March/April 2025
By David L. Di Maria and Kalpen Trivedi
All organizations are susceptible to risks—defined as “external and internal factors and influences that make it uncertain whether they will achieve their objectives” (ISO 2018)—but not all organizations are adequately prepared to manage risks. While multinational corporations may align their risk management practices with international standards, many colleges and universities need to take a more distributed approach. This difference is due not only to how academic leaders approach risk and strategic planning within their diverse institutional contexts but also to the greater culture of autonomy traditionally associated with faculty employment.
Senior international officers (SIOs) and other higher education professionals can adopt risk management approaches from the corporate world to improve crisis response at their institutions and help combat the siloing that often occurs in academia. International education leaders tend to approach issues from a variety of perspectives and maintain a holistic view of the institution in order to comprehensively assess risks. They are thus well positioned to support campus leadership in pursuing a systems-thinking approach to risk management, which involves considering “interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains and seeing processes of change rather than snapshots” (Senge 2006, 73). By understanding that risk management in higher education is an “enterprise-wide initiative that involves every department and individual” (URMIA, n.d.) and engaging international education leaders in this endeavor, institutions can not only better react to crises but also improve the chance of preventing them from occurring in the first place.
Bringing Global Perspectives to Enterprise Risk Management
At most higher education institutions, there is already a group in place to focus on risks, mitigation strategies, and responses that involve the institution as a whole, otherwise known as “enterprise risk management” (ERM). These ERM steering committees are charged with a range of tasks, from prevention to response, that include identifying risks that threaten the institution and its business continuity, assessing the likelihood that these risks will occur and the severity of their impact on the institution, and determining the level of risk likelihood that the institution is willing to accept. The members of these committees are usually appointed based on their responsibilities and seniority within the institution or their individual experiences and expertise. If the committee is weighted toward the latter, this can be a risk, given the blind spots that arise when domain experts fail to adopt an institutional or systems perspective. At the same time, the opposite composition can present different challenges when subject matter experts are not included.
At institutions where ERM is seen as the domain of one, central office and the SIO and international education office are not viewed as primary ERM stakeholders, institutional planning can become skewed toward the assumptions, biases, experiences, and priorities of a select group of risk managers, who may bring expertise pertaining to only domestic risks, with a scope that is not always calibrated to envision global and international risks. For example, discussions about environmental safety may include considerations for campus facilities but not a jointly run laboratory in Brazil. Similarly, the institution’s protocol for responding to the death of a campus community member may not consider cultural, diplomatic, legal, and other factors when the deceased is an international scholar or when a student dies overseas.
In addition to these more targeted examples, there are regulatory areas of concern in higher education that pose significant risks to operational continuity when not properly mitigated and thus require the involvement of an SIO or international education professional in order to avoid the development of significant blind spots. For one, there is an increasing regulatory apparatus around research compliance and international collaborations, and while this may primarily be the domain of a research office, an SIO can provide international expertise and knowledge of the institution’s global footprint to aid in the development of appropriate compliance and mitigation structures. Similarly, the enrollment of international students brings with it a number of risks, from monitoring continuously evolving immigration regulations to supporting the success and satisfaction of what is, at most institutions, an underrepresented population. If SIOs are not consulted on risk mitigation in such instances, the institution leaves itself vulnerable to preventable crises.
Articulating International Education Risks at the Institutional Level
Regardless of where on the centralized-decentralized continuum of risk management an international education leader finds their institution, they have an obligation to understand the risks managed by the offices under their purview—which often have an international or global component—and to be able to articulate them within the ERM context for the entire institution. These risks can be divided into four broad categories: physical, compliance, financial, and reputational.
Much of the work for international education offices may directly, though not exclusively, involve the physical and compliance risk categories. Physical risks that impact health, safety, and security for students, faculty, and staff may include illness, injury, conflict, contagions, and coups. These risks are closely associated with world events that dominate headlines and drive government travel advisories and alerts from global assistance and insurance companies. Compliance risk concerns may involve student, scholar, and institutional compliance with changing federal laws, regulations, and reporting requirements. U.S. federal laws such as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the GI Bill, and Title IX all weigh heavily on how international education programs are administered, while international educators must also consider the environment affecting student, scholar, and staff visas and work permits. Additionally, accrediting bodies, some states, and other countries have their own compliance mandates specifically focused on education abroad, international partnerships, and international students.
While it is understandable that physical and compliance risks are more likely to occur and thus are top of mind, international educators cannot lose sight of all the categories of risk that not only threaten specific international programs but entire institutions. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, brought the financial risks faced by international offices into sharp focus. As physical mobility ground to a halt, the enrollment of U.S. students in education abroad programs and that of international students at U.S. institutions dropped sharply, impacting the solvency of international education programs and units. The international education sector suffered losses of $1 billion, leading to two-thirds of intensive-English programs implementing reductions, layoffs, and furloughs, while 40 percent of study abroad offices reduced staffing (Fischer 2022). As travel advisory levels increased and institutions began to recall their travelers as countries locked down, international education leaders pivoted to full-blown crisis response posture, engaging insurance providers, travel agencies, third-party study abroad providers, exchange partners, and others. Many institutions felt the financial effects of the pandemic on a campus level (NAFSA 2020), with institutional responses and policies subsequently affecting institutional reputations, especially in regards to expectations and opportunities for international education and exchange.
By taking the lead on reaching out to international partners, prospective and current international students, and international alumni during a crisis—be it worldwide, like the COVID-19 pandemic, or specific to the institution, like a disaster in the community—and representing these stakeholders’ interests to the institution’s leadership, international education leaders can protect not only their office’s relationships but the institution’s larger global standing as well. While an institution’s central communications team will be dialed into the institution’s local, regional, and national reputation during a crisis response, it might not understand—or worse, ignore—sentiments in the rest of the world, running the risk of negatively impacting the institution’s efforts to diversify enrollments, establish international partnerships, and position itself as a global research leader, among other strategic internationalization efforts. International education leaders who are capable of connecting the local with the global—and vice versa—and who can assist other campus leaders in doing the same will ensure their institution’s reputational risks are viewed and addressed from a comprehensive perspective.
Improving Unit-Level Risk Management with Campuswide Ties
International education leaders work in a highly regulated professional domain that places them in the center of a complex web linking the international education office to government agencies; various academic and administrative units of the institution; and students, scholars, and their dependents. While SIOs and other international education leaders can support the systems-thinking work done by ERM steering committees by articulating the risks that their units face and how these risks might affect the institution, they can also improve their units’ risk management through their work with campuswide oversight groups. In order to identify the cross-campus committees on which they or their staff should be represented, SIOs can engage in organizational networking analysis (ONA), which helps “visualize how communications, information, and decisions flow through an organization” (McDowell et al. 2016). By establishing the international office’s presence in the key groups identified through ONA, international education leaders can develop credibility and trust among campus stakeholders before a crisis emerges, create departmental crisis response protocols in consultation with colleagues from other units, and align future planning with institutional strategy and tolerance for risk.
Understanding how communications flow at the institution before a crisis occurs will also aid SIOs in their response to an event impacting their office. Whether they are facing the serious injury or death of a student abroad, the arrest of an international student, or an investigation by a federal agency, international education leaders often find themselves pulled in multiple directions as various stakeholders seek to understand what occurred and what the subsequent response should be. When an institution has an experienced and supportive leadership team, international education leaders are not left on their own. Rather, the campus media relations team provides talking points and clear guidelines for engagement with constituents. This is not always the case, however; at some institutions, other senior leaders might try to take control of the situation or distance themselves from it. Regardless of the situation, international education leaders should be proactive in understanding protocols related to crisis communications. Key questions to which SIOs should know the answers include
- How do individuals from disparate units work together on the institutional response?
- Who serves as the team lead?
- Who is the technical expert?
- Who is the designated spokesperson?
- Which stakeholders should be involved in crafting and approving briefings, talking points, and public statements?
- Who is responsible for tracking public sentiment?
Identifying blind spots, engaging stakeholders, and training staff before a crisis occurs is critical for ensuring departments and the institution are prepared to communicate effectively.
Conclusion
Effective risk management at higher education institutions requires an intentional, proactive, whole-of-institution approach. It is important for institutional leadership to recognize that SIOs and other international education leaders provide valuable insights and should be tapped to contribute to a holistic risk management strategy and crisis response. Similarly, while international units may prioritize certain categories of risk based on their area of focus, it is important for international education leaders to have a broader understanding of all the risks that they face as well as how these risks might impact the institution at large. By considering each of the different risk categories and how they are interrelated, international education professionals at all levels can mitigate organizational risk through crisis planning, response, and communication efforts.
References
Fischer, Karin. 2022. “The Administrators Who Feel Erased by Covid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 21. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-administrators-who-feel-erased-by-covid.
ISO (International Organization for Standardization). 2018. ISO 31000:2018, Risk Management—Guidelines. 2nd ed. ISO. https://www.iso.org/standard/65694.html.
McDowel, Tiffany, Hillary Horn, and Dane Witkowski. 2016. Organizational Network Analysis: Gain Insight, Drive Smart. Deloitte. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/human-capital/us-cons-organizational-network-analysis.pdf.
NAFSA: Association of International Educators. 2020. Fall 2020 Survey: Financial Impact of COVID-19 on International Education. NAFSA: Association of International Educators. https://www.nafsa.org/policy-and-advocacy/policy-resources/fall-2020-survey-financial-impact-covid-19-international-education.
Senge, Peter. 2006. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday.
URMIA (University Risk Management and Insurance Association). n.d. “What Is Risk Management?” URMIA (website). Accessed December 6, 2024. https://www.urmia.org/about/aboutrm.
David L. Di Maria, EdD, is senior international officer and associate vice provost for international education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His responsibilities include leading internationalization strategy and overseeing the programs, services, and activities of UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement. Di Maria has authored different NAFSA books as well as served in different volunteer roles with the International Enrollment Management Knowledge Community and a faculty member for the Executive Internationalization Leadership e-Institute.
Kalpen Trivedi, PhD, is vice provost for global affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is responsible for campus-wide global engagement and exercises operational and strategic oversight of the International Programs Office. Trivedi is a regular contributor to NAFSA, including the International Education Leadership Knowledge Community, Trainer Corps, and the Executive Internationalization Leadership e-Institute.