Profiles in Managing Risk

Rice University Uses COVID Court to Help Prevent Outbreaks

To ensure students are aware of and comply with its Culture of Care agreement related to the pandemic, Rice University has launched a student-run COVID-19 Community Court. Panel members assess whether undergraduates on campus violated terms of the agreement.
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Even During Remote Learning, Kent School Works to Prevent Abuse of Students

Encouraging faculty to have a constant dialogue with each other and administrators about what they feel are best practices for remote learning – including how to best protect minors – potentially can help your independent school keep students safe during the pandemic and beyond.
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How Tufts University Addresses Hazing Prevention in a Time of COVID

The Hazing Prevention Consortium recently surveyed about 150 campus professionals nationwide and learned that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many campus professionals are addressing different forms of hazing or believe different forms of hazing will occur.
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Purdue Student Ambassador Program Helps Ensure Compliance During Pandemic

For institutions that are resuming on-campus operations, student compliance with COVID-19 protocols plays an essential role in community safety. UE member Purdue University put two initiatives in place to encourage students to police themselves.
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How the University of Oregon Ensures Compliance With Protection of Minors Policy

The University of Oregon launched its Youth Programs: Protecting Minors page in 2017, allowing faculty and staff access to all its content about protecting minors in one hub. With about 200 camps and clinics on campus each year, protecting minors — and ensuring compliance with the policy — is vital.
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Collaboration Ensures Broader Perspective When Conducting Policy Reviews

Many universities update policies as part of a departmental process. But at The University of the South, policy changes occur in collaboration with other departments at the institution. This ensures broader risks are covered, expanded discussions occur, and multiple viewpoints are considered.
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Pittsburgh Uses Scarehouse to Promote Cybersecurity Education

Many students enter college without much knowledge of phishing or the dangers of social media use. The University of Pittsburgh has scared up a fun but educational way to have 3,000 students in one day assemble and learn about cybersecurity.
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Testing Travel Policies at Deerfield Academy

Many schools struggle when it comes to handling incidents that occur during student travel. Conducting tabletop exercises will help ensure your school is prepared should a crisis occur involving students who are off campus.
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Lehigh University’s Rainy Day RMPC Fund Covers Unexpected Events

When budgets are tight, it can be difficult for higher education institutions to build up a risk management reserve. Read how Lehigh University found creative ways to pull funds together, resulting in a reserve to cover uninsured expenditures and unanticipated risk management projects.
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Institutions Share Real-Life Strategies on Hazing Prevention

Reports of hazing horror stories continue every semester from college campuses across the country. This causes not only tragic loss of life or injury, but also financial and reputational damage to the institution. Colleges and universities are taking steps to prevent these problems.
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Disaster Response Plans Help Schools and Colleges Weather the Storm

No matter where your institution is located, an extreme storm could strike your school or college during any season, pounding your community with high winds, floods, power outages, structural damage, and a chaotic aftermath.
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Keeping Track: Managing Risk in Off-Campus and Far-Flung Properties

Owning off-campus properties and managing multiple campuses expand a higher education institution’s reach, whether it takes the form of a full-fledged study abroad center across the globe in Florence, Italy or a vintage movie theater just around the corner in a small Ohio town.
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K-12 Schools Fight Substance Abuse

Adolescents are at an increasing risk of alcohol and drug abuse, which could lead to long-term addiction, crime, sexual abuse, and other harmful behaviors, according to reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the surgeon general.
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Managing Change With a Balanced Approach

Individuals and organizations often dread the thought of making a significant change, even when they understand why it’s necessary. One of the challenges in orchestrating change is getting all interested parties to agree with the objectives and methods for achieving them.
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Managing Cybersecurity in Higher Education

Last year, the education sector moved from third to second—tied with business—in the number of breaches by industry, with health care in the No. 1 spot, according to Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report.
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30th Anniversary Pearls of Wisdom: UE’s History and Stability Support Education

UE's senior leaders, who have been with the company more than 20 years each, reflected on how what they’ve learned will continue moving UE forward as a partner for education.
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Facilities Management: Deferring Maintenance or Replacement Can Be Costly

Construction, remodeling, and maintenance aren’t often front and center topics when independent K-12 schools are developing and implementing risk management strategies. But failure to maintain and upgrade facilities and infrastructure can lead to costly risks, including personal injury.
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Campuses Respond to Student Mental Health Demands

Colleges and universities face major challenges in providing mental health services to their 21 million students. As students’ needs have evolved, demand has increased substantially.
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Enterprise Risk Management: Everyone’s Job

The Buckley School, Salisbury School, and Wake Forest University take enterprise risk management (ERM) seriously. That commitment means more than having a staff member or office that focuses on risk management.
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Rapid Rise in Drone Use Presents Risk to Higher Ed

As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prepares to release regulations governing drones, the use—and concerns about risks—of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continue to grow rapidly, and educational institutions are paying attention.
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Managing Fraternities and Sororities to Reduce Risk

In the spring of 2015, acts of hazing, racism, alcohol abuse, and sexual violence led to closures, suspensions, or other disciplinary actions for 133 fraternities and sororities at 55 U.S. higher-education institutions, according to a Bloomberg Business report.
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Effective Sexual Assault Prevention Efforts Start at the Top

From Title IX coordinators to student affairs professionals and students themselves, a coordinated approach is necessary to effect culture change and mount an effective prevention and response campaign.
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Do You Know Enough About Campus Threat Assessment?

The shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 terrified the nation and became a game-changer for colleges and universities. Once considered a safe haven for learning, campuses came under attack for their wide-open spaces and lack of external controls.
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Schools Boost Safety for Study Abroad Programs

Schools are working hard to professionalize their study abroad programs, and ensure student safety. Many are continuously seeking and applying best practices to travel crisis response plans, and designating or hiring a person whose primary responsibility is overseeing these programs.
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Changing Campus Culture to Prevent Sexual Assault

As educational institutions continue to face increased scrutiny of their sexual assault prevention and response efforts, many are moving beyond fine-tuning their compliance procedures and focusing on a broader effort to change campus culture.
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Handling Behavioral Issues in K-12 Students with Disabilities

Students with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities have equal rights to the same educational services their classmates receive, thanks in part to advocates who fought for mainstreaming.
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Student-to-Student Interactions Help Campuses Manage Risks

College and university students, many on their own for the first time, face health and lifestyle decisions that can have lasting consequences. Choices involving alcohol and substance abuse have challenged students for decades, and issues related to mental health and sexual assault are of increasing importance.
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The Media Is Outside: What Now?

Educational institutions can face a crisis at any time, from a student death to a financial scandal, allegations of sexual misconduct, or a compliance problem. Administrators focus on preventing and mitigating such damaging incidents, but another key element of protecting a school, college, or university is developing, practicing, and implementing a crisis communications plan.
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Title IX Coordinators Learning to Cope With 'Dear Colleague' Letter

When the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued the 19-page “Dear Colleague” letter (DCL) in 2011, educational institutions scrambled to fulfill the new requirements.
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Keeping Schools Safe for Learning

In the aftermath of mass shootings like those at Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School—in addition to frequent smaller attacks—enhanced security has become the new reality for schools.
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Concussion Management to Protect Student Athletes and Institutions

Putting clearly stated and well-publicized concussion management policies and procedures in place, even if the state doesn’t require it, could help schools, colleges, and universities keep student athletes safe and protect institutions from costly claims.
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Prevent and Respond to Violence

When the educational community thinks of workplace violence, the aftermath of a mass shooting often comes to mind. While violence in such settings can also include adult-on-adult crimes committed by disgruntled employees or acts of revenge against estranged partners, it’s the thought of innocent young victims that chills society.
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Protecting Minors on Campus

When parents send their children to school, they count on the institution to protect the students as well as to educate them. However, recent headlines remind us that adults in education settings—faculty, administrators, staff, and volunteers—often fail to protect children by ignoring suspected abuse, or worse, taking advantage of their positions to hurt their vulnerable charges.
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Protecting LGBTQ+ Students at Anne Arundel Community College

A survey conducted by the Maryland Department of Health found that gay, lesbian, or bisexual teens reported being victims of bullying, threats, and sexual or other physical violence more than heterosexual teens.
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Prepared Chaperones Strengthen Polytechnic School’s Study Abroad Program

Carefully selecting and supporting chaperones for its Global Initiatives Program (GIP) is an important element of Polytechnic School's effort to foster interest in international cultures.
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Chapman University Responds to #MeToo Complaints on Campus

At Chapman University in Orange, Calif., officials have received about a dozen complaints that they connect to #MeToo—most arriving shortly after the Harvey Weinstein allegations surfaced and often referencing the movement.
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Workplace Harassment Prevention Training: A Priority at Ithaca College

Ithaca College already requires its 1,600 staff and faculty employees to participate in workplace harassment prevention training. Now, the school has added its 3,000 student employees to those efforts with an online course tailored to their unique perspective.
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Auburn University Students Respond to Expanding Fire Safety Program

Many colleges and universities have fire safety programs and events, but Christopher O’Gwynn, associate director of risk management and safety at Auburn University, wanted something more.
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Wentworth Institute of Technology Helps At-Risk Students Resolve Problems

College students have been known to skip a class or two, but at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, faculty and staff know that a chronically absent student might be in need of help.
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From Board to Students, Everyone Helps Manage Risks at Ravenscroft School

For Ravenscroft School, creating a robust, communitywide risk management system meant starting at the top. That’s the approach Leonard Johnson, assistant head of school for business and finance, adopted about five years ago when he decided to assess how well the Raleigh, N.C., independent school was handling institutional risk management (IRM).
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University of Oregon Focuses on Safe Camps

The University of Oregon supports its community by sponsoring a variety of summer camps, allowing children to have fun in a safe, exciting, positive atmosphere while participating in social, educational, athletic, musical, and recreational activities that enhance self-esteem and build leadership skills.
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Preparation Is Second Nature at Cedar Crest College

Twice a year, Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pa., conducts a shelter-in-place drill. It’s an opportunity to prepare every student, faculty member, and administrator for a possible emergency. The first time a shelter-in-place drill was conducted, there was about 60 percent compliance.
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Harassment Prevention at University of South Alabama

Despite decades of legislative activity to combat it, workplace harassment and discrimination continue to occur all too often. According to a UE claims study, UE and its member institutions spent $31 million to defend and resolve workplace harassment and discrimination claims over a recent 10-year period.
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At Omaha Schools, Playground Safety Is Not Kids’ Stuff

About a decade ago, public school officials in Omaha, Neb., decided to begin updating their playgrounds. They did so because some equipment was not accessible to children with disabilities, and some of the equipment was obsolete or didn’t meet current safety standards.
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Purdue’s Transportation Safety Policy Earns an ’A’

Purdue University’s Risk Management Department was at a crossroads. It could continue on the road it was traveling, which allowed most employees and students to sign out a motor vehicle whenever they wanted one. It could select a more arduous route, severely restricting use of university cars and vans.
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Ebola at Emory: Easing Fears With Crisis Communications

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 dominated headlines and incited fear of a pandemic in the United States. Emory University Hospital in Atlanta was the first to treat infected aid workers brought home from Africa to the U.S. for treatment. Photo credit to WXIA-TV in Atlanta.
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Georgetown University Boosts Security With Personal Interaction

Maintaining security on an urban college campus is particularly difficult, with the public passing through the grounds throughout the day. Increasingly, educational institutions in cities are turning to technology to boost safety. Yet the human element remains the cornerstone of any effective security program, says the chief of police for Georgetown University in northwest Washington, D.C.
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Committee Approach Helps SMU Manage Head Injuries

When David Liner, director of risk management and executive director of environmental health and safety at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, discovered that SMU faculty members were researching traumatic brain injury (TBI)—a topic he was focusing on—he had an epiphany: The institution should approach this risk management challenge from an enterprise standpoint.
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NJIT Students Develop Job Skills While Managing Risk

The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark has grown from a small technical school to a public university with 10,000 students across 45 acres. Despite this rapid expansion, the Office of Health and Environmental Safety still has only one staff member, Dr. Norman Van Houten, its director.
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Grinnell College Makes ERM a Priority

Most higher education institutions haven’t embraced the concept of enterprise risk management (ERM), according to recent research by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) and UE. Grinnell College is trying to change that—one small liberal arts college at a time—beginning at home.
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University of Kentucky Manages Risks of Club Sports

Each of the University of Kentucky’s (UK) 39 club sports programs—from aikido to water polo—has unique needs and risks, requiring an individualized approach to risk management. In light of this, the university implemented a Club Sports Risks Management Plan Development Program.
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University of the Incarnate Word Develops Equitable Tenure Process

The University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) is a university on the move. What was once a traditional liberal arts school in San Antonio has grown to more than 7,000 students across Texas and more than 1,000 students on international campuses in Mexico and Europe.
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University of Wyoming Increases AWAREness of Alcohol Abuse Risks

While high-risk student drinking isn’t unique to the University of Wyoming (UW), its success in addressing the issue is. UW, the only four-year institution of higher education in the state, enrolls approximately 10,000 students on the Laramie campus, three-fourths of whom are Wyoming residents.
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Learn Risk Management Lessons From Greek Organization Claims

Fraternities and sororities provide students with strong social ties and philanthropic opportunities. Despite these advantages, a number of colleges and universities are re-evaluating their relationships with Greek organizations, particularly fraternities.
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Manage Risks and Reduce Losses in Study Abroad

Each year, more than a quarter million college students participate in academic study abroad programs. The organization and oversight of these programs is an immense undertaking with many risks.
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Transportation Safety

Maintaining a fleet of vehicles can be an asset to your campus community. However, institution-owned vehicles driven by students or employees can lead to liability concerns and expensive litigation when incidents occur or subpar policies are in place.
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Making Technology Accessible

Is the electronic information technology (EIT) on your campus accessible to students with disabilities? Under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), institutions have a legal responsibility to ensure that students with disabilities can access electronic information, such as web pages.
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Pregnancy and Parenting Discrimination Under Title IX

Title IX compliance in sexual assault prevention and response has been an important issue for administrators at colleges and schools. However, they may not be aware that Department of Education (ED) regulations prohibiting discrimination under Title IX on the basis of a student’s pregnancy or parental status have been in effect since 1975.
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Bunk and Loft Bed Safety

Bunk beds and lofts can help organize a dorm room to maximize the space. However, UE claims have shown that if proper precautions are not taken, these beds and lofts can cause severe injury to students for which your institution may be held liable.
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Loss of Accreditation

College students and their families want to make a good investment in education, especially during times of an uncertain economy and rising costs. And they expect that investment to result in an academically recognized degree or certificate. So when accreditation issues arise, lawsuits can follow.
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Resolving Allegations of Sexual Assault in Accordance With Title IX

Title IX compliance has become an increasing concern for educational institutions. The “Dear Colleague” letter (DCL) issued in 2011 by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education added requirements that change the way institutions must respond to and investigate alleged sexual assault or misconduct.
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Retaliation Claims: The High Cost of Getting Even

Both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and UE have noticed a steady increase in retaliation claims.
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Risk Transfer Protects Institutions From Liability

The high volume of contracts at an institution can create arduous and time-consuming contract reviews. However, ironing out these important details before signing a contract will greatly reduce an institution’s risk of liability should an injury or loss occur.
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Excessive Use of Force by Campus Police

It is critical that institutions understand the inherent risks in working with campus and third-party security forces; the use of excessive force when dealing with a suspected threat can pose an additional safety risk in a volatile situation.
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Understanding the Family and Medical Leave Act

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides eligible employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave per year to address medical issues or care for loved ones. When employees on FMLA return to work, they are to be reinstated in the same position or in a job of equal pay and responsibilities.
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Avoiding Tenure Disputes

Achieving tenure is often the pinnacle of a college or university professor’s career, realized after years of hard work, research, and publications. The extensive effort behind a tenure application and the potential for lifetime appointment means denial of these coveted positions can lead to costly claims.
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