In a Nov. 2 email, the university’s president, Donna Shalala, reminds faculty that “integrity is the very bedrock of our institution and the foundation for the trust that students, patients, academic colleagues, and society place in us.” And so she provides an update on an initiative to refine the rules about conflicts of interest, transparency and ethics, which can be found in this handbook.

Among the recent steps she outlined: the university has established a central database that houses faculty disclosure forms (and 93 percent have filed so far); added detailed disclosure forms for all key personnel as well as faculty on federal grants; implemented an ongoing assessment and improvement of policies to address conflicts of interest, and there are plans to “enhance transparency” by posting faculty outside professional activity on the university web site.

The timing is interesting. Recently, the university’s Miller School of Medicine interviewed Charles Nemeroff as a candidate to chair its psychiatry department, according to sources. A school spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the interest and Nemeroff never responded to a request for comment. But he is leaving Emory University, where he generated controversy as a target of a US Senate probe into undisclosed conflicts of interest among academics who simultaneously receive industry funding and National Institutes of Health grants. The party is Nov. 23 (see the invite details here).

Perhaps Shalala chose this moment as a way to deflect questions about the university’s interest in Nemeroff, whose activities helped prompt an inquiry by the US Health and Human Services Department Office of the Inspector General. Perhaps… Here is her email