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, a vintage movie theater just around the corner in a small Ohio town, or a network of international facilities. While these real estate holdings allow colleges and universities to enhance the learning environment for students and their communities, they also add risk and the need for coordination and collaboration among main campus and off-campus administrators.
For example, a small college discovered its ownership of an off-campus student residence only after a fire escape collapse injured students attending a party. Knowing which properties your institution owns is critical, but there are other important factors, including how to prevent problems and who is responsible when things go wrong. A large private urban institution learned, after a serious injury occurred on a street used by food trucks and delivery vehicles, that the university, not the city, owned the street.
Gonzaga University, Oberlin College and Conservatory, and Pepperdine University face varying challenges in managing their properties, but each has developed risk management procedures to make sure the facilities meet their needs and protect their communities.
Ensuring Safe Education From Washington to Italy
Gonzaga’s study abroad center, Gonzaga-in-Florence (GIF) in the Mozilo Center, stands near the heart of the city overlooking a 16th-century garden and is within walking distance of the Duomo cathedral. Renaissance-era features such as marble floors, columns, and balconies blend with 21st-century security cameras, electronic door locks, and key-code entry locks on gates and doors.
The Mozilo Center is a four-story, 15,444-square-foot building that serves 175 students each semester, along with 12 staff and 30 faculty members. Gonzaga acquired the building 12 years ago, but has operated the GIF program for 52 years. In addition to classrooms, the center houses a library, exercise room, kitchen, and administrative offices.
Administrators at Gonzaga’s main campus in Spokane, Wash., and in Florence manage risk, said Joe Madsen, director of emergency preparedness and risk management. The GIF program director, while overseeing the academic program, also works with the associate vice president for international studies on the main campus, making sure Gonzaga’s risk management and safety protocols are in place and that the staff, faculty, and students participate in required training and orientation programs.
The GIF director also is responsible for meeting local or national health and safety regulations. “The courts will hold the director criminally liable for any violations,” Madsen said. Program directors attend government classes to learn about the regulations—and the possibility of a prison term for not following them.
“Because of our due diligence, we have not had any problems,” Madsen said. Government officials conduct regular inspections of required bulletin boards posted with safety and evacuation information, training records, and fire and emergency preparation plans.
The complexities of operating a separate campus in a foreign country led Gonzaga to create a separate business to maintain the center. The center’s business manager is the first point of contact with Italian and local officials, including building inspectors, and police, fire, and emergency preparedness officers. He also secures permits and licensing agreements.
The director and business administrator negotiate third-party contracts for GIF, consulting with Gonzaga administrators in Spokane as needed, Madsen said. They prefer long-term contracts with providers with whom they’ve developed relationships over the decades in Florence.
In 2013, Madsen traveled to Florence with other university administrators for a full-scale inspection of Gonzaga’s European study abroad programs. After a week in Florence assessing the building and risk management procedures, they returned with a spreadsheet of 230 line items to address, along with photos of each item, its priority, and recommendations for resolving the problem. Madsen planned to return to Florence later this year to make sure the items have been addressed and to conduct a new assessment.
Upgrading the card access system for entry and repairing a marble threshold that was a trip hazard were among the items listed. “There are historical as well as governmental needs, so we wanted to think outside the box” on the latter issue, Madsen said. They added triangular pieces of Plexiglas to mitigate the risk without harming the marble.
The 2013 and upcoming inspections of the Mozilo Center follow Madsen’s holistic approach to risk management. “I think of safety as a three-legged stool,” he said. “People typically think of the physical facility, but it also includes policy, procedures, and training. Without all three, the seat of safety is going to fall over."
College Community Includes Movie Theater, Hospital, Hotel, and Farm
Jim Klaiber, assistant vice president of operations for Oberlin, oversees an eclectic portfolio of properties in Oberlin, Ohio, from houses and apartments for students to a small farm. Responsibilities for risk management, property management, and maintenance depend on the facility, he said. The college’s involvement in many of the properties stems from its close connection to the town—both of which originated in the 1830s. “It shows good will,” Klaiber said.
For example, the college purchased the Apollo Theater in 2009, renovating the 104-year-old art-deco-style structure and adding equipment and classrooms for the college’s film studies program. A company manages the theater, which screens the latest movies. Oberlin insures and maintains the building. “Liability would apply if someone were to be injured in our classroom space, but in the theater space, if there were a trip-and-fall accident, it is the management company’s liability,” Klaiber said.
Oberlin also owns the Allen Community Hospital building, but Community Health Partners operates medical services for the 25-bed facility. The college bought the building so its 3,000 students as well as faculty and staff would continue to have local access to emergency health care, Klaiber said.
In addition, Oberlin owns The Hotel at Oberlin, a 70-room facility in a multipurpose development downtown. The company that manages the hotel has its own liability insurance, but the college insures the building. Oberlin’s policy, for example, covered the $100,000 in damage from a recent windstorm, Klaiber said.
The George Jones Memorial Farm, a 70-acre sustainable farm about a mile from campus, rounds out Oberlin’s properties. A co-op group of alumni leases the farmland and supplies seasonal fruits and vegetables to the college dining services. The college also sponsors educational outreach programs for Oberlin and local grade school students as well as area farmers. The co-op maintains the farm, and the college carries the property insurance.
Owning such a variety of buildings and land presents challenges, said Klaiber, who oversees maintenance. He also handles bargaining unit contracts for union workers at the college-owned properties. The college works with the bargaining units on determining responsibilities for maintenance and with campus security and local law enforcement to ensure that facility users are safe. Emergency management procedures, handled by the college’s health and safety department, also apply.
Having the proper insurance in place is essential, he added. Klaiber works with a broker annually to assess risks and update coverage at all the properties and he meets once or twice a year with other members of the Five Colleges of Ohio group (The College of Wooster, Denison University, Kenyon College, and Ohio Wesleyan University) to stay up to date on risk management trends and issues.
Decentralization Works for Widespread University Holdings
Pepperdine in Malibu, Calif., takes a collaborative approach to managing risk at the off-campus properties it owns, which include several international campuses and a storage facility in west Los Angeles.
“It all starts with an institutional risk management team that has administration, faculty, and staff team members,” said Nicolle Taylor, associate vice president for administration. “They all come together on policy decisions when particular security issues arise.”
Pepperdine strives for a decentralized approach to preventive action because risk management and safety and security needs vary from property to property. The challenges facing its Heidelberg, Germany, campus might differ from those at its Buenos Aires, Argentina, location. “From an institutional level there is a collaborative effort from all of the [team],” Taylor said. “In addition to that there are directors at all of the locations who are overseeing the individual campuses, so many of the university policies are carried out by those directors. The university policy applies worldwide but may be carried out in different ways just by definition of logistics."
Alice R. Anderson, director of insurance and risk, is a key member of that team. She stays in frequent contact with Pepperdine’s public safety office, facility services administrators, and the directors and managers of off-campus facilities. “We also do a lot of training and policy development with managers and directors,” she said. “We are trying to teach people to anticipate risk in their work.
In working with Pepperdine’s international campuses—some of which include on-site student housing—Anderson relies on the director of international programs as the touchpoint with individual campus directors, many of whom have served long term and have strong familiarity with their locations.
“We have worked for years with international program people to make sure safety plans are up to date and make sure we are providing the best services possible."
Pepperdine also has engaged consultants on the ground in its international locations to help control risks. “If something happened in Heidelberg, we would we would begin getting email notifications immediately and know what is happening and be able to call on our resources there,” Anderson said.
Pepperdine also owns a warehouse in West Los Angeles. Even though the warehouse functions as storage space, keeping in touch with the warehouse facility’s manager and security staff is essential, Taylor said. “We meet with that security team to make sure we understand their approach and that it matches the key elements we need to focus on."
The team approach allows Pepperdine administrators to stay up to date on unique challenges in each location. “We have been able historically to find programs that work and change when we need to change as the world changes,” Anderson said. “That is one of the reasons why we try so hard to maintain good relationships with those directors. If something is happening in the world, such as a specific type of terrorism, we want to be prepared, and that requires relational work."
Taylor said those relationships are an essential part of managing risk. “We are different from other universities where there is a central point person,” she said. “For us, it’s much more effective to have a collaborative effort."
By Donna Davis, a freelance education writer
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