Shakespeare tells us to “Beware the ides of March” and higher education leaders know that March, or more specifically the spring term, is a time when anything could happen on campus to impact the work of the institution, especially its reputation. And when it comes to risk and reputation, higher education leaders are looking to the business world for successful models of how to address risk.
A white paper co-authored by Janice Abraham, Chief Executive Officer and President of United Educators, an insurance company focused on educational institutions, and Paul Walker, Ph.D., CPA, Executive Director of the Center for Excellence at St. John’s University, shows that colleges and universities are adopting the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) process from their corporate cousins. This process aligns an institution’s personnel and resources to help colleges and universities anticipate issues and track incidents.
Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written about potential black swan (random and unexpected events with significant impact), grey swan (events that can be anticipated to some extent, are considered unlikely to occur, but could have a significant impact on an institution if they do occur), and white swan (risks you must be aware of) events that need immediate, consistent and often institution-wide attention. Any of these can cause great damage to an institution’s reputation, preventing it from focusing on every aspect of its work.
I recently joined the authors in a webinar to share just how ERM can help institutions address campus issues and continue to meet its mission. We discussed:
· How well higher education is embracing ERM practices
· What it takes to create the best institutional culture to manage risk
· The special concerns of risks related to student and campus culture
· How to set up an effective risk management program.
I hope that the webinar and this reputational risk toolkit will be useful to higher education professionals who are creating an institutional culture to effectively manage risk and allow their college or university to focus on core mission: education, research and service to society.