Washington — Colleges are increasingly using sophisticated accounting procedures to measure risks on campus, from football games to foreign travel by students and faculty members.

But Pennsylvania State University is taking a decidedly low-tech approach to deciding what the greatest threats to its campus are, said Gary W. Langsdale, the Nittany Lions’ director of risk management. A team of administrators, drawn from various business and academic departments, identified 109 top concerns, wrote them on sticky notes, considered each of them for 60 seconds, and then placed them on a big sheet of butcher paper where an ad hoc Cartesian graph represented the probability and severity of the risks.

Mr. Langsdale gave his example to a roomful of risk managers at the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, which is holding its annual meeting here through Sunday. The group represents more than 1,300 people at 525 higher-education institutions across the country, as well as businesses in the insurance and risk-management fields.

Larry V. Stephens, director of risk management at Indiana University, said his field had undergone sweeping changes since he took his position, in 1985: “We used to be considered the insurance department.”

Now, however, risk management has become a part of nearly every process on the campus, including building contracts, campus events, experiential learning and internships, and managing foreign campuses. And risk managers aren’t just trying to protect lives and limbs; they have to think about their college’s financial health, property, and even reputation.

The point of Mr. Langsdale’s example, however, was that although the field of risk management is becoming more complex, people’s fears can still be identified pretty simply. Some of the top worries at Penn State: the impacts of alcohol, attracting a diverse population to a largely homogeneous area of the country, and basic safety and security. —Eric Kelderman