Justification to Attend

Communicate with Your Supervisor

If you are struggling to convince others that you should attend URMIA's 52nd annual conference, you are in the right place! We provide guidance below along with justification letter templates for you to personalize and share with your supervisor.

Choose Your Registration Type

URMIA offers expanded attendance options this year! You can attend in person in Seattle or virtually from your office. Explore your options on the Registration Fees & Options page.


Calculate Your Expenses

Gather tangible information to support your request for professional development dollars. Factors include the following:


Testimonial by Karleen Mjolsness: “Every year I come home with at least 3 take-aways from each session, along with a reassurance that we are on the right track on our campus!”
Registration Fees

Plan to register early. Our early-bird registration fees are available through August 15, 2021.

Hotel & Travel

URMIA's discount conference room rates are available through September 22 or until the room block is sold out. Explore the many options for getting to Seattle.

Plan for a Return on Investment

Consider what you will be bringing back to your department, your campus, and for your own professional development. Plan specific outcomes using the reflection questions and references below:

  1. What risk management problems is our institution trying to solve?
  2. What learning opportunities can I find or create at the conference to address these issues (e.g., specific workshops and breakout sessions, networking with other risk managers, participating in roundtable discussions, etc.)?
  3. Who can I partner with to find solutions (such as attendees from similar institutions, URMIA leaders, or affiliated service providers)?
  4. Are there any other opportunities in Boston that I can leverage?

Write a Justification Letter

Download the appropriate template and make it your own.

Full Conference Experience in Seattle

Real-Time Virtual Experience




Map Your Professional Development

Explore the program schedule and session descriptions to map out a plan. You can even filter the sessions in the schedule by URMIA's Core Competencies For Higher Education Risk Managers.

Screenshot of filtering the schedule by core competencies

URMIA's Core Competencies Quadrants


Follow Through

Prepare a list of prompts to ask yourself during and after the conference. You may want to set milestones after returning to the office to review your experiences, and from that, create a list of your accomplishments. This may help you justify attending future URMIA events.

  • What were my key discoveries, solutions, and surprises?
  • What are the tangible things that I am bringing back from this experience?
  • What solutions did I learn about to address problems our institution is facing?
  • What relationships did I build or bolster?
  • What else made this conference valuable to me?
  • With whom do I need to follow up?
  • What do I need to do to implement new ideas and solutions?
  • What new questions do I have?