URMIAs 2025 Call for Sessions

In this episode of URMIA Matters, Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University, interviews Susie Johnson, Risk Management Director at Iowa State University and 2025 Programming Committee Chair, Sue Liden, URMIA’s Education Manager, and Michelle Smith, URMIA’s Executive Director, about URMIA’s upcoming Call for Sessions. Learn how you can submit your content proposal easily and quickly! Susie, Sue, and Michelle share their thoughts on what makes a great content submission and how the process of selecting annual conference submissions exactly works. Whether it’s for a conference presentation, webinar, podcast, or another form, there is a media style that works for your URMIA content suggestion. The deadline for 2025 Annual Conference submissions is January 24th, 2025, so don’t forget to mark your calendar and submit some fantastic content to URMIA! 

Show Notes [member log-in required for some content]

URMIA's 2025 Call for Sessions
URMIA's Contribute Content Informational Page
URMIA's Education Plan
URMIA's Core Competencies

Guests
Susie Johnson, Risk Management Director - Iowa State University
Sue Liden, Education Manager - URMIA
Michelle Smith, Executive Director - URMIA

Host
Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services - Wake Forest University

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Transcript

S5E15Transcript 

Jenny Whittington: Hey there. Thanks for tuning into URMIA Matters, a podcast about higher education risk management and insurance. Let's get to it. 

Julie Groves: Hi everyone. I'm Julie Groves, the Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University and I'll be your host for this episode of URMIA Matters. Today I'm chatting with some well known URMIAns who are going to talk about the 2025 Call for Educational Content. They're going to discuss how the process works, what makes for a good abstract submission, what the reviewers look for, how the tracks at the annual conference come together, how hot topics make their way onto the agenda, and what other ways exist for folks to create content for URMIA. And I really feel like these folks need no introductions. They're all very well known, so I'm just going to ask each of them to do a quick introduction and then tell us an interesting fact we might not know about them. So, Susie, let's start with you. 

Susie Johnson: OK, sounds great. Hi, this is Susie Johnson. I am the Risk Management Director at Iowa State University. I have been in this role for 12 years, but with our office for 16. And an interesting thing that maybe only a few folks probably know is that I have an artificial hip, but that has actually been replaced twice with my left hip. Just did that again for the second time a year ago. 

Julie Groves: Wow. OK. Goodness. Or is that like a bionic hip, like the $6 million man and the bionic?  

Susie Johnson: Totally yes. 

Julie Groves: Can you run really fast? 

Susie Johnson: I absolutely cannot. No, no, that's not- 

Julie Groves: I was hoping it would make that sound.  

Susie Johnson: No, it does squeak every once in a while, just like metal, like a tin man. Like I need an oil can, but it doesn't do that so much as I had it replaced the second time. 

Julie Groves: OK. Wow. Well, good luck in those airport screening machines. 

Susie Johnson: Thank you. 

Julie Groves: Well, thank you for being on the show today. All right. Next, we're going to turn it over to Sue. What's going on with you, Sue? 

Sue Liden: Hi everyone. I'm Sue Liden, URMIA’s Education Manager. And I've been in this role for almost 2 years now, and prior to that, I was the Director of Risk Services at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, and an active URMIA member while I was an institutional risk manager. A unique thing folks don't know about me is many, many, many, many years ago in my childhood I was a figure skater and used to perform. 

Julie Groves: Wow, did you have a Dorothy Hamill haircut? 

Sue Liden: You betcha. I was from that era. 

Julie Groves: That's fantastic. So, anyone who's listening to this podcast who's under the age of 40 is immediately going to be Googling the $6 million man and Dorothy Hamill to see who they are because they're not going to know who we're talking about.  

Sue Liden: Absolutely. 

Julie Groves: Well, so can you still do some, you know, figure eights, and do a few triple salchows and all that? 

Sue Liden: I never quite got through the triple. I could do a single salchows. No triples. I'm glad that the last time I got on ice skates, I could still stand up and not fall flat on my face so. 

Julie Groves: Well, that's amazing. Well, that's an interesting fact. Thank you for telling us that. And finally, last but not least, Michelle Smith, URMIA’s Executive Director. So, Michelle, you don't really need an introduction, but if you want to tell us something about yourself you can, but we really want to know what an interesting unknown fact about you is. 

Michelle Smith: Hi Julie, thanks for being here, Susie and Sue. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the call for sessions coming up. My name is Michelle Smith. I'm the Executive Director here at URMIA. I've been in this role for 10 months now and with URMIA for five years before that. And the interesting fact for me is like in this fall season of my life, it is a sports trifecta. My husband is an avid sports fan, and we watch baseball, basketball, and football all at the same time. On any given day, all three things happen. So that's what I do when I am not doing URMIA things. 

Julie Groves: Do you have multiple screens set up in one room so you can watch a different sport on each screen? 

Michelle Smith: If it is a big game day, yes. I hear there's major college football day coming up October 11th, where many of the big games will be played similar to like Thanksgiving weekend when they have the in-state rival games. So, we're excited about having multiple TVs that day, but usually it's just flipping channels, or we have the effect on the television now where you can watch four games at once so. 

Julie Groves: I assume the Hoosiers are still your favorite. 

Michelle Smith: They are, yes. Whenever the Hoosiers play, that is my favorite team, but we have others and every sport. So yeah, all good. 

Julie Groves: Well, great. Well, thank you all for being on the podcast today. OK. So, let's turn our discussion to the call for educational content. So, Michelle, let's start with you. You've been through this process before, so can you let folks know how all of this works and if I'm going to submit a proposal, what happens after I do that? 

Michelle Smith: Well, that is a great question, Julie. There is a lot of work behind the scenes and a lot of longevity in each and every entry. So, we do appreciate every single one that is entered into the process and that the timing is a little unique I think for our process because those submissions may prompt different ideas for professional development opportunities throughout the year. So, in the first step, basically we take in the information, we submit it to one of the in-person conference committees. That may be a regional conference, or it may be our annual conference. And those are just looked at for title, the description, and the learning outcomes. So, we really have that first round of during done without acknowledging who the presenter is, who submitted it, who's on the presentation team. So, no names, no organizations.  

And then after those ratings are submitted, the highest scored sessions float to the top and we do a second round that is juried by special components of the association. So, for example, our compliance champions will look at the compliance sessions along with the rest of the committee. ERM, our international committee, all those groups get special chance to look at those sessions as well as the conference committee and other volunteers around the association. And then ultimately those sessions go to our in-person meeting that happens at the conference site several months before the actual conference where we get the opportunity to be hands on and put those sessions, the content, build tracks, and actually schedule things, so that we can come up with the whole conference program, the educational content throughout the 9 or 10 education block times that we have. 

Julie Groves: So, I think that's a very important point for me to just sort of stress all of this is all these selections are done in a blind fashion. So, if I submit twelve proposals, you would not pick them all because you would not know that I had submitted them, whereas if you weren't doing them in a blind fashion, you might feel compelled because you like me to pick all 12 of my sessions.  

Michelle Smith: Right, right. 

Julie Groves: So that makes it very fair, right? You can't have favorites.  

Michelle Smith: Correct. 

Julie Groves: When you don't know who's turned what in. 

Michelle Smith: Well, that yes, is true. We would not have the ability to know who is doing it. So, no favoritism could be shown, but also because there are so many eyes that look at. I mean in the first round we probably have 30 people look at each session, so that's not uncommon to have that many people look at it. It's a great opportunity to volunteer.  

Julie Groves: It is a great opportunity to volunteer. I've volunteered for that myself and it's very interesting reading through these submissions that abstracts. And so, if you're at all interested in trying to get involved in URMIA, this is a great way to do it. You just get a list, and you look at it on your computer, you know, by a deadline and then you do some ranking and then do some discussions. So be sure to volunteer for that if you're interested. So, Sue, I have been to the in person selection meeting and it's quite the process, and it's hard to describe if you've never actually participated in it, but try to describe the process for folks, how you know what happens at the meeting, how do you make the final selections all that? 

Sue Liden: So, when we get there, we got the results that been tallied. So, we know which presentations have floated to the top. We, the committee, that's the programming committee, that's meeting there at the conference location, we look at those, see which ones have floated to the top look to see if there are any that we think still should be included. And we can give our arguments for those why we think those should be included. We look at all over and ensure that we have a variety of topics, a variety of speakers, and presentations on all the different career levels, so that we're not, don't have all beginner or all advanced. If we have a couple of proposals that are similar, we might ask the submitters to combine their presentations, so that we don't have multiple of this same type.  

We'll look at the presentations we have, determine if we have enough to establish a track. For example, if we have like three presentations on international, we're going to make sure we put those all on the same day, so that if somebody who's just an international risk manager and can only attend one day. Or somebody a virtual attendee wants to bring somebody in for one day, they can make sure they're available for that day. This year we had tracks for compliance, ERM, AI, international, insurance, and I believe EHS. And then once we've determined which ones sessions we're going to have, we have these great little, I don't know, 4 by 6 cards that have the session name description and we start filling out the schedule matrix, which we have up on the wall and we just start filling in the blanks to make sure it all makes sense. And if we identify that there any gaps in programming that we might need content on, then we'll go about the programming committee. We'll start reaching out to institutional and affiliate members who have expertise on that subject and see if they develop a presentation for us. Did I miss anything, Susie? 

Susie Johnson: Gosh, I don't think so. Yeah, that describes my first experience was this past year and it really follows really exactly what you said. 

Julie Groves: It's kind of a little mini party, isn't it? When you're in there looking through all these things? So, I'll ask Susie or Sue as you're reviewing these abstracts, what kinds of things are you looking for? So, what makes something, you know, stand out in your mind, or grab your attention? 

Susie Johnson: I think for me, you know, there's a level of completeness and detail that really speaks to us that tells us exactly what the presenter is looking to. There sometimes they refer to some of our, you know, our core competencies maybe, or to a conversation that's been happening in the community, in our online community. And I think those things really tell us that they've kind of got their finger on the pulse of what people are looking to hear about. So, that's really important to us again. I said completeness and that is that we really understand what they're looking to do in this session. So, what type of session it is, whether there's a panel, or more discussion based because again, we really look to provide a variety to our audience throughout those few days of sessions. And so, knowing the style that they're looking to use helps us a lot. 

Julie Groves: I would assume that if someone sent in a submission and they said they wanted to do a panel and they gave you their name and the rest of the names “TBA” or they just said I'm going to do a session on ERM, but they didn't really give you any detail. Would you go back to that person and say we need, this to your point, Susie, to be complete. Or would you just not even consider that submission.? 

Susie Johnson: I think there are varying levels of that you know. Sue mentioned earlier that sometimes we have a maybe two or three that have been submitted that have some real similarities. There's enough overlap where we think this could be a really dynamic session, if we, you know, ask them to kind of present that together and we know people value collaboration in, you know within the URMIA membership. And so, there's an opportunity for that. I think also we're sensitive to the fact that we try to give some really clear instructions through this process and folks put in a lot of time, you know, to thoughtfully prepare and provide that information. And so, if I were to submit something that just said, I'll do a session on ERM and I'll find some friends some time to join me. You know, that hasn't given that kind of the time commitment that we've looked for and that the detail up front. So, it also I I think it's Sue, I'll turn it over to you here a second, but it also depends how many we have in those different areas. You mentioned the tracks that we have and so some might, especially if it's in the sort of a hot topic area, maybe they're waiting to get a little more detail, but we know the topic is really important. We might, you know, give them a little bit of time there to get some additional details to us. 

Sue Liden: Yeah, that's correct. We do like to make sure that the sessions are thought out before they are submitted. We get so many proposals that we and our programming committee is taking the time to review, view all those. So, having yours complete is great, knowing that they might have to flex at some point down the road is- risk management is not a static operation. It changes, so we know there might be some changes. I always to look for the participation of institutional members. For 60-minute sessions, you have to have an institutional member with you and it's nice if you can have institutional members from different types of institutions. So, we get different perspectives for our members because we have members coming from private, from public, from community and technical, small institutions to large to systems. So, it's nice to have a variety of aspects covered that the way people are dealing with it. 

Julie Groves: And so, what do you all think about session titles? Like I always like to look at session titles. You know, if they're attention grabbing, you know, I'm going to stop and read the description. Does that play a part when you are looking at the submissions? Or is it really the summary and you know the substance of the submission that causes you all to select it?  

Susie Johnson: Sue and I both are nodding on our respective events, I think, but we appreciate when people have had put some thought into that and it kind of jumps out at somebody like you, said, Julie, whether that's the topic itself and they have like maybe a little play on words, something fun like that. Or if they've brought our location of the conference into it, maybe. So, I think they're variety of different ways that they can do that. We do want to be sure the title is clear, of course. So, Julie, when you attend that ERM session, you know that's what it's about. And I think, Sue, you tell me, have we given some feedback to folks on titles before? I thought I remembered that from last year where there just wasn't quite enough there. And so, we went back to them and said, hey, you know, we'd like a little more. Let's take another go at this title. 

Sue Liden: We have done that, especially if we like the description, but the title doesn't seem to align with the description. We'll go back and say you might, let's talk about the title because we want to make sure when people are going to look at it and then read the description and come and know what it's about. So, we have reached out to them before.  

Julie Groves: And Michelle, were you just waving at me, or did you want to say something? 

Michelle Smith: Yeah, I was gonna- I'm very excited about this one. The catchier the title, you know it's really great to have those creative juices flowing. But typically, if there is a catchy or creative title, the description is also spot on. I will have to say that nine times out of ten. If it's a well written title, the description is good as well. It is a two-way street. we do ask for folks to, you know, edit things slightly in the description, title, or learning objectives as we read through them. But you also any of the accepted sessions, they do have an opportunity to make adjustments after they're accepted, so maybe there's new information on the content, or a presenter has changed. Those things do happen and and so there is a process for that as well. 

Julie Groves: So, the deadline to submit an abstract is usually around the end of January, but the annual conference doesn't happen for nine months sometimes after that. So, how do we make sure that we get hot topics included on the educational and the educational sessions, since such a large time span goes by between when they're selected and when the conference actually happens? Sue, you want to speak to that. 

Sue Liden: Sure. We usually keep a couple slots open just because we know something is going to come up. It never fails. We also have hot topic round tables, institution sized round tables, and special interest roundtables at the conference. So, we'll make sure we have a slot to cover those, any emerging issues that are coming.  

Julie Groves: And Sue, I have this question for you. You have been on both sides of this process as you mentioned, you were an institutional Member for many years and now you are on the URMIA staff. So, what has your experience been like being on both sides of the fence, as they say? 

Sue Liden: It has certainly changed over the years. The first time I did that, I co-chaired the 2016 conference in San Diego. So, I sat on the 2015 Programming committee. And then I did Seattle in 2021. So, you always see committee co-chairs, conference committee co-chairs participate the year before and the year after, and a lot has changed. When I started out, we didn't have URMIA’s Core Competencies or the Education Plan to help guide us in planning our educational content. URMIA membership has grown tremendously in the time since I started, along with our conference attendance, so we've had a lot more sessions get submitted now than we used to have. The number of sessions we're able to offer at our annual conferences has increased.  

And courtesy of COVID, we will pivot it to virtual conference in 2020 and now are able to offer a hybrid conference. So, we have virtual and in person attendees and we have a number of our sessions are recorded, so we- folks can come. It's not as challenging to look and say ohh there's four sessions, three of them I want to go to. You can say, well, this one's only in person if you're in person attending knowing you can watch the virtual, the ones that have been recorded for the virtual audience at a later date and time, so that's really helpful. And anybody who's attending the conference, whether they're in person or virtually, has the opportunity to watch those virtual sessions that have been recorded for a year. And then after that year, they're open to all our main members in the URMIA library. So, I think that's a big advantage and a big change that's happened and how the programming is done, because now we get so many more submissions and are able to offer so much more that it's a nice change. 

Julie Groves: And, so, here's a question and I don't know if, Sue, if you know the answer to this or Michelle. So, do we usually offer pretty much the same number of sessions every year or does our conference facility dictate whether we can offer more or fewer sessions than in years past? No answer to my question?  

Sue Liden: Well, it's a combination, because if we're, if we're anticipating more attendees, we're going to reserve more conference space, so we're going to have more space for sessions because we don't want to cram everybody into small rooms and not have space for folks. So, we have increased our capacity to offer sessions. 

Julie Groves: OK.  

Michelle Smith: Yes, I'd say a lot of that the logistics of the site certainly speak to that. So that's part of the programming meeting that we do in person is understand what the space is. That's why we meet at the conference site so we can understand how that space flows. We've also introduced some various types of sessions and presentations. Learning styles are different. I'm one of those folks that if you say group work, I'm out the door. I want to take notes and understand how it works for me and what I'm hearing. And so sometimes, depending on the time of day and sort of my brain capacity to accept more information, I'm I'm looking for something a little bit lighter, so a little bit shorter. So, we do have those 30-minute sessions as well. And so, because we have those flash sessions, we can do more of those and offer more content, more speakers. And so that's another way that we've expanded the portfolio of offerings. 

Julie Groves: So, Susie, you've stepped up to chair the 2025 Programming Committee. So, have you given any thoughts to some of the goals you have for the upcoming year and what types of things are you hoping to see? 

Susie Johnson: Yes, this is really exciting. We have a lot of great folks who are looking to assist there, and we visited the site for the Las Vegas conference recently. And like Michelle just said that we really take a thoughtful approach to what the venue provides and how we can make that best work with what we have to offer, you know, all of the attendees. And so, I think some goals that I have are to really- we talk about how important the session evaluations are or the overall conference evaluation, say at this year's conference. And I just want folks to know that it really is so, so important. And the feedback that you provide, if you can give us some specific feedback. Like I really appreciated having tables in the back of the room, so, I could stand and charge my laptop while I listened, you know, and took notes. That's something I think that came from some feedback that we want to be sure to offer. Whether it's the topic areas and they say I'd love to hear more about AI, but you know, I don't have that expertise, but Julie Groves is a really smart person, and I think you should ask her.  

So, that feedback that folks provide on those session evaluations and conference evaluation is really looked at and considered, and we will take that you know forward into next year. Something else just is that I think people, it's nice to know that in online in the URMIA network, whether it's the institutional community or the all URMIA community, the conversations people are having there, the topics they're posting about, and some of them really get a lot of response that helps us to understand that there's a big interest in that topic, and maybe we kind of place a focus there. We want to be sure we have a larger session room maybe for that topic. And then I think being innovative, and we know that some things are part of our tradition and are very well received. But we also know that change is exciting. And so, whether it's the kind of the technology style poster session that we have this year, or the fishbowl, or whatever it might be next year, that's something new and different. We're not afraid to try something new and we know that our members are always innovating on their own campuses. And so, they, you know, look for that in the conference too. 

Julie Groves: Great. So, you know, we all know that URMIA has a lot of opportunities for educational content. So, Sue, what are some other ways that people can help URMIA create content, if they can't attend the annual conference or don't plan to attend the annual conference, or even if they submit a session that maybe isn't selected. What are your suggestions for that? 

Sue Liden: So, when you go to the call for proposal to submit your session, you have the opportunity to say yes, I'd like to do it at an annual conference. But if you can't do it there, you can also submit it for one of our regional conferences, for an URMIA webinar, and Insights article, a podcast, one of our URMIA Matters Podcast, or Community Conversation. If the idea strikes you in February and it's after the call for proposals, all is not lost. You can go to the contribute content link on the URMIA Professional Development tab on URMIA's website, and you could submit content throughout the year and tell us what you'd like to submit another. You'll get some of the same choices. If you have an idea but you aren't 100% sure about it, or need to talk it through with somebody, reach out to me. Send me an e-mail. We can talk it through. If you need recommendations for co-presenters, reach out to me, or post a link in the URMIA discussion group and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing a presentation on this and somebody will, somebody will chime in and say they'd like to help you. So, yeah. 

Julie Groves: So, there are a lot of ways to dip your toe in the water if you don't necessarily want to, you know, be on stage at the annual conference. There's some other things you can do to sort of work your way up to that. So. 

Sue Liden: Absolutely. And for a smaller community, if it's on ERM, or compliance, we'd love to have you come present. We'd love to have panel discussions at our monthly compliance community conversations. We're always looking for folks to add to our panels and for presenters for our ERM that meets every other month, so. 

Susie Johnson: Really, I would say the dip your toe in, I think also as being a session moderator. So, you, we've got in person moderators and the folks who are communicating with everybody who's attending virtually. And I think that's really an important role in it, you're p art of the session, but you, you know, haven't built the whole slide deck and doing all the talking, but it's really a nice way to be involved in. So, each year we look for volunteers to be moderators as well. 

Julie Groves: Yeah, that's a great suggestion. So, if you are interested in participating, we may still have a few moderator roles open for this year's conference, but definitely for next year. So, if you're not up to actually presenting, moderating is a great way to get involved with things. Thanks for mentioning that, Susie. So, this has been a very insightful discussion. I just wanted to ask before we close to see anybody have anything else they feel like we need to discuss. 

Michelle Smith: I just put out there that the reminder that the call for sessions deadline is January 24th this year. January 24th, 2025 will be the deadline at the first opportunity to get your submissions in for the annual conference. But as Sue mentioned, year-round just let us know you have a topic you’re burning to present. We would love to help you do. 

Julie Groves: Well, and as quickly as this year has gone January 24th, we'll be here before we know it. So, start thinking about your presentations for next year's conference. Talk to your friends, start pulling your ideas together and be on the lookout for that deadline. So, thank you all so much for being here today. Good luck with the selection process next year. We can't wait to see the results. And this wraps another episode of URMIA Matters. 

Susie Johnson: Thanks, Julie. 

Narrator: You've been listening to URMIA Matters. You can find more information about URMIA at www.urmia.org. For more information about this episode, check out the show notes available to URMIA members in the URMIA Network library.