About
As part of our university’s commitment to creating a supportive, safe, and inclusive environment where individuals can work and learn together, USC’s Office of Professionalism and Ethics (OPE) was created in 2018 to bring all conduct investigations into a central location and to support the subsequent tracking of those complaints across the USC campuses. As the office for managing the intake of reports, OPE maintains high standards for USC, assures response, and assists the community with access to support and resources.
OPE is charged with centralizing and simplifying the process of reporting. The team supports the USC Report & Response website, receiving all concerns to ensure proper and efficient handling by the appropriate partnering office, and providing quality assurance of the compliance and case management system that serves as one source of truth for transparency and reporting back to the USC community.
OPE serves as the intake, assessment, and tracking office for all university complaints, whether received through the Report & Response website or through any other reporting method. To ensure the well-being of students, faculty, staff, and visitors at USC, the Office encourages USC community members to report anything inconsistent with university standards and policies, or our Unifying Values.
OPE maintains quality assurance for policy, procedure, and compliance and, when necessary, conducts designated institutional reviews and investigations not handled by another office. OPE’s goal is to support the breadth of university offices to usher resolutions of a variety of complaints and concerns from students, staff, faculty, and visitors.
Committed to excellence, inclusion, and well-being, OPE maintains high standards and assured access to support, resources, and resolution of concerns.
OPE is overseen by Mike Blanton, Vice President of Professionalism and Ethics. He also oversees the Office of Threat Assessment and Management and the Office of Athletic Compliance.
Meet the OPE team
Bringing decades of experience in assessing and resolving academic and workplace complaints, expertise across law and policy, a diversity of backgrounds, and a desire to care for the USC community, these are the people you can count on when making a report.
Contact us
For general questions, email us at ope@usc.edu. To report a concern, visit the USC Report & Response website.
Related offices
The following offices are under the umbrella of Professionalism and Ethics and report directly to the Vice President for Professionalism and Ethics, Mike Blanton. For more information on their services and teams, please refer to their pages.