It has been one year since the release of the auditor general’s report on Memorial University in October 2023.

Since that time, work on the recommendations has been overseen by the Ad Hoc Action Committee of the Board of Regents.

Updates have been provided to the community on progress in December 2023 and May 2024.

Here is a summary of the progress since the report’s release.

• Record keeping in the Office of the Board of Regents has been strengthened, with targets in place for timely creation of committee and board meeting minutes and processes for communicating board decisions to the appropriate university officials for implementation.
• Board committee structure and terms of reference for each committee have undergone review and are being finalized for the board’s consideration and vote at the December 2024 meeting.
• Each separately incorporated entity has presented to the Ad Hoc Action Committee to provide an understanding of operations, roles, reporting relationships and structures. By-laws, financial statements, management agreements, and other documentation have been provided to the Board of Regents.
• Regular reporting and oversight controls are being implemented where required with any issues being brought to the board’s attention promptly.
• The Board of Regents approves the appointments to the boards of Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation, Campus Childcare Inc., the Memorial University Recreation Complex and Genesis, and is informed of the appointments to C-CORE’s board.
• A review of Harlow Campus (MUN(UK)) operation and commitments has been completed. As a result of that review, the following changes have been implemented:
  • The member of MUN (UK) Ltd (Memorial University through its Board of Regents) approves all appointments to the Harlow board of directors.
  • An associate vice-president (Harlow Campus and global partnerships) has been hired to replace the former manager position, with a focus on developing a strategy to ensure the financial sustainability of the campus. This includes exploring expense reductions and new revenue streams.
  • Under the supervision of Memorial’s chief financial officer and the director of resource allocation and planning in the Office of the Provost, an external accounting firm was contracted to manage the accounts for both the Harlow Campus and the Harlow Scholarship Trust. The 2022-23 financial statements have been completed, and all appropriate filings were made with the House of Companies and the Charities Commission.
  • An audit of the 2023-24 financial statements has begun.
  • Next steps for Harlow include updating campus policies and relevant Memorial policies to ensure compliance with U.K. law and/or best practices, and further developing action plans to improve financial sustainability

• The President’s Executive Council (PEC) receives quarterly updates regarding the status of all policies. Memorial’s policies do not expire. Significant progress has been made in reviewing existing policies. Since the auditor general report was issued in October 2023, eight policies have been approved or renewed, including Delegation of Authority: Development, Approval and Administration of University Policies; the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities; and the Respectful Learning Environment.
• 35 policies have started the review process, including all travel policies, all Information and Technology Services policies, hosting, capital projects and protected disclosure. A full list of policies recently approved or currently under review is available online.
• In addition to the Delegation of Authority Policy approved in December 2023, a Delegation of Authority register has been developed at the board, president and vice-president level, with work underway at the associate vice-president and chief’s level. Work has also begun on making this register available through a searchable database on the Memorial University website.
• Changes have been made to presidential and vice-president travel. The president’s travel request is approved by the chair of the Board of Regents and travel expenses are being presented to the board and are available here. Any deviation from the travel policy for the president must be reviewed and approved by the board chair. All vice-presidential travel requests are approved by the president. Any deviations from the travel policy must be approved by the president.
• Detailed design and costing of a primary data centre located on the St. John’s campus will be presented to the Board of Regents at their December meeting. This project would significantly improve data governance and security.
• The university has established a data excellence initiative. The purpose is to streamline access to data while maintaining its security and supporting compliance, enhance understanding and trust of the university’s data and supply accurate and timely data to support strategic decision-making.

Leadership

• A presidential search committee has been struck and consultations with the university community, and beyond, to inform the position profile are ongoing. The committee hopes to conclude the search process in the spring of 2025. An external search firm, reporting to the committee, has been engaged to provide support as directed.
• The search process is underway for three vice-president positions and each search is supported by internal expertise.
• Five academic leadership position searches are underway and one administrative leadership search is underway, supported by internal expertise. One academic search is underway supported by an external search firm.
• Various positions, including the chief information officer, the dean of the Faculty of Nursing, dean of the Faculty of Business Administration, dean of the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation and the associate vice president (academic) and dean of the School of Graduate Studies, have been filled with appointments and approved by the Board of Regents.
• The number of vice-presidents has been reduced by one with the combination of the vice-president (administration and finance) and vice-president (advancement and external relations).
• Formal job descriptions for the vice-presidents are being finalized.

Accountability and transparency

• Progress on the recommendations from the internal auditor is presented at each board meeting. In addition, responses and updates to the auditor general report are provided on the Memorial website.
• Recurring meetings have been established with the internal auditor and the vice-president (administration, finance and advancement).
• Improvements to prevent and detect fraud (waste and abuse) have been identified by the internal auditor and work is underway to implement these improvements.
• Training in fraud risk has been developed and will be rolled out in 2024-25.
• A Fraud Risk Assessment Survey is in development and will be issued annually by the internal auditor
• Sponsorship guidelines have been developed and discussed at the Senior Leadership Council. The application of these guidelines and the learning from them over the next year will enable the development of a sponsorship policy.
• Memorial has developed a list of comparator universities, based on various online reports and information from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers. These comparator universities can be found here. Among other benefits, this will assist in assessing relevant key performance indicators for Memorial in relation to its peers.
• More robust budget reporting has been developed for PEC review.
• The Board of Regents will be getting more robust and regular financial reporting, including timely actual-to-budget variance reporting and analysis.
• Monitoring of the Financial Oversight Checklist has been increased by the Department of Financial and Administrative Services.
• Information regarding non-operating funds (research, plant, special purpose and trust and ancillary) was provided to the Board of Regents’ Audit and Finance Committee (March 2024).

We would like to thank the members of our community, particularly the regents who are members of the Ad Hoc Action Committee and the staff members who have worked diligently to make these improvements over the last 12 months on top of their regular workload.

We recognize that there is still significant work to be done.

Some of the potential changes require careful thought and planning and will take time to implement and we remain committed to overseeing that work.

All information pertaining to Memorial’s response to the auditor general’s report, as well as previous updates, can be found online.