Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman released a statement yesterday reporting that the employment of Director of Student Activities Jodie Nealley had been terminated for misappropriation of funds.
According to the statement, Nealley embezzled an estimated $300,000 from revenue-generating accounts and activities under her control. Her actions are a betrayal of trust and demonstrate a profound lack of ethics and professional responsibility.
The Office of Students Activities' mission statement claims that it seeks to "create an environment where the partnership between students and professional staff encourages student involvement, responsibility, empowerment and accountability." Nealley's actions represent an appalling failure to uphold that goal.
But all is not lost. While this incident exposed the vulnerability of our university's financial system, it also highlighted our administration's ability to proactively respond.
First, Nealley's office was audited ahead of schedule because someone called in a tip to the EthicsPoint hotline set up by the university's Audit and Management Advisory Services Office (AMAS). This hotline, which is monitored by an independent agency, is designed to allow all members of the Tufts community to report incidents of ethical impropriety.
Second, according to Reitman's statement, his office is making sure that if Nealley took money from student organizations, they will get reimbursed. The university will use its own funds to do this, demonstrating a noble desire to ensure that Nealley's misconduct does not disrupt student life.
Most importantly, the university's disclosure of the abuse shows they will not compound an already damaging incident by covering it up. A failure to talk about the details of Nealley's dismissal could have irreparably damaged the trust between the student body and the administration - particularly because Nealley's office is so closely involved with students.
Students need to be sure that the administration has their best interests in mind. Reitman's statement shows that, though one administration official put her own self-interest ahead of the responsibilities of her office, the administration as a whole is committed to keeping the student body informed and protected from her actions.
In this spirit of full disclosure, the Daily sincerely hopes the administration will continue to keep the Tufts community abreast of new developments in the case against Nealley as they arise. For instance, it remains unclear over how long a period of time Nealley embezzled Tufts funds and the exact sources from which she took them. While stealing from any source of Tufts revenue is egregious, a worst-case scenario could have the investigation discovering that Nealley stole from the student activities fund.
Furthermore, the university should take this as an opportunity to assess the revenue-handling procedures currently in place and reinforce or reform them in order to prevent someone imitating Nealley's actions. Whether that means adding more levels of oversight or upping the frequency of audits, increased accountability and transparency in the various departments' respective finances would only be a good thing, ensuring that university resources will not be misused or misappropriated.
There is, sadly, always some danger of corruption whenever large sums of money are entrusted to human beings. While Nealley's actions prove that Tufts is not immune to such shameful conduct, they should also guarantee that the administration take steps to prevent similar offenses in the future.
