Marquette University has adopted a new program that gives faculty, staff and students the ability to report campus misconduct anonymously and confidentially.

EthicsPoint is a third-party vendor that has been hired to provide a secure toll-free hotline to report violations of federal, state or university policies both online and by phone. The university will not operate these hotlines.

The program, according to its website, will be incorporated at Marquette by addressing risks in the areas of finance, research, human resources, risk and safety, medical, information technology, student and academic issues and athletics.

As stated on its website: “EthicsPoint has historically been known as one of the most innovative companies in the governance, risk and compliance space.”

According to Brian Dorrington, senior director of university communication, Marquette is continuously looking to improve its ethics standards, and the addition of this program will help.

“As a university, we believe that we must always look for the best ways to consistently meet ethical standards to ensure our mission of fostering personal and professional excellence,” Dorrington said. “EthicsPoint offers a systemized way to accomplish this and adds to our emphasis on transparency.”

The company provides assistance to multiple levels of businesses and industries, including banking, healthcare, government, non-profits, manufacturing, electronics and education.

In the area of students and academics, the compliance should help to prevent risks such as alcohol and drug abuse, cheating, plagiarism, hazing, harassment and student safety.

This system may also be used to report the misuse of different software on campus, an issue drawing publicity lately due to the key logging controversy that was reported through the Department of Public Safety on April 16.

Simmi Singh Corcoran, EthicsPoint senior marketing communications manager, said Marquette has been an EthicsPoint client for a while but has since expanded its use of the system.

“With more than 300 colleges and universities across the United States as clients, EthicsPoint has significant experience assisting higher education clients and is proud to work with Marquette to assist in capturing reports of misconduct,” Corcoran said in an email.

The way EthicsPoint works is based on a hotline and the response to incidences that are reported.

The usual process among EthicsPoint clients, according to Corcoran, is that a designated official at the university will receive notification of a report and then begin the process within the university to investigate further.

“We work hand-in-hand with schools on the management of their web- and telephone-based hotline system, allowing the university to capture additional reports, follow-up on those reports, analyze patterns and proactively identify areas of risk,” Corcoran said.