URMIA Matters
URMIA Matters
URMIA's Honors Committee
Join guest host Jenny Whittington, former Executive Director of URMIA, on this episode of URMIA Matters as she welcomes two distinguished guests: Eno Oregbesan, Director of Risk Management at Rice University, and Kathy Hargis, Associate Vice President of Risk Management and Compliance at Lipscomb University. Both guests share their extensive involvement with URMIA, highlighting their roles in various committees and task forces since 2009 and 2005, respectively. Take a peek into the workings of the Honors Committee, which celebrates outstanding individuals and achievements in the higher education risk management community. Discover the prestigious awards presented at the annual URMIA conference and learn why your nominations matter! Tune in for an insightful discussion on recognizing excellence and fostering a culture of appreciation in higher education risk management.
Show Notes
URMIA Honors and Awards – Nominate a Colleague or Yourself for an award by June 27!
Guests
Kathy Hargis, Associate Vice President of Risk Management & Compliance - Lipscomb University
Eno Oregbesan, Director, Risk Management - Rice University
Guest Host
Jenny Whittington, Executive Director, Emerita - URMIA
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Jenny Whittington: [00:00:00] Hey there. Thanks for tuning in to URMIA Matters, a podcast about higher education, risk management, and insurance. Let's get to it. Well, hello there, URMIA. This is Jenny Whittington. Today I am with some wonderful members of URMIA's Honors Committee and I am hosting URMIA Matters once again, I'm a blast from the past. Like I said at last year's conference, I'm a bad penny that just keeps coming back. So, today I am joined with Kathy Hargis and Eno, and I'm not even going to attempt pro, pronunciating your last name. I'm gonna have you do that first. So, Eno, you go first and introduce yourself, and please tell me how to say your last name correctly.
Eno Oregbesan: Oh, no problem at all, Jenny. I am Eno [00:01:00] Oregbesan, Director of Risk Management at Rice University. We're a private medium sized research university in Houston, Texas. I had the privilege of kind of engaging in all things risk management, whether it's from insurance or claims risk mitigation, all the gamut, and definitely working with the stakeholders across campus. As we know, one person cannot manage the entire university's risks. So just being a, a collaborator and working with others to help us effectively do that. I'm so happy to be here. Happy to see you, Jenny, or happy to connect with you, Jenny and Kathy, you're definitely not a bad penny. I'm always happy and excited to connect with you both. All things URMIA, all things honors committee, so really happy to be here today.
Jenny Whittington: Great. And can you give our audience today a description of your involvement in URMIA, how long it's been? I, I can't remember your first URMIA conference off the top of my head.
Eno Oregbesan: Oh my. I felt like it was [00:02:00] 2009 or 10. It's been a long time.
Jenny Whittington: It sounds about right.
Eno Oregbesan: Oh my gosh. From being just initially attending, being a fresh new risk management administrator at a public university. Also, at one point I was on the affiliate side and then, you know, left the dark side and came back to the light. Right? So, now on the private university side, and gosh, I have interacted or been involved a lot of volunteering, different committees, in terms of the honors committee, I've done some work on conference committee also, in terms of newcomers, you know, trying to welcome our newcomers. I'm one of the people that sometimes calls people at the end of the year trying to remind you about your amazing membership and encouraging folks to renew or trying to answer any questions. So, a little bit of different things wherever jenny or Michelle calls and has a need, i'm there. Also, very [00:03:00] much in our belonging, equity inclusion task force. So being involved there, a lot of task force, you know, conference stuff and committee, just wherever I a need to meet, you know? I try to support.
We are a lean team, so capacity is sometimes a challenge, but I think URMIA does a great job of trying to balance that. And you know, if you have an hour a month, an hour, you know, a quarter, whatever you can do to spare to support the organization. So, that's where I find myself.
Jenny Whittington: That's awesome. Well, I mean, I, you have been a wonderful volunteer for, let's just go with 15 or more years, and you have like, you've always been reliable and you always have a great poise about you, and you're so positive. So, we've really appreciated your input over the years. So, thank you for all that you've done and joining us today on the podcast. And let me now turn it over to our fearless leader, Kathy Hargis, who's the chair of the honors committee and a past president of URMIA, a good [00:04:00] friend of mine. So, Kathy, give us a little bit of your history and what you've done for URMIA.
Kathy Hargis: Well, sure. I may be the bad penny here. I don't know, but
Jenny Whittington: No.
Kathy Hargis: And thank you for today and for hosting this podcast. I'm really excited to, you know, talk about the great things with the honors committee. So, a little bit about myself, keep those really short. I am the Associate Vice President of Risk Management and Compliance at Lipscomb University, located in the beautiful Nashville, Tennessee that everybody loves to come and visit. So, come on to visit. Don't move here. The traffic is bad, but you know, definitely come and visit. But you know, my role here at the university, I head up our ERM program and then obviously, you know, a lot of the things that you know most risk managers do. Working a lot with, you know, obviously our insurance portfolio and with our international studies and a lot of other things, a lot of fun things that are going [00:05:00] on. So, I have been with URMIA, I think 2005, Jenny and I share this, was the year that I started, so I feel like an old timer kind of thing, but-
Jenny Whittington: We're not old.
Kathy Hargis: I think we're not old. Yes. It's all in all up here, right?
Jenny Whittington: Yeah.
Kathy Hargis: All in all in your mind. But I think we had the first conference together. Yeah.
Jenny Whittington: We did.
Kathy Hargis: And we did. So, it's been great. URMIA has been such a fabulous organization, has meant so much to me. And such a love and respect for all that URMIA does and has been to so many people. Can't say enough positive things about it for sure.
Jenny Whittington: Awesome.
Kathy Hargis: So.
Jenny Whittington: Yeah, well, so happy to have you here. And I do get to stay involved with URMIA through the honors committee. So, we do meet monthly and this is a, a very busy time of the year for our committee. And Kathy, while you were introducing yourself, I wanted to give you, you know, some kudos 'cause I know you just wrapped up your renewals, so congratulations to you and, and any URMIA [00:06:00] member who's got that done for the year. I know the 7/1s are coming up. So that's a big date I know. What is your date?
Eno Oregbesan: 7/1. We're 7/1. But I'm still in it.
Jenny Whittington: Well, everybody out there, you know you're gonna get through it. It'll all get done.
Kathy Hargis: You get done. I'm coming out the other side, you know, so you can.
Eno Oregbesan: I know.
Kathy Hargis: There's a positive on the other side, so.
Eno Oregbesan: There you go. We'll have to talk Kathy, after 'cause I wanna know how your outcome was.
Kathy Hargis: Yes. We'll have to talk off script, so.
Eno Oregbesan: Exactly.
Jenny Whittington: So, Kathy, tell us about what the honors committee does and is there any news that you wanna share with the podcast audience?
Kathy Hargis: Sure. Well, you know, the honors committee I think, is that such a great committee. I mean, what a fun committee to be a part of that you get to celebrate things. So, you know, for a long time that you know URMIA has obviously honored a lot of our members and, and the honors committee really is all about that, just recognizing and celebrating who are outstanding individuals, the [00:07:00] achievements you know, that they have done to the higher education community. We get to celebrate this each year at the annual conference where the awards are given out. And we have other things throughout the year somewhat, but this is kind of the big, you know, hoorah at the annual conference that we get to do. So, you know, we have a number of awards. We're gonna talk about that maybe a little bit later. What they are and what some of these, you know, stand for. Some of them have been around for a while, some of our awards, and then some of them are relatively new.
So, we had a new category last year that we were really excited about and this is, you know, really for kind of our up and coming kind of group, our Emerging Risk Professional awards.
So it, that was an exciting thing, something new that we were talking about. That the committee has done was really to kind of think of this award and get it going, get the criteria. And then last year it was great to be able to give this out to several people. It was just really fun to be able to, you know, kind of evolve as we go [00:08:00] along and kind of keep up with things and celebrate all these great or mens that are out there.
Jenny Whittington: Awesome. So Eno, tell us about a couple of the other awards, if you will.
Eno Oregbesan: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I absolutely love the Emerging Risk Professional award. I just think about my time when I first started and just having the opportunity to be recognized, you know, I think is so important, especially in this climate. You know, the work that we do every day is so meaningful to our universities, our communities, very impactful. So, just being able to be recognized in some way just provides that positive, to me, emphasis to keep going and to keep moving forward. So, I'm really hopeful that people will, you know, listen to the podcast, not be intimidated, but take the opportunity to apply or nominate others. Just to put a smile on someone's face, right? In this current environment. Right? Even though we need it all the time, but especially now, I would think.
So, another one. I'm gonna go to the Jenny [00:09:00] Whittington Excellence in Volunteering Award. That's another newer award and definitely named after the Jenny that you're hearing today. And you know, as you can hear from her voice and two years past retirement, if that's a thing. Right? That volunteering. Right? That volunteering is very, she's passionate about it. She continues to emphasize it and you know, we were privileged to be able to name this award after you, but the Excellence in Volunteering Award, people, volunteers, like Kathy and I that you know, maybe go above and beyond to promote the organization's mission and values. So, that's another award that we have.
There's also the Visionary Award, another one that I truly enjoy and love, and it's an opportunity for us to recognize institutional members who've maybe had some type of specific need or, you know, acted upon something, developed an initiative, or recognized an issue, concern in the risk [00:10:00] compliance space, and, you know, developed a program or a process surrounding that. Definitely, the Distinguished Risk Manager Award, you know, presented to institutional members who've had that long-term, distinguished career in risk management and really contributed to the field of risk management. I think the last one I'll mention just to think about our affiliates. The outstanding affiliate service award, notably the affiliates. Really, when you think about URMIA, when you think about risk management, insurance compliance, you know, we have to work with others to affect the change and to affect the programs that we're operating on our campus. So, being able to recognize those providers, service providers, you know, consulting organizations, or companies that help us do that I think is important. And they really drive the, you know, I think about our URMIA annual conference and the sponsorships that help support that. So, being able to recognize our affiliates and all the great work they do is another award [00:11:00] that we have.
Jenny Whittington: Yeah, absolutely. Gosh, thanks for that, that nice summary. And Kathy, I think we have a couple more. I know we-
Kathy Hargis: Sure.
Jenny Whittington: The Emeritus Award. It might be URMIA's oldest award. I'm not, I'm not sure if my memory, if emeritus came before the DRM. I feel like it did.
Kathy Hargis: I would have to look that up. I think they might be kind of tied. I don't know which one came first. But I think they're both about the same time. And emeritus, you know, is really for those folks that are, you know, have been really active in URMIA for a long time. And have gone through their career and are on that side like yourself somewhat. Maybe they have retired, you know, from full-time risk management work. And so, you know, they still though wanna be involved and I think that's great. They have so much, I think, you know, wisdom and knowledge, experience to share with, you know, with everyone, especially maybe those that are maybe just starting out [00:12:00] or, you know, very kind of early in their careers. So, a lot of them will be mentors, things like that, which is just a great way to pay it forward, I think, for that group. So, we, we definitely try to represent and kind of honor that group of folks.
And then we also have one other award that we have, which is really the Lifetime Achievement Award. It's named after another great URMIAn, which would be Larry Stevens that it is named after. And that particular award is, you know, it's a very special award and this award is given to individual or individuals who have really made a great impact within the, the risk management, higher education world throughout their career. It's usually kind of an end of career, not always, but kind of sorta a type of award that is given. And it's definitely a, you know, an accumulation of all that someone has done throughout their time with URMIA and with that, whatever [00:13:00] organization that they have been with.
Jenny Whittington: Yeah, I love this award. And Larry Stevens, he was on the board when URMIA hired me in 2005. I was actually within his risk management department at Indiana University. So, I got to learn about all things risk management and the workers' comp people were right across the hallway from me. So, I got to know intimately about workers' comp for the first half year. And it was great because I was a solo employee at URMIA at the time. And you know, it was a good introduction to campus and, you know, to just get a understanding of what the risk management department looked like. He had a pretty big risk management department at Indiana at that time. He had fire safety and workers' comp and all the things that most of you have. So, yeah, and I was so excited that URMIA renamed the lifetime achievement in Larry Stevens Award, because he was a double, he was a, a two-time URMIA president. And really shaped a lot of what [00:14:00] URMIA does. He, and I mentioned, you know, that he was the person at Indiana University on the board, but he also had ton to do with our technology.
We have tried to stop using the word ListServ, but Larry was the provider of the Indiana University ListServ for a long time, and you know that really got URMIA's community going. I mean, I think what we all agree that the now called URMIA Network in the community space really connects us, you know, on a day-to-day basis and you really get to know one another in that space. So, yeah, that was a good summary of all, all the awards, did we leave anything out?
Kathy Hargis: I think that's all of them.
Jenny Whittington: Okay.
Eno Oregbesan: I think we captured it. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that about Larry. I think that's a tidbit I wasn't as familiar with. So, yes. Now I know why you get us so well. You sat in this space.
Jenny Whittington: I could play a risk manager on tv. So, [00:15:00] Kathy, why don't you tell us about how many people get nominated and are there any requirements like reference letters or special documentation? Tell us about the process.
Kathy Hargis: Sure, sure. We try to make it easy, you know, we want to kind of make the process easy for everyone to submit something. And so, really, I mean, there is a, you know, there's a, a submission online. You can go and click on that and, you know, most of the time it's by submissions or by peers or people, or, as Eno said you can nominate yourself. But you know, we make it really pretty easy to do. You don't have to have a reference letter or you know, submit your resume, anything like that. We just ask that people, you know, everybody has a different sphere, I think, of influence that you may be an affiliate member, you may be in compliance, you may be, you know, whatever your ERM group. So, we kind of encourage people to think about the people that they know, the people they've [00:16:00] met, maybe somebody who's really meant a lot to you, someone you look up to, someone who's helped you, someone, whatever, and just kind of think about how can I honor them in one of these categories.
The form's pretty simple. You fill it out just and in your own words, just tell us why you feel that this person is deserving of this award. We like for it to be personal. I think the personal things make it really special. You know, hearing what that person has done, we each have a story to tell. So, I think it's an opportunity to really tell a story about someone that you really look up to, or you really feel has really represented URMIA in a special way and that's, that is pretty much it. Yeah. You know, it's the more information I think you can share, the better for the committee. Obviously, you know, more information that we have to be able to look at that makes it easier to kind of vet these when we get to that, that point of the process, but that is [00:17:00] really, I think it.
Jenny Whittington: Yeah, absolutely. And I know, Eno, you wanted to talk to this a little bit too about advice you could give someone who is thinking about making a nomination. So, take it away.
Eno Oregbesan: Yeah, thank you, Jenny. I just wanted to add that, as Kathy mentioned, yes, you know, there are the self-nomination option. Don't be intimidated, number one, by the criteria. You know, you have to set a criteria, right, so that we can award and nominate folks. But don't be intimidated by that. Think, you know, outside the box, but also think about your everyday impact. You know, and, you know, as Kathy has alluded to, how it's impacted you in your career or what you've observed being in the URMIA space. Even the people that con, continuously respond on the ListServ, right? Or people that you've connected with in conferences or at presentations. So, just be thoughtful about that. And there is an option for you to nominate the self. You can self nominate, so please, you know, we encourage people. I've seen folks do that, and that's very thoughtfulful. And you know, there's just things that we're doing [00:18:00] every day that we don't know, and that's all we wanna highlight. So, I wanna just take that sort of, you know, intimidating factor out and the self nominating factor and, you know, encourage people to really nominate folks or nominate yourself. And the criteria varies depending on the award, but we really have been very intentional about it being easy for people to apply.
And if you have questions, we are available. Happy to answer questions for folks, just to remove that pressure or just, you know, clarify any type of information. Honors committee is readily available and here to serve and help in that regard. And if you go to the URMIA website, it's real easy to find information like right under membership. I think it's towards the top left. The team has done a great job on the updates to the web experience, but right under membership you'll see, you know, click a link for honors and awards and we've tried to highlight all that information. If you're a picture visual person, you'll see the most recent awardees, [00:19:00] so you know, you'll be able to get, there's lots of pictures and colors and so feel free to check out the website for more in-depth details. But you know, we're here to support.
Jenny Whittington: Yeah, thanks for, I was actually gonna bring up the website too and give kudos to everybody involved and in this new web look that we're looking at, it's just so fresh and full of faces. And we were actually, the URMIA staff had a meeting earlier today and we. We were talking about how proud we are to have pictures of our own members throughout our website. So, I challenge everybody out there to keep looking on our website because you probably can find a picture of yourself, especially if you've ever come to the conference, 'cause we post all of our annual conference photos on the flicker. Site, which is in the bottom right hand corner, but back to the honors committee.
On the honors and awards pages, the committee is actually even listed on the lower right hand corner. So if you do have any questions, you can reach out to any of us, or if you want, you know, [00:20:00] help nominating someone. Those of us who are affiliated with the National Office, myself or Teresa or Michelle or Jack, any of us can really help you find out some information about other members and the full history is listed on the website. So, yeah, we really, really proud of the website. And a big date that's coming very close is the deadline, which is June 27th. We moved it up this year because there are a lot of other deadlines that happen in well. In July in general, and the URMIA election takes place. So, June 27th is the deadline. And Kathy, I know we've, we've been getting some nominations. Do you want to wanna give a push to ask people to nominate?
Kathy Hargis: I do, I do. I had that down here that, you know, the 27th, it seems, it's funny at the beginning of the month, I don't know if everyone is like me. It seems so far away. And then you turn around and it's the middle of the month and it's the end of the month. So, you know, mark that on your calendar, June the [00:21:00] 27th is the deadline. So, you have, you have time to get these in and don't be intimidated just, you know, think creatively. We have received some notations, but we would really like to get some more in. We want to honor as many people as we can. We have so many people to celebrate and to honor, we really want to be able to do that in a big way at the conference. So, I just encourage you listening to this today. Put it on your to-do list. Nominate someone for URMIA. Think about that as you're listening to this. Somebody has to come to mind or maybe some, several somebodies, but go and fill out that form and I'll be looking for it to come through on the other end. So, definitely be thinking about that. During these upcoming weeks.
Jenny Whittington: And, and Kathy, are award winners notified ahead of time or is it a surprise? I know the answer to this one. I know it's, it's a mixture, but it's, it's, can you speak to that a little bit?
Kathy Hargis: Sure, [00:22:00] sure. It is a mixed bag there when it comes to that 'cause. So, some of our awards, we wanna make sure that, you know, that people are gonna be there and we want to encourage them to be there. So, really our awards that we usually tell people about are the Emerging Risk Professional, the Jenny Whittington Excellence in Volunteering and our Emeritus Awards. Those groups usually are told ahead of time that they're receiving this award. And then we, you know, sometimes we, last year even had a little celebration before the conference with some of them, and some of them were able to, you know, celebrate. It was really, really nice in their office. We actually pulled off a couple of surprises for even that group by letting their, either someone who nominated them or letting maybe their office peers know about it, and then they surprised 'em by bringing 'em in. They thought it was a, they were having a meeting and it was really a celebration. So, that was fun.
But then the other kind of awards that are, we try [00:23:00] to keep a surprise and this is so fun to be able to do this and keep it a surprise until the conference. And those are really going to be kind of our DRM, Distinguished Risk Manager, the Lifetime, the Larry Stevens Lifetime Achievement Award, and then the Affiliates Outstanding Affiliate Service Award. So, those awards, we try to keep a secret, and I love this part of the conference. And what is so fun about this, I think we're gonna tell a fun couple of funny stories. But you know, being able to keep it and in the script the day of when you're reading that out, of course you try to talk on the front end to be very generic and people won't know who it is. Obviously, as you go along and start to talk about an individual, you have to get more specific. I think a really neat thing to see is the look on that person's face when all of a sudden they realize, oh my, they're talking about me. And so, the look, I mean, you can see that visible change on their face when it hits [00:24:00] them that it's them. Yeah. And that's just kind of a priceless moment to be able to see that and you know, how their look changes and, and everything. It's just a really great moment. It is.
Jenny Whittington: It absolutely is. Yeah. Go ahead.
Eno Oregbesan: On the virtual, whether it's on the virtual screen, those that are aware of it before, or those that are aware, you know, find out sort of at the conference, it's priceless. I've seen people kind of tear up a little bit. I've seen people just, I think that's one of the things I love about being on this committee, but just seeing the joy that lights up in their face and the surprise and, you know, especially when we have the person that's nominated them on the other side that you could just see people really, really light up. It's really a great thing to witness either live or you know, if they're aware of it ahead of time. So, if you haven't volunteered, I'm also gonna add that if you're looking for that upbeat, that lift, this is a great community to be a part of, just to see how people are impacted by this award.
Jenny Whittington: [00:25:00] Yeah, and I wanted to follow up with, I mean, even nom, nominating someone, even if they don't even receive the award, I mean, it's so touching. I mean, I was nominated for several things over my tenure at URMIA and I didn't always, you know, I wasn't always the recipient of it, but to be, you know, recognized by your peers or you know, by your team or a group of volunteers. I mean, it's just so meaningful that they took their time to submit a nomination. And I mean, we should celebrate all that. And that's really what URMIA is all about. Like, I mean, going back to what Kathy said about celebrating, and I love that about URMIA too. I've been part of many surprises, a lot of secret meetings and pretend meetings about this that we're really about that. And yeah, it has been probably one of the highlights of my careers as well is, is being part of the honors committee and that moment when people realize they get the award is absolutely priceless. And I mean, for those of you who have attended the conference, we've had [00:26:00] the same photographer for a number of years and you know, she's usually in the know at that point in the conference, so she knows, you know, so she's kind of positioned, but she's not real obvious until it's obvious who is the recipient. So we love that part. So anything else to you two? Any anything that we forgot?
Eno Oregbesan: I'll just continue to encourage and, you know, ask people to go online, check out the criteria, think about somebody that you can nominate. We really wanna see a sort of a diverse group of folks come through. Don't have to be long term. You don't need to just be starting, you know, just think about someone that's had an impact on the affiliate, on the, the institutional side, and definitely contact, reach out if you have any questions, but we're hopeful that this will be an easy process and that you will not allow that to do, to drop off your list before June 27th. Rather, it'll drop off your list and be crossed off 'cause you've done it.[00:27:00]
Jenny Whittington: Yes.
Eno Oregbesan: We're really looking forward to this year and looking forward to seeing everybody, whether virtually or in person at the conference. And this is not an easy process even for us as we think about the nominations and we wanna really recognize people. So, thank you in advance for taking your time out to listen to the podcast and to nominate someone.
Jenny Whittington: Thank you, Eno. How about you, Kathy? Any closing comments?
Kathy Hargis: I just, you know, echo what you said. You know, we we're excited about this part of it where you're getting down to really the, you know, looking at those who've been nominated. So, we keep them coming June 27th. Don't forget that. So, I do wanna say, you know, it is an honor to just be nominated. I really do think what you said, Jenny, is very true. I think that's really important. You know, to highlight. So, just being nominated by your peers to me is, you know, one of the greatest honors that they feel that way about you. And that took the time to really, you know, let someone [00:28:00] know that you really made an impact. And so, that's really it. We're looking forward to celebrating all these people and it's gonna be great. And again, whether you are there in person or virtually, we hope that you will, you know, tune in to that part where we get to have some fun and celebrate these great URMIAns and have a moment with them. It's truly a special time.
Jenny Whittington: Awesome. Well, thanks so much to you both for being part of this. I know you both have a lot on your plates, as do most URMIA members, but I think this was a great conversation about the URMIA Honors and Awards, and that'll be a wrap on another URMIA Matters.
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 [00:29:00] library.
