Episode 23: Opportunities of a Virtual Annual Conference

Kim Miller, Ball State University’s director of risk management, insurance, and safety – and co-chair of URMIA’s 2020 annual conference – talks with host Jenny Whittington about the unique opportunities presented by taking the conference virtual this year. As she gives an overview of the upcoming September conference, she shares what URMIA values guided the intentional transition, what has surprised her, and how this event is more accessible than ever before.

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Transcript

Jenny: Hello everyone, this is Jenny Whittington, URMIAs Executive Director, and we are still broadcasting from our home offices and today I’m super excited to talk about our annual conference, and I have a very special guest with me. We have Kim Miller with Ball State University, welcome Kim! 

Kim: Hello Jenny, and hello listeners.

Jenny: So this is Kim’s very first podcast, so super excited that she could join on this beautiful sunny day in August. We are just about a month away from kicking off our virtual annual conference, so really excited to talk to all the listeners out there about the conference and tell everybody a little bit about it, but before we get to the meat of the podcast I want Kim to tell us all a little bit about how she got into the wide world of higher education risk management. Kim was on our board for a couple terms, so Kim, just give us a little bit of a history about yourself and how you got involved. 

Kim: Sure, I’d be happy to. So, this is, I actually did the math just before our call and I can’t believe it’s been, this is my 20th year, Jenny, in higher education risk management.

Jenny: Wow. 

Kim: I started in the year 2000, and that’s when I made the transition from corporate risk management to higher ed, so I was in corporate risk management about a decade before that, so I’ve really, I guess you could say, seen things evolve from risk management being what it was back then, a purchasing function or a glorified purchasing function to now seeing it evolve to ERM, just an opportunity for risk managers to be more proactive than reactive. So, yeah, as you mentioned I’ve been involved with URMIA for the entire time, the entire ride of 20 years

Jenny: Wow!

Kim: I’ve been on the board, but this is my first time ever podcast, but I’m glad that I get to do it with you, Jenny. 

Jenny: Thanks, well we’re going to have a fun discussion here. So, tell me where you’re, so you started in corporate risk management and I know you were in Ohio, so where were you exactly? I can’t remember.

Kim: Sure, I was at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio prior to coming to Ball State, so 

Jenny: And you were there for quite a while, right? 

Kim: I was. It was 13, maybe going on 14 years by the time I left there. That’s where I cut my teeth in higher ed risk management. It was very exciting, we purchased our insurance as a consortium there with 13 of the 14 publicly funded higher education institutions in the state, so learned a lot from that group and from URMIA.

Jenny: Yeah, that’s great. I remember I got to go see that group a few years back and, yeah, it’s really great when our members have little cohort groups of their own. We love to support them from URMIAs perspective, but there are groups like that all over, but I think that Ohio one is a fairly unique set up of the state. I don’t know of anything quite like that in Indiana, so I thought that was pretty cool. And then, how long have you been at your current institution?

Kim: So, I started in… I remember May of 2014, so yeah, time flies.

Jenny: It really does. I can’t believe that was 6 years ago, that’s just amazing. Okay, so we are here today to talk about the big virtual annual conference, so Kim and I started working on this conference a long time ago, probably, I don’t know, 3 years ago at least? We did a site visit and looked at different properties in Indianapolis for both the hotel and then the offsite venues and then COVID hit and we had to regroup and we are really very excited about offering this as a virtual conference this year, and we have several things that we think the membership is going to really appreciate, we just had a planning call just before this podcast where Michelle Smith, our Senior Director of Meetings, gave us some tidbits and updates about the conference, so Kim, I did want to just ask you a couple things. What things about this year’s annual conference do you think attendees will be most surprised by?

Kim: Oh. good question. I think that the attendees will be surprised at how much content is available. The sessions that we have this year were handpicked from those that would have been presented live had we been able to come together in Indianapolis. I remember the programming committee selecting from a large group of sessions, those that we thought would be most relevant for right now, and could be adapted to a virtual format, so I also think that the way you’ve packaged it, Jenny, that it works for people regardless of which time zone they’re in, that we can all be live together. So, if you’re in the eastern time zone, I think the time slot is a little later in the day except for the pre conference session that I know was added. I know that that’s a full day of getting things kicked off, but surprised, I was surprised by the cost. Our sponsors stuck with us, and the cost of this year’s virtual conference is very affordable for members. I think you’ve priced it at $99, which is fabulous, a great value. And just lastly, I think that the talent that URMIA has assembled, being virtual allows us opportunities to assemble thought leaders in our industry that may not have had the possibility of joining us if they had to travel to URMIA, and they had a lot of time wrapped up in traveling and so forth, so that’s exciting for us. 

Jenny: Yeah, and for everybody out there who hasn’t looked at the full schedule or hasn’t registered yet, you still have time, but the annual conference is being offered on 4 specific dates throughout September, so the pre conference activities are on September 9th, and then the bulk of the content will kick off on September 10th, and then it’ll be September 15th, the 23rd, and the 29th. So we did that very intentionally because we know that our members are super duper busy right now, and Kim Miller from Ball State and Kathy Hargis from Lipscomb who are pour chairs and have been terrific supporters of this whole process, we just feel for all of our members out there, I mean, it’s been such a strange time, and you guys are so busy, so we tried to stretch it out over the whole month of September, so you wouldn’t even have to do back to back days because I think everybody who has participated in a zoom meeting understands what zoom fatigue is, so we’ve been trying to think of as many creative ways to deliver the content and to really replicate that sense of community that URMIA is known for. So we’re really going to try and Michelle Smith, our meetings person, we were really being very intentional about how much engagement opportunities we’ll have at the conference, so there’ll be more to come on that over time, but I did just want to talk a tiny bit about the general sessions. So, every day of the 4 days we’ll have a general session, so the first one will be It’s COVID-19, Liability and More US Federal Policy Insights, and it’s our good friend Terry Hartle from the American Council of Education, and Larry Leeroy Tyner from Texas Christian University, and Terry is a wonderful presenter, he’s been at several of our conferences over time, so that is something that everybody should look forward to coming, and then we will have another general section the next week on international education, and then the other two are, we’re really excited about the outlook on the market from leading insurance brokers that’ll feature Eric Anderson, the president of Aon, Patrick Gallagher, the Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board at Gallagher, John Q. Doyle, the President Chief Executive Officer of Marsh, Chris Duble, the CEO from Fred C, Church, and that’ll be moderated by Chauncey Fagler and Courtney Davis Curtis, so that should not be missed, and then we will end out our general sessions with How Successful Leaders Manage and Adapt to Disruption by our keynote speaker Greg Offner, and he has a great little video on the website. Kim, have you had a chance to look at that from Greg Offner? 

Kim: I did. Actually, just this morning, and he will be talking about the skills necessary for personal and professional disruption. I think that’ll hit home for a lot of our attendees.

Jenny: Yeah, definitely. I know when we were talking to Michelle this morning, we were talking about one of our sponsors is doing some meditation for us between sessions and I commented that I think we all need some meditation right now because these are stressful times for all of us and again I just give a shoutout to everybody listening, if you haven't’ registered yet, please check out the program, the whole schedule is on the website. All the sessions will be recorded and fully available, so if you wanted to attend two at the same time, while you can’t do them at the same exact time, you’ll be able to listen to that one shortly afterwards. So, Kim, I have another question for you: what things about the virtual annual conference are you most looking forward to?

Kim: Okay, well for me, the staples. There’s those things that URMIAns have just come to know and love from attending every year. For me it’s the roundtable discussions. I’m usually able to take away a lot of good ideas from those, so we are repeating those in a virtual format, and I think there’ll also be another opportunity for topical roundtables on one of the other days, so looking forward to that and the new member/first timer experience, I know as a board member I was actively involved in that for a number of years, so I know that will be repeated this year also, so that’s not to be missed if you’re a first time conference attendee, and I’m looking forward, I’m moderating a session, I’m not speaking this year, but I am moderating a session on Tuesday, I believe on the second week, it’s on protecting students and minors from sexual abuse and molestation, and Kathy Hargis, the conference co-chair, is presenting at that along Melanie Bennett from United Educators is also presenting, so, right, you know as risk managers, the more we can educate on that subject and promote prevention, obviously the better off we are as a group, and international travel, another one. There’s just a number of challenges that exist already with safeguarding students and faculty and staff that go abroad, so post-covid I know I’ve already been thinking about what we can expect to add to that list once travel resumes. So many things to look forward to, plus Kathy and I get to welcome everybody at the kickoff.

Jenny: Yeah, it’s going to be great. Yeah, we tried to replicate several of the in-person events. I’m really glad you brought up the new member/first URMIA experience session. We’re having a planning meeting next week about that and that’s really a fun, kind of high energy session and even for people who aren’t new members of URMIA, but maybe haven’t experienced an annual conference, this is a great time to participate in that session. I mean it’s obviously unlimited in how many people we can have there, and we’re just going to have some fun activities. We’ll learn about URMIA in itself, making sure you’re taking advantage of your URMIA benefits, or if you’re a nonmember, we’ll educate you on our benefits and there’ll be a fair amount of networking. Colorado Robertson from LSU is leading that effort again this year and anybody who knows Colorado, and he’s been a guest on the podcast in the past, he is a high energy and his technical savvy always overwhelms me. I’m sure he’ll have a few bells and whistles out there that we can all learn from. We are doing some fun things on the front end of the conference to kind of replicate the in-person experience, so we are going to do kind of a 5k walk run roll and we’re going to do some URMIAcares activities and, Kim, I think that was your idea about the URMIAcares experience because I think you kind of saw an idea that your institution was doing about community service and giving back, so we’re really asking people to do some kind of community service through the whole month of September and then kind of share their experience. Is that what your institution is doing?

Kim: Right, that was a while ago that that was posted, but right, there was not the same opportunity for the campus to come together to do the type of community engagement that we would like so they were encouraging people to find projects that were meaningful to them and to complete them on their own and provided a virtual format for people to post.

Jenny: Yeah, I love that idea, and I’ve been thinking about what I can do. There are obviously tons of different things you can do in your own community, but I’ve carved out that I’m going to donate blood in September because I’m a universal donor and I don’t always do a great job of doing that but I set a goal for myself to do that in September, and I think we should all try to think of a way, in a safe way we can all give back to our communities, so I love that suggestion. And then, yeah, Kim had mentioned about we do have a couple pre cons and we’re still gathering some details about the one that the Judd Foundation is a part of- it’s titled Supporting the Wellbeing of Students, Staff and Faculty, and that one will be a little bit longer, it’s not going to be all day and it’ll probably be broken up into a couple different sections, but it’s about mental health, and I think we all know how important that topic is right now, I mean after this pandemic has gone on as long as it has and these quarantines kind of come and go, I think we all need as much community and support that we can get. So, Kim, anything else that you want to talk about, the conference, that we haven’t touched on? 

Kim: I don’t, I can’t think of anything, Jenny. I am very much looking forward to the virtual conference, or even more so when we’re able to come together in Indianapolis like we had planned, which won’t be… in 2022 now. It’s going to be a great time, so I hope to see everyone there. 

Jenny: Yeah, I know you talked about it a little bit I think in your, in some of the comments, I mean this is a terrific year to bring other members of your team, so our risk management is a broad spectrum of topics, so when you look at our schedule online, you can definitely, you can filter how the schedule is done by specialty groups, so we have compliance in there, we have international and we have ERM topics, specifically, and you can also, if you’re familiar with URMIAs core competency model, we have those as a filter as well. So, this is a great time and the price, and we are just so pleased that our board of directors approved the price of $99 for members, all members, institutions and affiliates, and a $199 price tag for nonmembers. This is a great time to get a refresher or some special education on higher education risk management, and we welcome everybody to check out the schedule. You’ll be hearing more about those on a future podcast, but Kim thank you so much for being my guest today, and you’ll be back on the air on September 10th welcoming everybody to the conference, so thanks for being my guest. 

Kim: Thank you. 

Jenny: Okay, this is gonna be a wrap for URMIAmatters this time.