The Dallas Chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and an anonymous corporate donor have seeded a new endowment to maintain the UT Dallas School of Management’s top-rated internal-audit program, giving two checks that initiate an effort to raise a half million dollars.
The Dallas IIA raised $30,000 for the new endowment, and the corporate donor gave $15,000. A matching commitment from School of Management Dean Hasan Pirkul doubled the contributions’ value to $90,000.
A matching commitment from Dean Hasan Pirkul doubled the endowment size.
The IIA endorses the UT Dallas internal-audit program as a Center for Internal Auditing Excellence. UT Dallas is one of only two universities in the U.S. and five in the world to have earned that designation, the highest IIA offers. Offered at the graduate level, the UT Dallas internal-audit program prepares students to sit for a professional certification exam with a multidisciplinary curriculum built on a core of internal-audit courses.
The seed money, presented in a ceremony at the March 3 Dallas IIA meeting, formally established the Center for Internal Auditing Excellence Endowment. The endowment will support scholarships, seminars, conferences, research and educational programs specifically designated for internal audit.
“These gifts are a great first step toward reaching a $500,000 threshold in permanent endowment funding,” Center Director Mark Salamasick said. “This start-up generosity from two key supporters sends a great signal, and the dean has promised to keep matching funds, which is essential to attracting additional donations.”
Center Director Mark Salamasick says internal auditing students are in demand in the job market.
Present at the Dallas chapter meeting when the endowment was announced, IIA International President and CEO Richard F. Chambers, visited the School of Management later the same day, lecturing the UT Dallas IIA student chapter on trends reshaping the internal auditing profession.
Internal auditors systematically evaluate and monitor companies to improve efficiency, accountability and regulatory compliance. Their efforts offer insight into company operations and performance. Internal auditors work across all industries and in the public-service sector. Their skills have been increasingly sought after in the last decade as businesses focus more and more on corporate responsibility.
“School of Management internal-audit graduates are in demand,” Salamsick said, “and a great many move directly into top jobs in such Fortune 50 companies as JCPenney, Microsoft and Southwest Airlines and at such public agencies as the General Accounting Office and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.”
“These kind of job placements are a visible measure of internal audit’s excellence,” Dean Pirkul said. “They substantiate the need for an endowment and tell donors their dollars are supporting one of the world’s best programs in this field.”
Salamasick got news of the endowment seed money, along with a go-ahead to begin fundraising, in January, about the same time he learned that the March 24-25 Fraud Summit, the UT Dallas program’s main annual conference and fundraiser, had sold out.
Exploring the latest trends in fraud detection and deterrence, the summit will open March 24 with a day of workshops at which professionals will earn continuing education credits.
More information about the endowment is available on the Center for Internal Auditing Excellence website.