Conflict of Interest in Employment (Nepotism)
No faculty member, staff member, or student may participate in a decision in which he or she has an obvious conflict of interest. University policy directs that anyone with a conflict of interest must be removed from the decision-making process and must refrain from influencing those who are responsible for the decision.
An individual who may have a conflict of interest is responsible for reporting it to the DEO, who is then responsible for seeing that appropriate procedures are followed.
Employment of Relatives
It is a conflict of interest for a faculty member, staff member, or student to participate in employment decisions affecting anyone related to him or her by blood or marriage. When such a conflict of interest arises, the department must develop procedures that remove the faculty member, staff member or student from the decision process. The persons involved must agree to and sign a document describing these procedures, and the department must submit the document to the Dean for approval by the UI’s Committee on the Conflict of Interest in Employment. The procedures, once approved, are also reviewed periodically by the Committee to ensure that they are having the desired effect.