Before the Storm: Preparing Campuses for the Unexpected

That is a topic that we have visited here on NACUBO In Brief in the past.

In our previous season, we spoke with Bronte Burley-Jones and a campus risk director about enterprise risk management, and I'm excited today to, to dig in a little bit deeper and talk about a specific issue area of concern.

Over the past several years, it seems like we've been hearing about record-breaking storms, tragic floods, wildfires, and other weather events much more often.

From your perspectives, how has the conversation around weather-related risk changed on college campuses?

Well, I think the conversation has expanded.

Institutions are certainly paying more attention to those record-breaking weather events, but from the perspective of protecting your people and a loss control perspective, it's important to remember that it doesn't take a catastrophic event to create a serious claim.

Think of the normal recurring campus weather conditions that are happening across your campuses.

Those can create liability issues as well, is icy sidewalks, the wet floors, uh, heat during outdoor activities, windblown objects, um, even decisions of when to close your campus or, you know, cancel an event.

So I think the conversation has shifted from how do we protect our buildings to how do we protect our people and make decisions that we can support and if we need to defend those decisions later.

And I think that's where business officers are important.

Weather is not just a facilities issue.

It involves the planning and funding, staffing, communication, documentation.

Really, the list goes on here, but that's, I think, where they come in.

I think it's a changing mindset, and what I've seen in my time in higher education is I was fortunate that I reported to the CFO in my two prior, um, work experiences.

Currently, I'm working with the, uh, work under their general counsel.

But working with a CFO gave me that perspective about what is important to them, you know, what matters to them.

And I was, I was really fortunate because she-- the CFO sat right n-right next door to the president, and so I wanted to make sure she heard, she heard from Risk about these are the issues that I'm seeing, the liability issues, the property risks, things of that nature.

And so I think what I've seen is that you're starting to see, I think, CFOs and a lot of our finance teams actually take a step back and say, "Yes, the numbers are great, they're important, but we need to look at the bigger picture.

You know, how is a roof replacement going to impact us? How are all these things going to impact us if we don't take care of business? 'Cause down the road, if we have a loss, it could be catastrophic.

It could be a major loss." And so I think they're starting to see a lot of that on how it impacts our campuses.

About all of our work at NACUBO, not just risk preparedness, Kara Freeman, NACUBO's President and CEO, likes to say, "Be ready so you don't have to get ready." And everything I think I've just heard you say is a reflection of, of that sentiment.

I think if you ask the general public, there's a perception that weather risk has intensified in recent years.

From your perspectives, are you seeing that institutions are thinking differently about preparedness today in twenty twenty-six than they were five or even ten years ago?

Yeah, I think so.

And the better-prepared institutions are moving from a reactive response to that advanced planning.