Recognition

This month, UCF’s first chief compliance and ethics officer, Ms. Rhonda Bishop, will be leaving UCF to move on to the next chapter in her career. She leaves behind a university forever changed by her efforts and grateful for the seven years she devoted to developing the university’s comprehensive compliance and ethics program.

Prior to 2011, University Compliance, Ethics, and Risk did not exist. Upon her hire, Ms. Bishop created and staffed the office, developed a compliance partner network across campus that includes the Compliance and Ethics Advisory Committee, and took oversight of the Athletics Compliance Office. She resolved external reviews and investigations by the NCAA, Department of Education, National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Defense, all while building the compliance and ethics program from scratch. She launched the UCF IntegrityLine, the anonymous reporting line to report concerns of employee misconduct and implemented a policy that prohibits retaliation for employees who submit concerns in good faith. Under her leadership, the very first UCF Employee Code of Conduct was developed and implemented, with mandatory training required for all new employees.

In addition to building the compliance and ethics program at UCF, Ms. Bishop also formed the Florida State University System (SUS) Compliance and Ethics Consortium to bring together the compliance and ethics professionals at each Florida public institution and provide an avenue for member institutions to discuss the development and improvement of compliance and ethics programs, new federal and state regulations, best practices, and issues they may be facing. As the founding chair of the SUS Compliance and Ethics Consortium, Ms. Bishop was invited to speak at the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) meeting on the importance of compliance and ethics programs, which led to a vote by the BOG to develop and pass a regulation that mandates all Florida SUS universities to have comprehensive compliance and ethics programs consistent with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines led by Chief Compliance and Ethics Officers. Ms. Bishop was tasked by the BOG to help draft those regulations and BOG Regulation 4.003 became effective on November 3, 2016. To recognize all of her accomplishments in compliance and ethics, in 2016, Ms. Bishop was featured on the cover of the Compliance & Ethics Professional magazine.

Ms. Bishop has been a role model and sounding board to compliance and ethics professionals here at UCF, across the SUS, and throughout the nation. She has demonstrated unwavering resolve and commitment in building and sustaining comprehensive compliance and ethics programs and in her support of other compliance and ethics professionals.

If you catch someone doing the right thing, write to us and tell us about it. Who knows, maybe they will be featured in our next IntegrityStar edition.