Morgan Steele, Staff Writer (msteele@wwc)

A whistleblower policy will be voted upon in Staff Forum next week. If approved, the policy will allow staff, faculty and students to report illegal activities with less fear of reprisal or retaliation.

The activities which can be reported range from theft and bribery to misappropriation of resources such as funds, supplies or other assets.

There will be two ways to report unlawful activities.

The first, according to the policy, will include “contacting the vice president or dean who has responsibility for overseeing compliance with the particular policy or procedure.”

The second way, which would ensure anonymity, is to call the campus hotline. It is run by an outside company and the caller would not need to report their own name.

“Without this policy, there would not be the anonymous mechanism for you to report.” said Gail Baylor who is the director of human resources.

While students are included in the policy, it only relates to students as workers.

“If you, as a student worker, feel that you are uncomfortable reporting something to your supervisor, you will be able to go through an anonymous source,” said Baylor.

As for the specific situations a student may report, Baylor outlined a few examples.

“Let’s say you saw your supervisor or an administrator misusing resources from the college,” said Baylor. “Let’s say you saw them taking large amounts of money from the college and you did not feel comfortable reporting it to your supervisor or another administrator. With this policy in place you will be able to call a hotline and report it anonymously.”

According to Baylor, if the policy passes the Staff Forum vote, the anonymous hotline will be set up “very soon.”