Purpose and Scope
The purpose of the University of Miami ("University") Compliance and Accountability Program ("Compliance Program" or "Program") is to promote and support a working environment which reflects the University's commitment to operating with the highest level of integrity while maintaining compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies. The Program includes structural components, systems and practices designed to nurture and preserve a culture of fairness, respect, compassion, honesty, and individual accountability while building compliance and ethics consciousness into the daily activities of all members of the University community.
Program Design Philosophy
The Program is designed to help Community Members fulfill their organizational responsibilities as efficiently as possible in an increasingly complex ethical and regulatory environment while providing reasonable assurances to University leadership that the University's significant compliance and ethics risks have been mitigated to acceptable levels. The Program is also designed to prevent, detect, and correct misconduct within the University in reasonable satisfaction of the requirements of the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Guidelines for Organizations for an effective compliance and ethics program. In particular, the Compliance Program includes elements intended to achieve the following objectives:
- Establishment and maintenance of an organizational culture that encourages all Community Members to conduct University business ethically and with a commitment to compliance with applicable laws, regulations and policies;
- Assurance that the Board of Trustees and executive level personnel of the University are knowledgeable about the Program's content and operation and exercise reasonable oversight with respect to its implementation and effectiveness;
- Execution of consistent and effective strategies to build awareness of the Program throughout the University and beyond;
- Creation of efficient channels of communications to provide appropriate messaging regarding the Program to all Community Members;
- Establishment of clear compliance and ethics standards for all Community Members and consistent enforcement of these standards;
- Maintenance of training programs appropriate for the education of Community Members with respect to compliance and ethics issues related to their organizational responsibilities;
- Development and maintenance of a compliance and ethics risk assessment and management process that provides for designation of the compliance and ethics risk areas of the University;
- Conduct of risk assessments in each designated risk area to inventory associated compliance and ethics risks and to evaluate the vulnerability of the University with respect to each inventoried risk;
- Based on these risk assessments, identification of the critical institutional compliance and ethics risks;
- Designation of an individual to be held accountable for the implementation of an appropriate action plan to effectively manage the compliance and ethics risk identified in the risk assessments; and
- Establishment of a risk management process that is fully responsive to the identified objectives for each critical risk (this risk management process evaluates current activities and identifies changes, if necessary, that will improve assurance of compliance, follows up to ensure that agreed upon changes are implemented, and then evaluates the results after implementation);
- Maintenance of a process for continuously monitoring the compliance and ethics environment of the University to identify new or changing compliance and ethics risks;
- Maintenance of a mechanism for good faith reporting of suspected compliance and ethics violations that provides for anonymity and confidentiality to the extent allowed by applicable law;
- Maintenance of a process for investigating reports of suspected compliance and ethics violations, and effecting appropriate corrective, restorative and/or disciplinary actions; and
- Maintenance of a process for the continued enhancement and improvement of the Compliance Program.
Program Standards
The Compliance Program is designed and administered recognizing that building and maintaining a culture of compliance, ethics and integrity are shared responsibilities and require individual commitment from all University community members. The University policies provide the framework within which University community members are expected to operate and apply to all University employees, whether administration, faculty, fellows, residents, or students. Moreover, many of the Policies are applicable to University subcontractors, independent contractors, consultants, and vendors.
