Earlier this summer, Andrew Haley was appointed the inaugural Faculty Ombud for the a public university in Hattiesburg. He will serve about 1,000 academic staff and report to the USM President. A charter ensures that the Ombuds practices to IOA standards.
Haley is an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and has been a member of the USM faculty since 2005.
DPS, the second largest public school system in Colorado, is hiring an Associate Ombudsperson. The position will assist in providing Ombuds services for 15,000 employees across more than 200 school sites under the direction of the DPS Ombudsperson, Antoinette Hudson, CO-OP.
In 2023, Lanel Love was named the Student Ombudsperson for SIU Carbondale. She joined Michelle Kibby and Lori Foster , who provide Ombuds services for staff and faculty. Love follows Renada Greer, who was the Ombuds for students since about six years.
Narina Nunez, a professor emeritus of psychology, has been named the Interim University Ombudsperson for UW. Meanwhile, the public land-grant research university in Laramie continues its national search for a permanent Ombuds to serve all campus constituents.
The U.S. government corporation that insures bank deposits is hiring an Internal Ombudsman Specialist. The full-time position serves about 6,000 agency employees and reports to the Chairman's office in Washington, DC. There are few public details about the FDIC Internal Ombuds, but it appears that Robert D. Harris heads the office. (The FDIC has a separate external Ombuds Office for the banking industry and general public.) The search may be used to fill other position.
The public university in Montreal is hiring a full-time Associate Ombudsperson for a three-year contract, which will end September 9, 2027. The position will report to Concordia's Ombudsperson, Amy Fish, and serve all members of the Concordia community.
Barbara Anderson, a Professor of Interior Architecture and Industrial Design at K-State, has been appointed a Faculty Ombuds. As a collateral-duty Obmuds, she will handle employee concerns and serve a three-year term. She joins Jared Meitler and Alfred Cochran in the role. (K-State Ombuds.)
Silja-Katharina Haufe has been appointed the inaugural Ombudsperson for Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, a prominent public research university in Lower Saxony, Germany. "In this role, she supports students confidentially in difficult study-related situations." Haufe provides services to student applicants, current students, and alums up to one year post graduation.
Haufe has worked at the university since 2014.
The prominent Australian public teaching hospital will close its Ombuds office at the end of August 2024. The program was established in January 2022 by Lisa Klug, who piloted an Ombuds role (designated "Independent Facilitator") in 2018-2022 for Safer Care Victoria, which also served The Royal Melbourne Hospital. These were the only examples of Organizational Ombuds programs in healthcare in Australia. Klug is resigning for other opportunities and the position will not be refilled.
The flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system seeks its next permanent University Ombuds. The search will take over a program that has been managed by MWI since July, following the departure of Interim University Ombuds, Lea Occhialini, at the end of 2023. The position reports to the chancellor's office and and supervises an Associate Ombuds (currently vacant) and an office manager. The UMass Ombuds serves over 38,000 faculty, staff, and students, and is expected to practice to IOA standards. The anticipated start date is January 2025.
Israela Adah Brill-Cass (Ombuds for Wesleyan University, Clark University, and the Broad Institute of MIT), is the author of a new article in the peer-reviewed Journal of the International Ombuds Association. In "Ombudsing with Neurodiversity in Mind," Brill-Cass urges Ombuds to adopt strategies to effectively serve stakeholders with sensory processing, motor abilities, social comfort, and cognition differences.
The large public university in southwestern North Carolina will expand its Ombuds program with the hiring of an Associate Ombuds. The new, full-time position will report to UNCC's inaugural Ombuds, Scott Deyo, CO-OP, and provide services primarily to undergraduate students. The position is not remote, but may be eligible for flexible work arrangements.
The European Ombuds and Mediator Group will offer a free webinar on "European Ombuds and Mediator Group," on August 29, 2024, at 2:00pm-3:30pm CEST. The speakers will be Dolores Gómez-Morán, Senior Mediator, Office of the Ombudsman & Mediation Services for the World Food Programme in Rome, and Erik Larsen, Maersk Ombuds Function in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In his latest annual report, ADB's Ombudsman, Wayne Blair, said that his office handled 538 cases in 2023. Although the number was up only slightly from the prior year, Blair said that his office was facing significant challenges following the retirement of a key position (Gigi Alejandro, Senior Ombuds Program Officer): "The staffing shortfall is a significant barrier to the fulfillment of OOMP’s mission. It is holding the office back from achieving higher goals and fully serving the needs of the ADB community."
The latest peer-reviewed article in the Journal of the International Ombuds Association examines the use of Photovoice, a qualitative research method that gathers participant-taken photographs and narratives to translate experience into actionable knowledge. The article was authored by Birthe C. Reimers, the Director of the Office of the Ombudsperson at Georgia State University, and Alexandria Johnson, a doctoral student at GSU and former graduate research assistant in the Ombuds Office. The used Photovoice to engage Black female scholars at their university.
