Highlights of board of directors' September meeting.

• Position: AICPA

Following are some of the more significant actions and events that took place at the AICPA Board of Directors' meeting Sept. 12-13:

* AICPA President & CEO Barry C. Melancon briefed the board on the general feedback received regarding his Sept. 4 speech outlining initiatives to combat fraud and restore investor confidence (The CPA Letter, Sept.). Various staff members then reported on activities in their areas of responsibility related to the challenges facing the profession.

Among them, Senior Vice President-Member and Public Interests Alan Anderson discussed progress with establishing the Center for Fraud Research, and developing fraud training programs, a competency model on fraud and regional conferences for senior managers in industry.

Geoff Pickard, Vice President-Communications, explained that the Institute was currently conducting an evaluation of its image enhancement campaign and that in the meantime would provide the state CPA societies with ads aimed at increasing confidence in public company audits for placement in local media (see page 4).

In addition, the board approved creating a special task force to study the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's...