Case In Point: Lessons for the Proactive Manager
Volume 18 Issue 08 | August 2026
The start of a new academic year is one of the most exciting times on a university campus. Freshmen students come with both anticipation and trepidation as they enter a new phase of life. Our returning students bring hopes and dreams as they move a step closer to a career and adulthood. Even sports teams all still have hopes of a championship season. Campus is full of events and activities and with them comes the opportunity to learn and grow. There is no better place to work than a university campus if you ask me.
Yet along with all the events and fun, each new academic year also brings risks. This is a good time to refocus on what I believe is one of the most important roles you have as a university administrator: managing that risk. Each month you read about risk failures across our industry in this newsletter, and our hope is that you learn from these lessons and avoid becoming the headline.
August is a good time to remind our readers of why we do this month after month:
Our goal has always been very simple: we believe it's cheaper to proactively manage risk than to react and remediate crises from risk management failures. We provide an overview that allows you to scan the news events occurring throughout our industry each month and ask yourself, 'How can I prevent this from happening here?' If you realize you have a similar high-risk exposure at your institution from this review, you can do something to proactively reduce the risk. What that ‘something' is will depend on the risk, your role, and many other factors; however, doing nothing is a dangerous thing in the world in which we now operate. Our larger goal is to help develop risk-intelligent institutions. We should note that we are not anti-risk. Risk is always going to be with us in life, but we can consider risk and be wise in the actions we take. This is important because any money we spend on remediation, settlements, and investigations is money we aren't spending on education, research, and outreach.
We hope your 2026-2027 academic year is the best yet. We will keep you updated on current and emerging risks in our industry. As we do each month, we invite you to review the issues across higher education with a view toward proactive risk management.
Kevin Robinson
Vice President
Institutional Compliance & Security
