The Media School recognizes that during the course of university business, hospitality, alcohol and promotional expenditures may be incurred while promoting and furthering the mission of the school. These expenditures may be appropriate for events involving faculty and staff recruitment and retention, donor development, outreach to external constituents and relationship building with potential student employers.
Hospitality expenses must be approved in advance and should stay within reasonable limits according to the guidelines outlined below.
Hospitality and alcohol guidelines
These guidelines are intended to provide faculty and staff with guidance on what Media School administration considers reasonable with respect to the use of hospitality and alcohol at such events.
Defining "reasonableness"
IU uses the term “reasonable” to guide decisions regarding entertainment. IU is a public university, not a private institution or a corporation, so levels of reasonableness may appear more modest to faculty and staff who are accustomed to non-public employers. In addition to respecting IU’s public institution status, consideration also needs to be given to the funding source of alcohol purchases. The only funds available to purchase alcohol are those given by donors and held by the IU Foundation.
The school administration uses two tests to help consider reasonableness and create these guidelines.
Since IU is a public institution, IU is subject to the open records statutes of the state of Indiana. As such, it should always be assumed that everything the school does could be open to scrutiny by the public, often via news media requests for information.
How comfortable would the school be if a donor was presented with an accounting of what their funds were used for? Donors are allowed to request this information.
Meals with donors, guest faculty, employers, prospective graduate students and other non-IU constituents
The guideline per-person maximum cost for local events (including food, alcohol, tax and tip) is:
Breakfast: $20
Lunch: $25
Dinner: $60
IU guidelines state that normally no more than three employees may entertain a guest.
Quantity and cost of alcohol
Generally, the school considers it reasonable to provide guests and employees with one or two alcoholic beverages. At events with an open bar, it may be prudent to provide one or two drink tickets to each attendee. Additional beverages would need to be purchased from the bar by the individual.
Alcohol can be very expensive. As such, the school recommends not spending more than $30-$40 on a bottle of wine and avoiding or limiting expensive liquors.All alcohol costs must be included within the per-head guideline amount.
Alcoholis not allowedat any event where undergraduate students may be present.
Exceptions
There are occasions when there are good reasons to exceed the guidelines.
Faculty should seek approval for an exception from the unit director (if funding is coming from the unit) or the dean (if funding is coming from the school). Staff should seek approval from Ron McFall or Katie Higgins.
