Rethinking Risk Governance in Higher Education

Justin Delecki - Point Park University

James Yard - Schneider Downs & Co, Inc.

Eric Fair - Schneider Downs & Co, Inc.

Higher education institutions face an expanding and interconnected risk landscape including financial pressures, enrollment volatility, compliance demands, cybersecurity threats, reputational risk, and evolving regulatory scrutiny. With risk frameworks and committees in place, the effectiveness of risk oversight can vary dramatically.

This presentation will explore the critical distinction between passive and active risk oversight in higher education governance and strategies to shift to an active risk management process. Participants will learn how Point Park University’s senior leadership has evolved its assessment of institutional and external risks to build an effective enterprise risk management program through an active ongoing formal process to identify and rank the University’s top institutional risks, as well as the controls and mitigation strategies in place to address those risks.

This session will also highlight how the University uses this process to implement controls and mitigation strategies and provide ongoing evaluation and oversight of risk management effectiveness.

Learning Objectives

  • Explore strategies to build an effective risk management program.
  • Build synergies between Risk Management and Internal Audit to maximize risk mitigation strategies, develop the internal audit plan, and evaluate the effectiveness of controls.
  • Create support amongst university executive leadership, the Board, and the University community’s key stakeholders to ensure the risk management program is sustainable for the long term.

CPE Available

  • 1 Credit: Management Services