Individual Responsibility and Accountability
We will accept responsibility appropriate to our positions and delegated authorities-
This means that each member of the campus community
- Acts in ways that strengthen the trust of the public in the University
Perspective: A Real World Illustration
A September 2005 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant newspaper reported on the findings of a commission investigating an east coast university's attempt to keep from the public, school trustees and lawmakers, problems associated with its billion-dollar construction program.
The commission found that the public university's administrators held secret meetings, kept audits critical of the program from being released and ignored recommendations on how to improve the capital program, which has been plagued by scores of safety violations and cost overruns.
The actions taken by the university brought the university "down a precarious path leading to ineffective policies and procedures which put the investment in the [capital program] at risk," the commission concluded.
Such secrecy is part of the reason school officials will lose some control over how to spend an additional $1.3 billion in the construction program's next 10-year phase. Lawmakers gave the university authority to choose all contractors and manage [the university's capital] projects with no outside oversight in order to avoid delays.
The governor of the state in which the university is located announced she would seek legislative approval to implement all the recommendations in the commission's 21-page report. The governor said, "Corners were cut, problems were ignored and wrong decisions were made. There was an astounding failure of oversight and management." She said university officials had "violated the trust" placed in them by students, parents and taxpayers.
The report's most scathing indictment concerned school officials' handling of several audits conducted between 1996 and 2001 that were completely ignored or never shared with the school's board of trustees, lawmakers or other state agencies. The governor said the pattern of secrecy and ignoring audits is going to stop, even though almost all of the same school administrators remain.
Problems with the building program surfaced last year when carbon monoxide was discovered in new student apartments. That led to inspections by engineers who found violations of building and fire codes at the apartments and two other student-housing complexes.
Violations have been discovered at other buildings as well and state police have been investigating whether contractors illegally cut corners.
The university's president also acknowledged there's no guarantee that the state building inspector's office won't find more fire and safety code violations in other capital program buildings when it reviews the plans of all buildings constructed.
The governor ordered the review after it was revealed that the wrong sprinkler system was installed at a residence hall where 650 students have lived for two years with no sprinklers in the attic.
Secrecy surrounded the committee of senior managers and others that oversaw the capital program. The committee's rules included holding closed meetings and living by the code that "what happens in the room, stays in the room."
"There is a theme that runs throughout our report that the [university] is a public university and they have an obligation to conduct themselves in an open and public way and they were not doing that," said the commission co-chairman.
Last Revised 5/23/2006