Episode 7: AC2019 Recap

Get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into planning and hosting a major conference from URMIA's 2019 Boston conference tri-chairs Sandy Mitchell, director of insurance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Marjorie F.B. Lemmon, risk manager at Yale University; and Stacie R. Kroll, director of compliance and risk management for Five Colleges Incorporated. Among other things, they discuss the profound impact planning The Boston Marathon Bombing session had on them.

Connect with URMIA & URMIA with your network
-Share /Tag in Social Media @urmianetwork
-Not a member? Join ->www.urmia.org/join
-Email | contactus@urmia.org

Give URMIA Matters a boost:
-Give the podcast a 5 star rating
-Share the podcast - click that button!
-Follow on your podcast platform - don't miss an episode!

Thanks for listening to URMIA Matters!

Transcript

Jenny: Welcome to URMIA matters. Today I have three very special guest with me the price share from the URMIA Boston conference that we wrapped up just a few months ago in 2019. So I'm so excited to have these three reunited with me and we podcast today so welcome ladies so one by one I'm going to introduce each of you and I'd like you to just give a little bit of background about yourself your position you know where you work and what you have done for URMIA so let me start with Marge she is one of my former boss has a former president of URMIA Simard want you tell us a little bit about your history you are so I am the risk manager at Yale University in here since 2003 which is also when I joined Army on my first conference was in 2003 and in Orland and I've run the gamut responsibilities that are in the air from being conference chair to being committee chair to being president to serving two terms on the board of directors so I'm involved in a lot of things in there in each other well that is amazing yam are just one of my earliest really great volunteer that I remember I remember stuffing bags in Charleston and I believe it was around your birthday when's your actual birthday and I do to those in the Marje’s birthday coincide next up let's go to Stacy Kroll she's with five colleges a current board member.

 burning paper me a little bit about you think since 2012 currently I serve as the Director of compliance and risk management and our organization is a shattered administrative function for Amherst College Hampshire College Mount Holyoke College in and I were shared find summer schedule function so I joined Army in 2012 when I joined five colleges and I attend my volunteer experience like fire hose in the face similar to Mars Joe Van with both Beach membership Committee Member chair for a few years conference committee programming committee most recently conference co-chair and then most excellent well it's been wonderful having a c as a very involved member as well and last but certainly not least is handing their children and mighty she's also think part number says candy tell us a little bit about yourself and attending Arizona which was a nice first conference to attend experience and just did some volunteering at the registration desk and has since been getting more and more involved with Jerry's ass well and it is wonderful to have you on board as well so today in Sarnia matters we are going to be talking about the conference and some ways that members whether they attended or did not attend the conference ways that they can leverage the resources that are on the URMIA website so I was reflecting as I Was preparing to the podcast today just you know about him like our timeline and you started playing in the conference probably 3 years ago we did a couple site visits but last year in January or February we met as a programming group and I was thinking specifically about that group or Mia has implemented in education plan as you all are aware of and then we I believe it was about fifteen topics because remember how many topics we use from the education plan 15 I believe okay. So the programming Group which is a subset of the annual conference committee divided up and we all took a couple of the topics on the education plan and work on those so I want to do it to speak about your experience with those sessions and Stacy why don't we start with you because you did in a kind of heavy lifting with the General Sessions as it turned out I don't think that was actually our plan from the turned out that way in the General Sessions were really a Hallmark of the event and certainly the Boston bombing session with had a lot of feedback positive was very moving so why don't you just tell us about the way the education plan work for you yeah to on to the Ed plan Jenny correct me if I'm wrong I believe the Ed Payne was actually derived from Topix requested by numbers through the Army in network and we develop Glen develop the list and we are series of the years after number of topics from that list to handpick programming opportunities for the annual conference so we had probably 20 to 25 to left it at the beginning and we narrowed it down to 50 in in what was really interesting was Source some speakers that may have not spoken after me up before but we're really knowledgeable on the topic we picked for them and I think overall I believe our surveys have shown that the session topics were really well-attended well-received and we're really beneficial to the membership plan in developed that kind of long-term him but it was a combination of topics that the members have requested over the years topic that we know are popular because of recent me know the analytics we have for my library so I was a little bit about the sessions that you were most involved planning 2 as supposed to attend the conference would know I was really involved in developing the Boston Marathon session which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about in detail there was another General Session on the last day of about developing a long-term do you undress and it was kind of a play because we had a risk manager who had been very season 2 is retiring this year Gary Lang sale from Penn State and it was supposed to be kind of the past of risk management in contrast to the Future risk management by having someone of a more youthful generation with many years and left in my career so we did a nice timeline of the evolution of risk management and that was just a lot of fun I mean Gary's just a great personality and has a good sense of humor and if you haven't seen the video there's some fun hats that I was asked to wear and I just keep reminding myself that that one be forever a part of my career for 30 years to come because I'm wearing that stupid Genie hat more at the programmatic. Since I was involved in was really really impressed with our program and how we might use that to identify opportunities for the excellent well in M mean for everybody who wasn't at the conference and didn't see that last recession it is fully recorded in video so you can see a C & G and Gary Lang sale in there funny hats and we've tried to capitalize on all marketing pictures so you all are Mia members might see them from time to time for that Celeste switch to Marge the March I know you were involved in a session or two in the programming can you tell us about your experience and how that went one but first I just want to say they see you and the Jihad will be the equivalent of Luke Figora in the First costume publishing and broadcasting in the digital age because a lot of colleges and universities are now doing a lot of online courses and have a lot of broadcasting and Publishing activities on their campus so I work with actually two of the attorneys that are to the attorneys and then our digital person or digital horse person that you to put together a panel discussion about yourself so tell us about those across the river from The Host Hotel made it easier to tap into a number of different people at MIT that we wouldn't normally have it a conference so we had deans of students we had people from our office of general counsel we heavily involved in our Makerspace or head of EHS set of all were participating in the presentation and again we otherwise wouldn't have normally seen them had a conference and the other one I was involved in that was heavily attended was on communication and we put together a panel of our members and two from public colleges in one from a private college and tried to compare and contrast the differences in both what is required by each and what may not be required in what you do to communicate to your board to your bosses and two other stakeholders within year university so that section was moderators were Amie Daly and Joe Carter Wright Sunday flow Hopkins and talking about citizenship reports that they prepare and just how they communicate Kevin be in from Sanford in a private university had a very different perspective than the other two who were thanks for straightening them out and if Bill Dundee ever hears those he will thanks for doing that to be on the education sessions that we had we kind of curated as a program in group I believe if 35 session that we picked from the abundance of submissions we got to the call for presentation so I alluded to it earlier we do eat a meeting for the programming through before we go through every single submission that comes through a cup of presentations and we did have in abundance I believe we had over a hundred a hundred the number 120 I think you all are a bit of numbers play to use it as I work all so that left about 35 session that we had and it came through the call for presentations and actually when I read the evaluations and I do just a little bit about that so early I had over a thousand total attendees including 535 institutional members 384 affiliate members in 92 or 2011 total attendees which is phenomenal and hats off to you guys in the entire annual conference team you know that help with this together I'd like to say it's the largest gathering of higher education risk management professionals ever so I think that's pretty exciting but the the 35 other breakout sessions a lot of them got really really high Mark are there any that you guys want to highlight and that we will reference in the in the podcast but just the differential losses and their impact on universities and it would suit a very casual conversation so I think it was well received by the crowd and they gave out, it's always good to have giveaways in interactivity in your session I know one of the other sessions but I heard a lot about or have debriefed since the conference was the Arctic one is at the faculty member from Dartmouth and then two other folks were also in that session and it got really high marks because of the I think it was such an interesting topic and I remember when the when the programming team was reviewing it and we thought that would be a pretty interesting topic switch the focus a little bit just a little bit about the Boston Marathon bombing session this is how we actually kicked off the conference and Stacy want to just tell us a little bit about that session.

 to build the session and I'm the second I knew this was going to be held in Boston the Sheraton was only about two blocks from where that bombing actually happened and if your local you were I'm sure Nae why does following this particular local you are following it incredibly close and you knew the impact that it had on higher ed to great detail obviously after Collier who is murdered on a my teeth get through with that and then the actual terrorists being a student of University of Massachusetts and the college was actually miss identified at first and we thought that it was actually University of massachusetts-amherst which is right in my backyard and if it says College of five colleges Incorporated so we were closely attending to this and just that the incredible impact in higher ed and I think we really concentrated on the violence edit that had happened but we hadn't thought about it from the logistics and tactical standpoint from higher ed so it was really probably one of the biggest highlights of my career is being able to pull together and to be able to be on stage with those folks we had Billy Evans who is currently the chief of police for Boston College but was the former Commissioner of Boston police and was The Incident Commander in Watertown where we took down the terrorists where he was hiding and he also ran the marathon that day and then secure the scene so you know really locally he's the hero in is quite into mrs. I found out after mentioning his name quite a few times and being involved with him I think a lot of folks were Starstruck when we also had the chief of police from MIT who was there when officer Cali are not on campus but who was still Chief at MIT when Officer Collier was shot the chief of police at University of Massachusetts who identified that that terrorists actually attended there one of the students at UMass came in to the police station and said that that person had attended UMass and was in their classes and then we also have the emergency manager for Suffolk University who so how'd the emergency manager for Suffolk University who is in the Boston Proper area and was affected when the entire city went into lockdown nobody was allowed to be on the streets because it was an active Manhunt and there's my forget the actual number if there's several several colleges in the twenties within a 4-mile radius of where that had happened and University Suffolk University was definitely in the heart of that so what did they go through and how do they feed students in a decentralized studying with an unarmed Campus Police Department how do you keep your students safe you know when everybody's on an active Manhunt you know you're not getting much for spots in the moment and you're not getting much support from local PD. So, it was really, again, a highlight in my career and something that I'll obviously cherish in the opportunity given to me from URMIA to do that and I know the response to that was really positive and I encourage everybody to check it out on the URMIA website. Formative in a very powerful story it was a great way to start the conference and those Boston accents I mean if nothing else should watch the video just to hear some real there's no better way to start a Boston conference that to have Billy Evans make one of the first statement is true South Boston accent born and raised from Southie and you can hear you can definitely hear it and how about Sandy have any any words about the session Focus was on sort of what the individual impact to the schools were cuz it was a story that a lot of us hadn't heard I mean I work at MIT and I had actually only been working here for three weeks when this all took place some of the things that happened in what took place it was really interesting to hear from the people that work you know living it and sort of reacting to that incident in real-time what happened in its impact in what they learned in soda have put in place for University since then and how about you marginally Lessons Learned or innate could not you could you could hear a pin drop in that room in that session was going on people were incredibly intensely listening to every word and it wasn't just cuz they couldn't understand what really even those of us that you know cuz everyone was completely intrigued and I just remember to go back to other people in other parts of the country were following it when it went along I actually was out of the country I was in Mexico on vacation and we from from Cancun followed every single thing that was going on for the entire duration of it and even though I wasn't yell at the time was not think it from the perspective of the colleges and universities in the environment in that were affected at least I was thinking about it but in my home state and city I love him what was going on in the city but just to come back and no hear this a handful of years later still resonating with everyone just listen to them talk about what they went through it was incredible and having the location being just a couple blocks away from where we are in the Memorial monument installed in that location just I think the week before I'm going to visit the memorial I know I mean one of the things that I took away and it was such a moving session was the comment where he said that you know that's not the time to pass out business cards do you have to have those relationships well in advance you know you have to get those town-gown relationships in and figure out who you call in a situation than we work with so it was a great session and can fit us to the three of you for making that happen so I wanted to focus just a little bit on just the wealth of data that we have are at those resources that we have from the conference that are on the website so like I said earlier regardless if you attended the conference or you didn't attend the conference we have every single breakout session well I think we have all but to actually I think that a couple technical difficulties but we have at least 48 of the 50 breakout sessions all the recordings and if you like to listen to podcasts you can also listen to those recordings on your devices and it's pretty easy to do so I would definitely ask you all to log into the earliest I can go to the library go into past conferences and actually I mean we have years and years of conference recordings in and they are so they're such a great resource for members and tell us a little bit about some of the you know fun aspects of the conference and I'm doing this to fold to do a call out to the members to be future conference chairs that are always looking for the next location in these three lovely women did volunteer to do Boston it with our 50th conference that was with the biggest the largest and we are always trying start 51st conference the next year in Indianapolis will surpass Boston but I'm realistic it's not happening Jenny sorry I love Indianapolis and all but it's not the 50th conference but this is a call out to all the members you know think about submitting your city for future hernia conference in just as chairs can you guys talk about your experience like how how much time it took and like just Lessons Learned how about you merge you go first sure so a little bit because usually people submit cities but we knew since it was the 50th we wanted a special City so I think the board itself then let's try to do it in Boston if we can make it work financially and administrative lease I remember you asking if I'd be interested and I said sure but I want to pick my co-chair because I knew I wanted these two women with me and I think it worked out well because we embrace the Patriot Way do your job and stay in your lane and we split out their responsibilities where I kind of did the financial administrative part and Stacy's mom oversaw the programming in San Diego versus all the social other type of sense because she is truly the local person so for me it was there's a lot of time for me that it didn't take up a lot of time and I think the programming and things are much more intense TimeWise in task wide but you know doing the budget at the beginning and tracking and tracking the sponsorships is coming in and making sure we're staying on track or were the things that were supposed to tell it was good I think it was a good group I think we work pretty well together I think we divvied up responsibility so that no one person was totally overwhelmed but that we kept in good condition of course I should go without saying or I should say it's offline shareable if you guys are amazing and put in so much time and energy to to make sure no balls are dropped and everything that we need to do is done so thank you. Well thanks Marge and then how about you Sandy were there any like professional development things that you experience as being a coat are right there when to plan the parties are the dinners and things like that so when they asked me to show to do the local tree planting I might go this fits in perfectly my home City I was thrilled to have it here and just want to show off Boston for what it is I mean you hear about the bus drivers which will admit we're horrible but there's some great part of the city and I'm glad that we got to share that with an over the country working on the venues and finding the right things and something new in to really showcase Boston like At The Gala doing it at JFK library and it was off so that was really cool it should have gave me from a professional development episode of like being in grad school for Chick-fil-A as we get closer time management doing my regular job here in a mighty and managing as we got closer and closer and had to do more and more with a balance but it was great it was so much fun and got to work with all of you guys, too fantastic friendship between those two so yeah the try chair relationship continues on but yeah I mean it really seemed like an issue we had so much fun playing this so it didn't see make extra work and it was something that was easily text up after hours because this was enjoyable and it was you know great friends doing fun things so I mean professional development I can learn so much from the folks who are involved in building this conference it wasn't just the three of us that was our entire committee it was our programming committee it was our events committee all of our seeing our Affiliates so yeah I mean I've just learned an incredible amount just working with them outside normal working hours has been fantastic will terrific well I think that we've done a great job I laid in the conference again I heard all of our members to log into the library and listen to the recording and thank you to you 3 for being my guest today on URMIA matters and we're going to wrap it up here thank you thank you thank you for having us