Insights

Hear from URMIA’s new executive director on what’s new, now, and next                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Getting My Tenure Started

Greetings from Bloomington, Indiana - home of the URMIA office. With 142 days under my belt and an eclipse viewing in the path of totality, I am feeling all of the energy of our collective work. In my new executive director role, I have the luxury of seeing awe-inspiring work by a dedicated staff and a wonderfully powerful volunteer workforce. Allow me to tell you a bit about our time together thus far.

Broadening the Word About Risk Management

I wanted to reach out with an update about where all this work has led us. In short, we have a strong organization looking to increase our impact on the campus ecosystem as a whole by better supporting the community of professionals who call URMIA home. We’ve broadened our cry that “you are not alone” outside the walls of the membership and now embrace a wider group all across campus. With a charge by URMIA President Craig McAllister to tell our story more loudly, we’ve already made an appearance at 10 programs and have plans for 16 more before the end of the year where we share the goodness of risk management and insurance best practices, painting the picture as the office of KNOW.

Our staff and members have embraced the charge both deep and wide from coast to coast and across the border. One program with the widest reach was The Well-being in Higher Education with 21 associations and 4500 attendees participating in the week-long effort to raise literacy among higher education professionals on personal well-being. After all, to do the work, we must take care of our whole selves to serve others.

Volunteers Hard at Work on the Organization’s Future

To support our volunteer leadership and their well-being, we came together in New Orleans for the spring board of directors meeting. While the board meets virtually two other times during the year, this is our time to review goals, finalize our strategic plan in person, and solidify the vision for the annual conference as the programming team joins us onsite for their own meeting. The board meeting allowed us to celebrate our increasing membership numbers - which are at an all-time high - and surpassing budget expectations while holding dues steady for another year. At the meeting, we shared our successes in our regular virtual programming and announced that we will now welcome all colleagues from member campuses to join our online events for free even if they are not on the member institution’s URMIA roster. Our virtual offerings continue to invite newcomers as well as subject matter experts on both emerging risks and those that have held a spot on your risk register for all time. We have also formed a short-term, membership task force that is reviewing our membership structure to level the playing field and simplify joining the URMIA community.

Enhancements on the Staff Side

In terms of organizational capacity, we’ve made important updates with both humans and machines. We welcomed talented professionals with expertise in their respective fields bringing abundant energy to key areas in events, accounting, technology, and design allowing others to expand their focus on community building, volunteers, strengthening our systems, and strategic priorities. We’ve also upgraded our event technology with best-in-class partner Cvent to improve event registration and login capabilities for event apps. This enhancement will pay dividends in operational efficiencies and our ability to better support the members who look to URMIA for professional development regularly.

Increasing the Member Value

On the governance front, through a combination of steams, we continue to strengthen our financial position and are able to pass along real value to member organizations and their staff. Expanding our program offerings, investing in member services, and ensuring the long-term stability of the organization are beneficiaries of this work. It has been a pleasure to build scholarship opportunities for future risk management and insurance professionals, campus members facing budget challenges that would have precluded them from participating, and traditionally underrepresented areas of the profession. In fact, in 2023, we were able to double the opportunities and we hope to hold the line.

More on the Horizon for URMIA

Finally, as we look ahead to the rest of 2024/next 100 days, nothing will eclipse our focus (see what I did there?) on the needs of the membership. The passion, dedication, and resiliency of this community are out of this world and I’m honored to serve as your executive director. While there is a lot of work to be done and dreams to be vetted, I’m sure that this team will build a stronger URMIA 2.0 that will deliver exceptional value to you, our partners, and your campus.

Higher education risk managers have the wonder of collaboration and the power of the membership of this association to guide the next expedition for the profession. Stay tuned to see what’s next.

Thank you for your ongoing support and engagement. I look forward to the journey we will take together. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about or suggestions for the organization.

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