Risky Business Part II

Is your chapter doing enough
to limit liability and protect its members?

The second in a series of articles, find out what you can do
to help your chapter and its members manage risky behavior.

By Robert LaChausse and Fran Vincent

In the last issue, we looked at the role of risk management in fraternity and sorority chapters. We know you hate risk management. What’s to like, you say? Risk management is just another tool advisors use to dampen your fun, right? But think for a moment about what risk management really is: It is a method of limiting liability for your members and your chapter. We’d all like to do anything we want, be as crazy as we want. But no action or careless oversight is without consequence. That’s why countries have laws and that’s why all chapters should have risk management policies. In the U.S., you can’t go around blowing up buildings no matter how fun it might seem, and in Greek chapters you shouldn’t be able to do any activity that might jeopardize your organization or your members without first weighing the risk.

The steps in a risk management program include identifying your chapter’s potential risks, implementing a risk management strategy and educating the chapter and Greek community to create behavior change.

In this article, we will help you identify your risks, establish how severe the amount of loss could be, and determine the predictability of the occurrence. Sound complicated? Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think.

This is the Low Risk/High Risk continuum. Chapter activities fall somewhere on this continuum:

1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10 
------------------------------------------------
Low risk                               High risk

Along the continuum, plot the programs, events and behaviors in which your members engage according to two factors: 1) the severity or amount of loss related to the activity and 2) the frequency of the activity.

Normally, you’ll find that the activities you do most often or the ones that are most likely to occur are associated with low to medium risk. The activities that are likely to occur less often are usually associated with high risk.

Risks of low severity present few problems to the risk manager because these events occur often; they are easy to predict and they are easy to identify. On the other hand, activities that could result in high losses (such as death or charter suspension) but don’t occur that often present the greatest threat to fraternities.

For example, you probably meet in the student center to talk with friends all the time. The probability of an accident occurring which could harm the fraternity or its members is fairly low. So, this activity would fall on the low end of the risk continuum.

On the other hand, an unknown minor drinking from an open bar at a fraternity party in which no effort to identify drinking age or to restrict access to the party might not happen often, but it obviously presents a severe risk. This activity would rank high on the continuum.

Bear in mind that just because an activity happens often, doesn’t mean it’s low risk. If your chapter routinely hazes (this includes mentally), you’d have to rank those activities high on the continuum because the probable loss is so high. If your chapter or a member is reported for hazing, or if someone were hurt or killed during a hazing activity, you could be sued civilly, held on criminal charges and your chapter could be suspended or disbanded completely.

Sometimes we are unaware of risks or deny that a risk exists, therefore objective measurements of risk are very important. For example, many college students do not see themselves as alcohol abusers. However, if we were to give students an objective, standardized survey to determine different behaviors associated with alcohol, (i.e., binge drinking, waking up late after a night of drinking, skipping class, etc.) we may find that they could have a problem that they are completely unaware of or deny. In some cases, it is the chapter risk manager’s job to increase awareness of risk associated with different aspects of Greek affiliation.

Here is an example of how a chapter might plot a few of their activities along the continuum (turned vertically):

Low risk   1
                Weekly meetings, weekly study nights
                Playing cards daily in the student union
            
           2    Visiting the convalescent home once a 
                month to play bingo with the residents
           
            
           3
            
            
            
           4
                 Monitored parties (Once a semester. 
                 Guest list used, ID checked, minors not 
                 allowed to drink, alcohol limits enforced)
           5
            
            
            
           6
            
                 Photo hunt or other monthly on-the-road
                 activity with new members (no alcohol)
           7
            
            
            
           8           
                 BYOB parties (Once a week. Do not use a 
                 guest list, do not check ID, do not 
                 monitor alcohol consumption)
           9            
                 Hazing pledges during semester initiation 
                 (Forcing pledges to drink and exercise,
                 making pledges sleep outside, interrogating 
                 and humiliating pledges)
High risk  10

At your next meeting, take the time to come up with a few activities and plot them along the continuum. We’ll continue in the next issue by helping you determine if you calculated your risks correctly and which risky activities can be eliminated or altered and how to do it.

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