Message from Dr. James Watters, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration

RIT is committed to ensuring that our university community is governed in an ethical and honest manner, and that we are compliant with all applicable regulations. The Institute and its employees have a responsibility to follow a code of ethics that not only fulfills our stewardship obligations, but also exemplifies the ethics and behavior we expect of our students. Consistent with this responsibility, we have implemented an anonymous whistleblower system, the RIT Ethics and Compliance Hotline. This system will augment existing campus reporting options for financial, accounting and compliance related irregularities.

This system capability is intended to provide RIT community members with a method to anonymously report concerns related to improper conduct involving financial reporting, accounting, internal controls, protection or use of Institute assets, or regulatory compliance. To ensure the protection of the identity of whistleblowers while ensuring that the Institute appropriately investigates and resolves any identified issues, we have contracted with an independent third party, EthicsPoint, to utilize their whistleblower systems. EthicsPoint systems will provide you with simple anonymous ways to confidentially report your observations. You can also use existing Institute protocol and resources to disclose such observations by contacting the responsible administrative office, the management team within your department or division, or other appropriate members of Institute management.

On behalf of the Institute, I want to express my appreciation for your dedicated service to the RIT community and your commitment to ethical behavior and decision-making. It is our intent that EthicsPoint hotline services will compliment our existing protocols for disclosure of actions not consistent with the highest ideals for personal and professional codes of conduct expected from all Institute employees and students. Establishing such a system is considered a best practice adoption under recently issued legislation.