An article in the current issue of Academic Medicine describes the rationale, costs, and potential advantages of creating a medical school Ombuds Office. The article was written by John Raymond Sr., President and CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Peter Layde, the College's Ombuds.
UH Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman told the campus newspaper that he hopes to have an Ombuds appointed within a month, though he would be disappointed if it didn’t happen by the end of the school year. The announcement responds to growing support for re-establishing the Ombuds Office that closed in 2009 after being open just three years.
The U.S. Department of Defense intelligence enterprise system is hiring a civilian employee to serve as the Ombudsman for the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, VA for a two-year term. "The incumbent functions independently as an organizational Ombudsman, and as an impartial and confidential resource, facilitator,
The United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services is hiring a Regional Ombudsman based in Entebbe. The position will manage the office, which provides conflict resolution services to resolve workplace concerns for staff in the area.
Howard Gadlin, one of the preeminent Organizational Ombuds, will retire next week. An announcement from NIH’s principal deputy director made official what has been known to insiders for several months. The email from Larry Tabak does a good job summarizing Gadlin's significant legacy:
LSU has announced that it will conduct a national search next spring to hire an Ombudsperson. The goal is to reopen the program in the summer of 2016. The office, which was established by Kirstin Schwehm in 2006, was shuttered in early 2011. According to a short announcement, the effort to revive the Ombuds Office was prompted by requests from the LSU Staff and Faculty Senates. No other details regarding the position or search have been announced. (LSU Academic Affairs News.)
Roger Callanan, who lead the drive to establish the Student Ombuds Services office at NC State, and then served as Student Ombuds during the program’s first year, will retire on January 1, 2016. According to his first annual report, Callanan met with 550 individual students in the 2014-15 academic year.
Kirsi Aulin has been named as the next Director of the Ombuds Office at CU-Boulder. For the past three and a half years, Aulin has been the Campus Ombuds for the University of California in Santa Barbara and was an Associate Ombuds for five years before that. Aulin starts in January 2016 and will need to hire an Associate Ombuds and support staff member.
A new website introduces John Håkansson and Nazira Hammoud Shahwan, the Student Ombuds for Medicinska Föreningen, the largest student union at the medical university in Stockholm: Karolinska Institutet.
The International Ombudsman Association has announced the slate of candidates for Board of Directors with terms starting in April 2016. The election will fill three seats from a slate of four nominees.
The large integrated health provider system (which is closely affiliated with, but legally separate from, the University of Pittsburgh) is hiring its first Graduate Medical Education Ombudsman.
As expected, the private liberal arts college in Ohio has opened a search for its next Ombuds. The full-time position (with "significant commitments on nights and weekends"!) reports to the Office of the President and serves students, faculty and staff -- a population of almost 5,000.
The Nova Scotia Office of the Ombudsman (a classical and federally established Ombuds program that receives complaints about municipal and provincial governing bodies) recently convinced a provincial court judge to protect documents sought by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
This is the fifth annual survey of the top Organizational Ombuds stories. A list of the most important news from 2015 will come in installments over the next three weeks. Before getting to the list, there are a few notable items that didn't make the list:
The third on-line edition journal from the California Caucus of College and University Ombuds features articles by Tom Sebok, looking back on his 25-year Ombuds career, and by Dusty Farnard, who ran into problems opening an Ombuds office at a large university.
BeVeOm, a network of Complaint Managers and Ombudsmen at German universities, has created a website to promote its work and serve its members. The network, which has been meeting since at least 2010, has adopted four fundamental principles for the work of its members: Independence (autonomy within the institution); Confidentiality (visitors and issues are handled confidentialy); Neutrality (matters are treated neutrally, solution-oriented, and open-ended); and Appreciation (respect for persons and their concerns).
In response to student protests regarding diversity on campus, the private university in Massachusetts has agreed to appoint a campus Ombudsperson. Students occupied the school's administration building for nearly two weeks and had issued a list of 13 demands seeking to address the unfair treatment of minorities in higher education. The ninth item demanded by the Brandeis students was for an Office of Ombuds. On Tuesday, Interim President Lisa M. Lynch, released a letter detailing measures the students found acceptable.
Earlier this week, Members of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland debated whether the new commissioner for complaints should be called an ‘Ombudsman’ or an ‘Ombudsperson’ – and have even commissioned research on the origin of the words themselves. The committee sponsoring the bill had proposed 'Ombudsperson,' but The Ombudsman Association wrote to the MLA's to express concern that a change from 'Ombudsman,' which is commonly used throughout the UK, would be confusing in Northern Ireland.
The American Indian tribe in California's Inland Empire continues its search for an Ombudsman. The full-time position is located in Highland and serve the tribe's 3,500 employees, most of whom work in a casino.
In an open letter, UO's first Ombuds Bruce MacAllister explains why he is stepping down after two years. In addition, offers suggestions for what should be done next to maintain and strengthen the Ombuds program: adopt a charter and take as much care hiring his successor as hiring general counsel.
