Risk Management

For higher education institutions, risk management involves identification, assessment, and mitigation of risks. Institutions first must identify the risks and hazards inherent in the institution’s myriad activities, then assess those risks in terms of the probability of an adverse event and the likely seriousness of its consequences, and next take steps to avoid the risk or to mitigate the impact or degree of loss if the adverse event happens. Part of the process will usually involve deciding which committee and which officials within the university have ownership of the particular risk and are primarily responsible for updating the assessment of that risk and the mitigation procedures relating to that risk.

During the 1950s and 1960s, insurance policies needed by the institution dealt with a narrow range ...