2019 Audit Interactive: A Higher Education Collaborative Experience
June 21, 2019
It was a true pleasure to meet up with long-time colleagues and meet new colleagues at the new Audit Interactive conference this past March 2019. In case you missed it, the conference was held on the River Walk in beautiful Savannah, GA!
Behind the scenes, the conference program committee was full of excitement as we unveiled a new conference format in Savannah. Audit Interactive, formerly known as the Midyear Conference, had been going strong for 30 years, but as internal auditors, we know that self-evaluation and continuous improvement are critical aspects to a healthy program. With that in mind, the conference program committee spent months analyzing the various aspects of what makes ACUA conferences valuable to members. We asked ourselves this hard question: Are we meeting our members’ needs for education?
ACUA members offered insight on their educational needs
- Gain knowledge and first-hand insights and experiences from real-world internal auditors
- Have the ability to discuss the learning content or have it presented to them via multiple modes
- Leave the conference with actionable takeaways that they can implement at their institution.
Through our efforts to enhance member needs, we realized there were areas we could focus on to maximize the value gained by ACUA members and other conference attendees. A new mantra began to resonate as we planned changes for the conferences–Learn, Apply, and Collaborate. The new speaker educational expectation model incorporated this mantra and speakers presented their educational modules using the three components, as follows:
- Learn - Speakers teach a principle or topic.
- Apply - Speakers provide details on how to execute the topic.
- Collaborate - Attendees have time for a learning exercise or event.
The 2019 Audit Interactive offered the following features and format changes
- Multiple track offerings that attendees can freely switch between, rather than a single-track, throughout the 2.5 days. Attendees could choose from sessions offered across five topic areas or tracks:
- Audit 101
- Information Technology and Security
- Data Analysis
- University Risks
- Research
- Tailored to address the hot topics affecting higher education today and those areas in high demand by ACUA members, educational offerings consisted of two and four-hour deep-dive modules instead of a single topic that attendees were locked into for the 2.5 days.
- Educational content was selected to ensure applicability for all levels of audit professionals:
- CAE Roundtables – Small shop and large shop
- Audit 101 for new auditors
- Intro and Advanced IT
- Intro and Advanced Data Analytics
- Intro and Advanced Research
- Speaker selection was based on the desired content and outcome.
Overall, attendees found that these changes enhanced their learning experience.
The program committee eagerly awaited the conference evaluation results. We were thrilled to see that the attendees recognized the changes. Overall, attendees found that these changes enhanced their learning experience. We will consider evaluation comments as we plan the next Audit Interactive.
As the program committee analyzed several years of conference survey results, networking was mentioned numerous times as a benefit or value-add perk for ACUA members. It was described as one of the most important benefits to members and a feature they do not benefit from when attending other organizations’ conferences. I can personally attest to this as well. I realized early on in my career as a higher education internal auditor that our in-state peers consisted primarily of our small internal audit group, but we had an amazing group of colleagues readily available through our ACUA membership. Answers to audit issues and dilemmas were just a phone call or email away. Some of these connections are made online, but many more are made or enhanced by in-person meetings at conferences.
The conference program committee previously recognized that networking was important to ACUA members, but the magnitude of this importance was more prevalent as we studied how ACUA can best meet member needs. We will continue to seek ways to maximize networking opportunities for upcoming conferences.
As a takeaway, I would like to leave you with this tip: watch for registration announcements so you can explore ACUA’s upcoming conferences, which will benefit your professional development, higher education acumen, and audit outcomes!
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...
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