Washington University is committed to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct. WUSTL maintains a Compliance Hotline — at (314) 362-4998 — to provide members of the university community a means to anonymously report concerns or suspected violations of the university’s Code of Conduct.
The Code of Conduct details the ethical and legal standards that must guide decisions and actions of university community members.
Examples of violations that should be reported include suspected cases of fraud, violations of governmental regulations, violations of university policies, and ethics violations. The past two years, 41 percent of the calls received by the hotline were human resources-related, 25 percent was HIPAA-related, 9 percent was research-related, and 9 percent was payment- and expenses-related. The last 16 percent was related to miscellaneous topics.
Calls to the hotline are anonymous and are handled and investigated by the University Compliance Office, with assistance from other areas as needed.
“The hotline has no caller or phone number identification,” says Gail Peters, executive director of compliance and audit. “Calls are anonymous unless the caller wishes to leave contact information.”
As described in the Code of Conduct at codeofconduct.wustl.edu, there are three ways to report a violation or discuss a concern, including the hotline:
- Report violations or concerns to an immediate supervisor or department head, if appropriate.
- Call the individual responsible for the related compliance area. A list of these individuals appears in the complete version of the Code of Conduct at codeofconduct.wustl.edu.
- Call the Compliance Hotline at (314) 362-4998.
The Code of Conduct contains a “Questions and Answers” section, including hotline topics.
Questions about the Compliance Hotline or the Code of Conduct can be directed to the University Compliance Office at (314) 362-4915.