February 5, 2008

For Conflict-of-Interest Policies, the Time Is Now, Private-College Leaders Are Told

Washington — If ever there was a time for colleges to be paying more attention to their policies on conflicts of interest and codes of conduct, this is it, two experts on the topic told a gathering of private-college leaders here today.

Many colleges now find themselves caught between increasing financial pressure to expand their commercial relationships and increasing public scrutiny of some of those very relationships, said Kathleen Santora, executive director of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

Business relationships that were once encouraged are now questioned, she said, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. “The landscape clearly is changing.”

Improprieties by colleges and in some cases “clear violations of conflict-of-interest standards by some individuals” in awarding student-loan business and choosing study-abroad providers have led to “an erosion of public trust in our institutions,” said John Walda, president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

So colleges need to pay more attention to this issue, not only as it relates to potential conflicts by individual employees but for the college itself. “The institution side of this is often ignored,” he noted.

Indeed, among the 75-plus people attending the session, only a few raised their hands when asked if their college had an institutional conflict-of-interest policy. (Mr. Walda said later that he knows of many that have begun to develop them in the past few months.)

In addition to the advice on conflict-of-interest policies available on their organizations’ respective Web sites, Mr. Walda and Ms. Santora offered several bits of advice for regulating ethical behavior. Those included: having clear policies on whom a conflict-of-interest policy applies to and how it is enforced; publicizing the policy on campus Web sites so that employees are aware of it; and ensuring that there are mechanisms for making sure employees and officers comply. (Ms. Santora mentioned one college where employees cannot get their annual raises until they have signed their conflict-of-interest disclosures; she later identified it as Drexel University.)

They also recommended developing codes of conduct, in addition to conflict policies, that would apply, as Mr. Walda said, “from the trustees down to the lowest level of employee on your campus.”

University leaders “really need to welcome this discussion,” said Ms. Santora, and that includes the trustees, even though sometimes, they are the ones that have the conflicts of interest that are most difficult to police. —Goldie Blumenstyk

Comments

1. Boston University adopted a very explicit conflict of interest policy several years ago. It applies to the Trustees and everyone else.

   http://www.bu.edu/ethics/conflict.pdf

   — Bill S.    Feb 5, 07:36 PM    #

2. The financial interests of Universities have become too strong to rely on policies and procedures. It’s time to introduce the concept of a University Ombudsman, an objective third party who can actively monitor and report conflicts of interest to the President, Board, and public at large.

   — smcdonald    Feb 6, 12:31 PM    #

3. I don’t like the implications of lumping student loan and study abroad “scandals” together. Although improprieties were found and publicized in the loan investigations, no findings have been presented in relation to study abroad to date. The fourth paragraph of this article was either spliced together (sloppily) by the CHE , or Mr. Walda needs to be careful to separate these two issues.

   — That Guy    Feb 6, 02:57 PM    #

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