Episode 27: Two Re-elected Board Members Look Back and Ahead

Re-elected URMIA board members highlight accomplishments from their first board term, discuss how important the virtual delivery of professional development will be going forward, and, of course, their personal favorite URMIA member benefits. Listen in with Julie L. Groves, director of risk services at Wake Forest University, and Craig McAllister, executive director of risk management at the University of Miami.

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Transcript

Jenny: Hello, welcome to URMIAmatters. This is number 27! This is Jenny Whittington, URMIAs Executive Director, and again I am pleased to have two board members with me again today. In this election year, we decided we would concentrate our podcast on getting to know our board members. Now, one of my newly reelected board members, Julie Groves, has already been on the podcast, but, Julie, briefly introduce yourself, please.

Julie: Thanks, Jenny. I’m Julie Groves and I’m the Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina. 

Jenny: Awesome to have you back with us, and then our other reelected board member is Craig McAllister from University of Miami, and, Craig, great to have you here. Will you just introduce yourself and give a little bit of history about how you got involved in higher education risk management and then URMIA as well? Welcome!

Craig: Welcome, Jenny, and thank you. I’m Craig McAllister, I’m the Executive Director of Risk Management for the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. I’ve been involved with URMIA for almost 20 years. When I started in higher ed risk management, I spent time on the listserv. It was rudimentary at the time, but had a lot of good information and started attending sessions and speaking and everything went from there. 

Jenny: Wow, that’s great. So, when I first started with URMIA one of your predecessors at your former institution was an URMIA president, I believe he was on the board, Allen Bova, when I first came to URMIA. So will you speak to your time at Cornell a little bit?

Craig: Sure, I worked with Allen for 10 years at Cornell University. Allen Bova, who is the former president of URMIA and former Director of Risk Management at Cornell University. I succeeded him as the Director at Cornell and really owe everything I learned from risk management to really him giving me the opportunities to participate in URMIA and to present and write papers and just everything that goes along with that. It’s really having that guidance that was so helpful.

Jenny: Yeah, Allen is one of my favorite Presidents that I’ve worked for and with, and he was just such an optimist, he had such a nice sense of humor and I hope that Allen might be listening to us. He has shown up in a couple URMIA conferences since he retired, but Craig, it’s great to have you, and I know you’ve spent some time on URMIA committees and we’ve worked together on for professional development. Can you speak to your URMIA involvement over the years?

Craig: Sure. I started with speaking at sessions, which allowed me to learn a topic in much more depth if I was going to present to my peers, and being able to be a, have the knowledge for that, and really formalize what my understanding would be of certain topics. With that it allowed me to really see that professional development and the opportunity to provide professional development to our URMIA peers was really one of our core areas, and so I’ve really helped me to see that we want to move forward with URMIA to be that premiere higher education risk management association specifically around professional development, and being able to provide those sessions and other documents that we use. 

Jenny: Yeah, thanks Craig, for that. I know, Julie, when you were on the podcast that was previous to our wonderful regional conference that we held in Raleigh, one of the last in person events that URMIA had, before this crazy pandemic, but you’ve been involved with the professional development from a number of events and things, will you speak to your involvement in that way? 

Julie: Sure. I’ve been able to attend a number of in person events and I think that’s always really helpful to get to know the other members of URMIA, to build a network. I am the only person in risk management in Wake Forest, so it’s good to have an extended family to help me when I have questions or need to bounce ideas off people. So I’ve chaired a couple of regional conferences and have been very active and coming to as many in person things as I can, so I really want to solute the URMIA home office and our chairs of our recently concluded first-ever digital virtual conference, and I thought it went very well, and it was great that we could continue to keep up these relationships even though we can’t actually meet in person. So kudos to Kathy and Kim and all the folks who helped with that conference, I thought it went really well. 

Jenny: I’m so happy you brought that up because I was going to ask each one of you about your feelings about the virtual conference. I think the entire staff is on cloud 9 still, just we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from people, and some helpful comments to even improve in the future. I know I was surprised, and I probably have said this already, that I was surprised at the connection I felt with people being virtual. I think we’ve all attended a webinar or two and it’s pretty easy to multitask and not be engaged, but I really felt there was a connection at that one. How about you, Craig? How did you feel about the virtual conference? 

Craig: I think it showed the adaptability of risk managers, being able to pivot as we did on this. So, really kudos to the team to be able to do that and to put on such a great conference. The ability to interact with people, whether it’s in the chat rooms or some of the side conversations and the networking was valuable because we do all miss that in person experience and seeing our colleagues, to catch up randomly, and we didn’t get the full amount of that, but it was still a good way to move forward in this time.

Jenny: Thanks, the logic to have you guys both on the podcast today was really to talk about your second term on the board of directors for URMIA. So I know you both have accomplished some things during your first term, but I’d like you to speak about your goals for the second term, and I know we are going to do some updates to the strategic plan and have those discussions in the incoming weeks and probably in the fourth quarter, but Julie do you have any initial thoughts on, in this new reality we find ourselves in that we didn't really have in mind when we published the last update to the strategic plan in June of last year. I was actually looking at the document this morning because we’re having a board meeting on Wednesday and we’ve made significant progress in the things that we laid out to do but what are your thoughts about your term?

Julie: I think that, if I think back to three years ago when I started my first term on the board, one of the things that was consistently a point that we wanted to pursue was to have things, such as podcasts, and three years ago that seemed very daunting, but I will say that as I’ve continued to work with my teeny weeny little part of that, I think Michelle and you, Jenny, and the folks at the home office have done most of the work on that, but that’s something that was really neat to see that actually come to fruition, these long discussions about should we have podcasts, and now we’re having them. I think they’ve been an excellent addition for the membership, and so I think looking forward to the next term, because of COVID, I think that how we work and how we learn are probably going to be different going forward, and so I think as I said I applaud URMIA for the virtual conference and the other virtual things you all have been able to do since we’ve been all scattered to the four winds during COVID, and I hope that we will have more opportunities to look at what kinds of content we can deliver to our membership virtually and how we can continue to use these excellent podcasts to get information out for our members, so that’s one thing I’m really excited about.

Jenny: Thank, Julie. That’s great, and I know Craig, I was looking at your candidate statement this morning and I know you reference some of URMIAs publications, like the core competencies and the risk inventory, and I know I’ve really, we’ve created this URMIA journey image that we shared with the new members at the virtual session and it’s been really helpful for me. I did an orientation a couple weeks ago with new members, but Craig when you think about your second term, do you think about using any of those documents or exploring any of those? Do you have any thoughts on that? 

Craig: I would like to piggyback on what was said before, it’s just that we have to work at these new channels whether it's the podcast, our virtual library, whether it’s online conferences, podcasts, webinars, to bring really the information that we have, because I think the hardest part is the dissemination of all the great information that all our colleagues have, how do we get it together in a coherent fashion which allows us to share it and for people to have it on demand. When somebody’s looking, they don’t need to be able to reinvent the wheel because somebody else has looked at whatever the risk of the day is, and being able to share that with their peers and using, whether it’s the resource guide, it’s the core competency, it’s linking that to our libraries, I really see URMIA move forward in that way so it’s easy for people to find materials and then apply them.

Jenny: Mhm hmm. Yeah, connect the dots. I know one of the initiatives we’[ve been working on is really embedding the core competencies into everything in our library and we’ve made some steady progress on that. In the virtual conference we did have each session tagged by the core competency, but I’d like to see that even come to like the next level over the next year or so, so you can see that framework and that roadmap at a glance. But I’ve really been, every member I feel like I’ve spoken to recently, I’ve been pushing both the core competencies and the risk inventory because I think they’re such great tools and I feel like our members are, you guys are all in different places, and I think that’s typical, but I think some members have some additional time on their hands, where other members are completely taxed. So I think it’s a good time to reflect on some of the benefits that URMIA offers and to take a pass at something you don’t know much about. Julie, when you look at those documents in the journey, that she just held up for me thank you for having that nearby, are there any resources that you really take advantage of in URMIA that you want to share with podcast listeners? 

Julie: I think the resource that I use a lot is the listserv and the questions that people submit to the listserv, and as I said I am an office of one at Wake Forest, although we do have a shared risk philosophy so there are a number of different departments that ultimately work on risk, but I will say that I have talked about the URMIA listserv at work, and people will call me and say “hey I have a question about xyz, can you check that listserv that you’re a member of to see if they have any information on that?” or “can you post a question to that listserv to see if you can get some answers on that?”. So it’s known at my university to be a great tool for getting information and getting feedback from other areas, so I really have appreciated that. 

Jenny: That’s great, since day one when I got to URMIA in 2005 I was impressed with the then listserv and now the URMIA network, the great questions that are asked and then just the amount of responses we get, and I know this year is unusual in every possible since, but the URMIA network has remained consistent and we try to make sure that every post does get a reply, and then there’s always Ask Lou if you can’t find something. Have you ever reached out to Lou, Julie? 

Julie: I don’t think so, but that’s not to say that I won’t do it in the future, so I’m always trying to find things to send to Lou, so sure.

Jenny: Okay, how about you, Craig? The same kind of question to you. Are there any resources among that list that you have found yourself, using yourself, or recommending to others? 

Craig: The URMIA network is very important to me, and the main reason and the way I use it is to look for emerging trends. If other institutions are having that problem, we may have that soon, and just really is a good touchbase to make sure as questions are coming up, that we have that addressed at our institution, but as I said certainly looking for the emerging risks, and COVID was a great example of that, of areas that people had concerns about and they were reaching out to their URMIA peers, it was good for everybody else to make sure that they had had those concerns addressed as well.

Jenny: Yeah, very true. I was just thinking that I wanted to ask you just a tiny bit about your favorite session at the virtual conference. Now I know I posted this question to the community, and I got a lot of responses, but I wondered about you personally. Julie, what was your favorite session of the conference? 

Julie: I really appreciated the Seton Hall, the 20 years after the dorm fire. It was very inspiring to see those two gentlemen talk about  the experience they’d had as students at Seton Hall and what they’d done since then and it really makes you think very seriously about dorm safety at your own university. Thankfully Wake Forest, all of our residence halls are sprinklered, so we don’t have that sort of unfortunate situation that happened back at Seton Hall, but I really was very, I thought that was very inspiring, and then of course if I have to pic the session that I did, I’d say that was my session with Matt Tuttle and Marge Lemmon where we talked about the crazy requests we’ve had from our schools, that was a lot of fun to do.

Jenny: Yeah, those were both pretty popular in the responses I got, especially the one that you did with Matt and Marge. For all the listeners out there, all of our virtual conference recordings will be in the URMIA library after about November 1st, so everyone will have the chance to be a part of the, or listen to those recordings. How about you, Craig? Were there any favorites that you had? 

Craig: I had three. The Seton Hall fire, certainly, that was the most emotionally grabbing on this.. That’s something that I used in my career, we say don’t waste a tragedy, to really push to make sure that institutions have a sprinkler over every bed so you don’t have a repeat of that. I found that the CEO talk from the major brokers was very helpful to get a sense of what their concerns are, and see how that fits within our operations and what we’re doing there. And then also a quick shoutout to the session that I briefly participated in, but I’m really excited about the white paper we’re working on for protection of research and the prelude that our session that we did with that. I’m looking forward to that document, I think it really goes towards the resources that URMIA can provide and having the tools that people need to really evaluate and understand where their risks are related to research, once that comes out we’ll be a really positive document.

Jenny: That’s great, I hadn’t heard about that white paper yet, that’s excellent to hear. I’m happy to hear about that. So, as newly elected board members, you guys have a three year term now, so if you can think of one word for what you’d like to accomplish in the next three years, does a word pop into your head, Julie? 

Julie: One word?

Jenny: Or like a thought. Let’s leave it at that 

Julie: Can it be three words? 

Jenny: Okay.

Julie: Adapt for change.

Jenny: Nice!

Julie: I think this last year has really taught us that very unpredictable things can happen. Who would have ever predicted the situation we all found ourselves in right now, and to Craig’s earlier point, I think that the virtual conference showed that we can do a nice job of pivoting and adapting and so I think we need to prepare for change as we move forward through the next four years because we don’t ever know what the future will hold for us. 

Jenny: Yeah, absolutely as I was working on the board packet for this week’s board meeting, I usually have an important dates calendar that I keep for the board, I keep it for myself, and usually by this time in the year I would have honestly updated that document at least 50 times, and this year, where things are so uncertain and we don’t have the same kind of travel that we may have anticipated, I think we all have to be adept to change. That is great. How about you, Craig? Any closing comments for the last bit? 

Craig: I was going to use the word adaptable, so thank you Julie. I would say flexible, or flexibility, which goes with that. I would also pivot to say engagement. I think it’s really important for our members to all be contributors, everybody has a unique perspective that we can use and that different perspective I think will be very helpful for everyone to look at risk with many eyes, many perspectives.

Jenny: Yeah, I love that. I’ve always thought of risk managers as really creative problem solvers. You have to think outside the box, you have to find ways to say yes and in a safe way, and you have to create allies, you really have to be a creative problem solver. Guys, it’s been great to have you be a part of URMIAmatters today, thank you for making time in your day to join, and I’ll look forward to working with you on that on the board for the next three years and hopefully we will continue to share great resources with our members, so thanks very much.

Julie: Thanks, Jenny. 

Craig: Thanks, Jenny, thanks Julie. 

Julie: Thank you, Craig.

Jenny: Thanks, Julie and Craig. This is going to be a wrap for URMIAmatters today. Thank you!