2019 AuditCon: A Higher Education Summit

November 9, 2019

ACUA’s first AuditCon conference was held from September 15-19, 2019 along the waterfront in beautiful Baltimore, MD. With almost 400 attendees, the venue halls were full of energy from attendees engaged in learning (and earning as many as 28 CPE), connecting with long-time colleagues, and making new connections to enhance their professional networks.

Formerly known as the Annual Conference, this event was an established educational program for 30 years and a well-known hallmark of ACUA. The program committee approached the concept of rebranding and refreshing the conference in 2019 with cautious enthusiasm. The main question posed during committee planning discussions was how do you take a great activity and implement changes to make the activity even better? Each year, the conference underwent minor revisions upon review of conference evaluations and performing self-evaluation. However, the Conference Program Committee (“Committee”) realized a need to take a critical look at all aspects of the conference to ensure ACUA members received the highest value for their dollar. The Committee spent considerable time analyzing the various aspects of what makes ACUA conferences valuable to members, considering possible changes to conference format, structure, selection of educational content and speakers, and content delivery. After lengthy discussion and analysis to weigh the pros and cons carefully, the Committee made decisions on what new changes to implement.

The Committee reviewed feedback and insights from ACUA members on their educational needs and expectations for AuditCon, which included:

Gain knowledge and first-hand insights and experiences from real-world internal auditors and industry experts
Learn about emerging topics and high-risk areas that will help them add value to their college or university
Leave the conference with actionable takeaways that they can implement upon returning to the office
Participate in ample networking opportunities
Maximize the number of CPEs for their registration fee
Experience an ability to be productive and make the most out of every day spent away from the office

In response, the 2019 AuditCon offered the following features and format changes:

An emphasis on quality education content over quantity, allowing attendees to choose from sessions across four topic areas/tracks:
- Leadership, Governance, and Risk
- Information Technology/Information Security, Cybersecurity, and Data Privacy
- Research and Compliance
- Special Topics
Content tailored to address the hot topics affecting higher education today and those areas in high demand by ACUA members.
Educational offerings consisted of varying session lengths, ranging from 60 minutes to deeper-dive, 100-minute sessions throughout 3.5 days.
Educational content applicable for all levels of audit professionals:
- CAE roundtable
- Small shop roundtable
- IT auditors and directors roundtable
- CAE and audit leader topics (e.g., annual audit planning, accepting unacceptable risk, and becoming a trusted advisor)
- Compliance topics (e.g., Clery Act, civil rights, foreign influence, and athletics)
- IT topics (e.g., cybersecurity, emerging IT risks, access management, and social media)
- Industry-specific needs (e.g., athletics, student recruitment, financial aid, and conflict of interest)
- Fraud, hotline management, and forensic interviewing
- Data analytics
More opportunities to gather all conference attendees together by scheduling two general sessions in addition to the standard three keynote sessions. The general sessions were aimed to provide content on emerging topics or news applicable to all higher education internal auditors.
The business meeting was no longer included in the conference program and instead scheduled for virtual delivery. This made room for additional CPE, while also opening availability to members that were unable to attend AuditCon.
The officer transitions and member awards were during Tuesday’s lunch instead of Tuesday morning, allowing for additional CPE.
The Wednesday evening dinner event was moved to Tuesday evening to provide an opportunity for attendees to take advantage of shortening their conference experience from three half days to two half days without missing this networking event.
The optional networking afternoon activities were moved from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon to enable attendees to experience a shorter conference, while still maximizing CPE credits.
The conference wrapped up with more in-depth and interactive sessions on Thursday morning.

AuditCon survey responses indicated that attendees were largely favorable towards the conference revisions and generally found them to enhance their learning and professional networking experiences. ACUA values continuous improvement, so it is no surprise that the Committee will consider evaluation comments as they begin planning the 2020 AuditCon!

One area of great success was enhancing networking opportunities! ACUA members and conference attendees place a high value on the ability to network with professionals. The Committee strived to enhance these opportunities during AuditCon, and the attendees noticed! To recap, the opportunities offered were:

Sunday evening first time attendee and new member welcome reception
Sunday evening welcome reception
Monday evening networking reception
Tuesday evening dinner event
Wednesday afternoon activities: Harbor Cruise, Aquarium, golfing, or build-your-own with other attendees
Thursday morning coffee talks on selected the topics: Fraud, Hotlines, Volunteering with ACUA, and Data Analytics
First time attendee and new member breakfast tables each morning

The Committee will continue to seek ways to maximize and announce networking opportunities for upcoming conferences. They are gearing up for 2020 AuditCon, which will be from September 13-17 in San Antonio, TX. If you are seeking training earlier in the year, do not miss the upcoming registration announcement for 2020 Audit Interactive, which will be from April 5-8 in Nashville, TN.

For some ACUA members, the decision to attend Audit Interactive or AuditCon can be a challenge, considering tight audit shop budgets. Below is a helpful table to aid in decision-making:

	Duration	Time of Year	Organized Networking	Types of Sessions	Time Alloted for Collaboration	Focus on Immediate Takeaways	Keynotes or General Sessions	Full Conference Experience	Beneficial for CAEs?
Audit Interactive	2-½ days	March or April	Minimal	In-depth, deep-dive, hands-on sessions	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
AuditCon	Option of 2-½ days or 3-½ days	September	Yes	Mix of overview and in-depth sessions	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

I would like to close with a shout-out to the 2019 AuditCon Program Committee for their dedication, hard work, and perseverance to ensure the 2019 AuditCon fulfilled member and non-member attendee needs and expectations. Like so many aspects of ACUA, a lot of volunteer effort goes into developing conferences. We would not be able to achieve successful programs without our volunteers.

On behalf of the ACUA Professional Education Committee, I am looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming conference!

About the Author

Nichole Pittman

Nichole Pittman, CIA, CISA, CFE is the Chief Audit Executive at the University of Alaska System. Nichole has worked in governmental and university environments since 1998, with the last 15 years in internal audit for the University of Alaska System. She has served as the CAE for the past ten years, overseeing audits across the UA System of 16 campuses. She has a Bachelor degree in Business Administration–Accounting and an Associate Degree in Applied Science–Information Technology Specialist from the University of Alaska–Fairbanks.
nlpittman@alaska.edu

Articles
2019 Audit Interactive: A Higher Education Collaborative Experience
2019 AuditCon: A Higher Education Summit
2020 ACUA Virtual Conferences in Review
The ACUA Faculty Program Use the ACUA Faculty Program to Meet Your Training Needs!