman, identified in the suit as Jane Doe, accuses Lawrence of "deliberate indifference" toward the suspected male student, who was eventually expelled after Doe reported him to Appleton police.The federal lawsuit says the assault occurred last fall when the woman was an 18-year-old freshman at the Appleton campus. The male student, it says, was a junior and is now 21. (link)

Jul 13, 2018: A former Baylor volleyball player who said the school mishandled her complaint of having been gang-raped by up to eight Bears football players in 2012 and that the university allowed a "rape culture" to persist within the football program has settled her Title IX lawsuit against the school, according to a notice filed in the case Friday. The lawsuit, filed in May 2017, involved one of the most pivotal allegations in the entire Baylor sexual assault scandal and was a focal point in the investigation by Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, which resulted in the firing of football coach Art Briles, suspension and eventual resignation of athletic director Ian McCaw, and demotion and later departure of university president Kenneth Starr. (link)

Jul 12, 2018: The once-powerful former SUNY official who Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo lauded as a visionary and picked to oversee his signature upstate "Buffalo Billion" revitalization program was convicted Thursday of bid-rigging, marking the latest in a string of Albany corruption scandals to end in guilty verdicts. Alain Kaloyeros, 62, of upstate Slingerlands, who founded SUNY Polytechnic Institute, was found guilty in Manhattan federal court of steering contracts to favored Buffalo and Syracuse developers, both major Cuomo donors. Jurors reached their verdict on the second day of deliberations. Kaloyeros faces up to 60 years in prison for wire fraud and conspiracy. (link)

Jul 12, 2018: A Villanova University campus minister is accused of using a popular mobile messaging app to view child porn. Timothy O'Connell, 51, of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, was arrested and charged with child pornography. On Friday, investigators obtained warrants to search O'Connell's Drexel Hill home, Villanova University office and his two vehicles. O'Connell worked as a campus minister at Villanova University for seven years. Investigators say he used the school's secured internet account to access Kik. (link)

Jul 11, 2018: A UTC student has filed a federal complaint against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He alleged the university failed to properly investigate after he was sexually assaulted in Chattanooga by a UAB student. Federal documents show UAB found the accused student responsible but revised its policy on sexual assault days later, saying the university could not take action because the assault did not happen on its campus. (link)

Jul 11, 2018: In a statement released Wednesday, Liberty University confirmed Jeremy Cole Whorley is a university employee and is enrolled in the online Masters of Business Administration Program. Whorley, 29, was arrested Tuesday and charged with 10 counts of possession of child porn, according to the Lynchburg Police Department. According to a search warrant filed last week, Kilpatrick often communicated with who he believed to be a 13-year-old female "while at work in his office." (link)

Jul 06, 2018: A federal grand jury in New York investigating corruption in college basketball requested records from Maryland regarding an unidentified former player, assistant coach Orlando "Bino" Ranson and Silvio De Sousa, a recruit who ultimately attended Kansas. Maryland released copies of the subpoenas Friday, along with a statement asserting the university had already sent back all relevant records and had found no evidence of any violations of NCAA rules or federal laws by any Maryland coaches, employees or players. (link)

Jul 06, 2018: The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that Marquette University was out of line to discipline a tenured professor for something he wrote online that resulted in threats against another instructor, reversing a lower court decision. The ruling hands a victory to advocates of a broad definition for academic freedom, though the court's focus on what it determined were flawed disciplinary proceedings at the university may have implications for other private employers outside academia. (link)

Jul 05, 2018: A McGill University professor is suing a colleague and former student for $600,000 in response to what he calls a "smear campaign" in which the two allegedly advocated against his tenureship amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim, a professor in the university's Institute of Islamic Studies, claims his former student, Sarah Abdelshamy, and colleague, Pasha Khan, ruined his reputation and refused him his right to privacy. The lawsuit claims that both Abdelshamy and Khan held a "vendetta" against Ibrahim with the goal of ruining "all future employment possibilities for him." (link)

Jul 05, 2018: A former employee at Delgado Community College in Louisiana has been accused of soliciting bribes from students in exchange for granting them financial aid. NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune reports 32-year-old Davin Thomas was charged with solicitation of a bribe by an agent of an organization receiving federal funds in federal court Tuesday. Court records show Thomas worked as financial aid assistant director for processing and systems from November 2013 until August 2016. (link)

Jul 05, 2018: A former Utah State University student who was raped at a fraternity house has agreed to a $250,000 settlement that will also require the school to increase its oversight of its Greek system. The agreement announced Thursday for now marks the end of one of several high-profile sexual assault and harassment cases at the northern Utah school, which has been criticized for how it has handled allegations. (link)

Jul 03, 2018: A federal lawsuit is accusing the University of Minnesota of trying to suppress the views of a conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, who appeared on campus in February. The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday by Shapiro and two conservative groups, claims that the U barred him from speaking at a 1,000-seat venue on the Minneapolis campus and restricted him to a "remote" location half its size because it feared protesters would try to disrupt the event. (link)

Jul 02, 2018: A new chief compliance officer at Michigan State University will function as a checker to make sure the university is following legal and ethical regulations. The position -- which is expected to be filled this week, at least on an interim basis -- is part of a new effort by the scandal-plagued school to reform, interim President John Engler told the Free Press. The position is part of a new Office of Enterprise Risk Management, Ethics and Compliance. (link)

Jul 02, 2018: A Butler woman was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on charges of illegally obtaining and disclosing health information of another person. Linda S. Kalina, 61, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh and charged with six counts of wrongfully obtaining and disclosing the health information of another individual. According to the indictment Kalina, while employed as a patient information coordinator by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and then by the Allegheny Health Network, wrongfully obtained health information, in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), from March 30, 2016, through Aug. 14, 2017, relating to 111 individual patients. (link)


Campus Life & Safety Events

Jul 29, 2018: A man has been charged with sexually assaulting a Northwestern University student early Saturday at a campus dorm in north suburban Evanston. Emmanuel Boadu, 26, is accused of criminal sexual assault in the incident at the Foster-Walker residence hall at 1927 Orrington Ave., Cook County court documents show. Both male and female upperclassmen students live in single rooms in the 582-student dorm, according to Northwestern's website, which describes the hall as one of the largest on campus. Boadu, an undergraduate biochemistry student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, made plans to hang out with the Northwestern student Friday night at the dorm, prosecutors said at a hearing Sunday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. (link)

Jul 27, 2018: Authorities are investigating an alleged sexual assault on the campus of Curry College involving two athletic camps workers. The Curry College Department of Public Safty received a report that Mario M. Larrondo, a 50-year-old night patroller for MB Sports Camps, who is not a college staff member, had sexually assaulted another camp's employee on the campus Thursday, according to a college spokesperson. The college alerted the Milton Police Department and Larrando, of Tampa, Florida, was arrested. (link)

Jul 23, 2018: As part of a U.S. college search, some prospective international students and their parents will research campus safety. While looking into safety statistics and resources, families may come across mentions of fraud schemes that target international students in the U.S. Scammers may contact a potential victim by email, phone or other means. But the common thread is that students are asked to transfer money, sometimes thousands of dollars, or share personal information, often with the threat that something bad will happen to them if they don't comply. According to a recent report from the National Center for Campus Public Safety, a group of university and law enforcement officials identified fraud, typically online, as one of the most common crimes affecting international students studying in the U.S. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: The University of Iowa has deregistered another 38 student groups after a federal judge found it unequally enforced its human rights policy by kicking off campus a student organization that had barred an openly gay member from becoming a leader. At least 22 of the newly deregistered groups are organized around religion, culture or ideology. The groups that recently lost campus affiliation -- and benefits that come with it, like access to university facilities and student fees -- automatically were deregistered after failing to comply with a UI request they submit governing documents proving they observe the UI's human rights policy. (link)

Jul 20, 2018: A student at Georgia Southern University shared an allegedly racist student text message that caused concern on campus. The student, in screening a new roommate, mistakenly sent out a text to the wrong person, in which she used the slur. Will Creeley, with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said there are different ways universities can choose to handle such incidents depending on severity, pervasion and persistence. "The basic rule is that public universities like Georgia Southern are government actors and they are bound to uphold the First Amendment on campus," he said. ''At a public university bound by the First Amendment, the use of a racial slur might be protected speech." But, he said, the university is also obliged to abide by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act Of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin. (link)

Jul 19, 2018: Former Wayne State University journalism faculty chief Jack Lessenberry, who retired last month, took advantage of some female students, showering them with compliments about their looks, sending provocative emails, retaliating when he was rebuffed, and engaging in "numerous passionate kissing sessions" with one woman in his office and car, an outside investigator tells WSU in a detailed report. The just-completed internal report is by attorney Tara E. Mahoney, a partner at the Honigman law firm in Detroit. WSU asked it to investigate the day after a May 17 report in Deadline Detroit about Lessenberry's conduct with women spanning nearly 30 years, from his time as a manager at the Tennessee Commercial Appeal to his 1993-2018 time as an instructor at Wayne. (link)

Jul 18, 2018: Cal Poly has revoked the wrestling scholarship of Bronson Harmon, a recent Modesto-area high school graduate, after video surfaced of him yelling a homophobic slur and making an obscene gesture during a counter protest of the Families Belong Together March in Modesto on June 30. Cal Poly Athletic Director Don Oberhelman declined to comment on the reason why Harmon's scholarship was revoked, however, only saying the university was aware of the video before the athletic department made the decision. (link)

Jul 17, 2018: For the second time in just over a week, a student at Stockton University has sued, claiming she was raped by an alumnus who found his alleged victims at the parties of an unauthorized, off-campus fraternity. Both young women, who have chosen to remain anonymous, are accusing the same man, who is now 25. They are suing the alumnus, but also Stockton University and Pi Kappa Phi, arguing that the institutions failed to protect the women from the alleged sexual assaults. The most recent suit, filed in federal court in Camden Friday, claims Zachary Madle, a 2015 graduate, violently raped an 18-year-old freshman twice in October and November in the Egg Harbor City house that once housed the unauthorized fraternity. (link)

Jul 17, 2018: The Clayton police chief will meet this week with an African-American student claiming mistreatment at the hands of officers. This coming as Washington University has called for an apology from police for the second day. University officials said Clayton police "humiliated" 10 African-American students--all incoming freshmen--when the students were stopped on suspicion of leaving a Clayton IHOP restaurant without paying. (link)

Jul 16, 2018: A University of Illinois student has been charged with disorderly conduct after authorities say he called police to report a man with a gun, then pointed a pellet gun at responding officers before they shot him. The News-Gazette reports 23-year-old Samuel Applebaum of Flossmoor pleaded not guilty to the charge on Monday. Officers were called to an area near the Champaign campus Thursday night to respond to a report of a white male loading a handgun. Police say they located Applebaum and ordered him to drop his gun. Officers shot him in the leg when he didn't comply. (link)

Jul 13, 2018: A former East Stroudsburg University student is facing charges, including more than 15 counts of harassment, for allegedly stalking a professor and his family for years. Tabitha Golembeski, 23, of Swoyersville, Pa., was arrested on Thursday for stalking and harassment charges for incidents involving the professor and his family dating back to 2016. Back in Dec. 2016, Golembeski was enrolled at East Stroudsburg University and the professor was her advisor. (link)

Jul 11, 2018: A Georgia State University student faces rape and aggravated sodomy charges in an alleged on-campus assault that occurred last month, officials confirmed. Onyekachi Precious Kenis, 18, of Lithonia, remained in the Fulton County jail Wednesday, one day after he was denied bond at his first appearance hearing. Kenis was booked Monday. Kenis allegedly raped a woman at Piedmont Central, an on-campus housing facility that opened in 2016, on June 11, according to a police report obtained by AJC.com. (link)

Jul 08, 2018: A planned marketing campaign for the University of Wyoming is taking heat from some inside the university who have called it sexist, racist and counterproductive to the goal of recruiting more out-of-state students. "The world needs more cowboys," the campaign claims, evoking images of stereotypical western icons in the minds of some faculty and misrepresenting UW's research and educational goals, associate professor Christine Porter said. In addition to individuals raising objections, the UW Committee on Women and People of Color wrote a letter to Baldwin and UW President Laurie Nichols, asking them to "shelve that slogan and find another one that represents the diversity of people and cultures that we have, and want to have, as UW." (link)

Jul 05, 2018: Lisa Stillman, an instructor in the biology department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, put up an old photo of herself and a friend in blackface back in In October of 2016. In the offensive photo, they were donning black makeup on their faces, wearing wigs with bones in their hair and one had a pot belly, which looked like she was supposed to be pregnant. Purdue University sent the following statement after a phone call seeking comment. "The university promptly reviewed these complaints, concluding that the instructor had handled the lab incident in a wholly appropriate manner, and that her personal social media post of an old photo was not harassment under Purdue policy. In any event, what we can say firmly is that, at Purdue, we do not punish speech, particularly when off-campus speech is expressed by an employee speaking as a private citizen." (link)

Jul 02, 2018: A Cal Poly Pomona security officer was killed Friday in a violent altercation that ended when police fatally shot the attacker. Pomona Police Chief Michael Olivieri announced the incident on Twitter and said one of his agency's officers had been involved in the shooting. The suspect may have been a custodian employed by the school, said Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which is investigating the incident. (link)

Jul 02, 2018: A Portland man fatally shot early Friday outside a sports bar near Portland State University by campus police officers was a U.S. postal worker and father of three daughters who served in the Navy and married his high school sweetheart, friends say. Two Portland State University police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after at least one of them opened fire near The Cheerful Tortoise along Southwest Sixth Avenue around 1:30 a.m. (link)

Jul 02, 2018: A University of Central Florida professor is facing stalking charges after a Ph.D student says he sent her more than 800 messages per day and watched her work out through the window at her gym. Ali Borji, a 39-year-old assistant professor in the school's Department of Computer Science, was arrested at his on-campus office Thursday night. He faces two charges of stalking -- both misdemeanors. (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.

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Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy
Auburn University
304 Samford Hall
M. Kevin Robinson, Assoc. VP
robinmk@auburn.edu
334.844.4389

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