An assistant provost at North Carolina Central University has been accused by the state auditor of embezzling more than $36,000 from the university and a federal grant program, as well as falsifying financial documents.

The state auditor for North Carolina released a report today outlining an investigation into the assistant provost, who was not named. The inquiry was opened after an anonymous caller to the auditor’s hotline alleged misconduct in the office of the university’s assistant provost and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs.

The state auditor, Leslie W. Merritt Jr., accused the assistant provost of authorizing the issuance of checks to students from a university account for minority biomedical research grants financed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to Mr. Merritt, the assistant provost then told those students to cash the checks, keep a portion, and return the rest to him. Students cashed more than $15,000 in such checks, according to the report.

In addition, the report said that the assistant provost had forged the signatures of two students who were not qualified for but received graduate assistantships at the official’s behest.

The report didn’t name the official, but according to the university’s Web site, the only administrator with that title is Franklin B. Carver, who was appointed to the post in July 2005.

In a written statement responding to the report, the university said the official had been dismissed as an administrator but remained as a faculty member.

Mr. Merritt has exposed financial mismanagement at another university in the state. Last August he released a report outlining the misuse of more than $400,000 by an official at North Carolina A&T State University. —JJ Hermes