Committee Seeks Members to Serve as Liaisons to Universities

A top objective of the CAS Communication Plan developed by the External Communications Committee (ECC) is to "encourage students to consider a career as a casualty actuary." Believing that the most direct link to potential actuaries is through professors at colleges and universities, the ECC's recent activity has focused on reaching out to academics. To improve this link, the ECC is recruiting CAS members to serve as liaisons to colleges and universities and the CAS has enhanced the Academic Correspondent Program. The ECC has also developed a Speaker's Kit for recruiting.

The ECC anticipates the role of the liaison will be to serve as a one-to-one contact and a resource for a professor to help provide information to students about the actuarial profession. The liaison may be asked to make a presentation to students, participate in a career fair, or answer questions about the profession.

To assist liaisons in communicating to students, the ECC has developed a Speaker's Kit for those who would like to make a presentation about the actuarial profession. Though primarily for recruiting, the presentation can be adapted for use with any audience.

The main component of the Speaker's Kit is a PowerPoint presentation. Designed for an audience that knows little about the profession, the presentation covers topics such as:

• What is an actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an actuary?
• Where do actuaries work?
• What is the career outlook for actuaries?

The presentation contains 24 slides and is available in various formats, including color transparencies, 35mm slides, and as a computer file. In addition to the presentation, the kit includes handouts and hints on making presentations.

Please contact Mike Boa at the CAS Office at mboa@casact.org if you are willing to serve as a liaison to a college or university.

The Academic Correspondent Program is for nonmembers who are involved in teaching actuarial science, mathematics, business, or related courses. The goal of enhancing the program is to encourage more academics to join, thereby increasing the exposure of the casualty actuarial profession to students on campus. Enhancements to the Academic Correspondent Program include:

• Waiver of meeting and continuing education seminar fees, up to $1,500 per year;
• Grants to educational institutions of $7,500 for Fellowship and $5,000 for Associateship when an academic attains one of those designations; and
• Creation of a special section of the CAS Web Site that contains information of particular interest to academics.

The annual fee to join the Academic Correspondent Program is $75; an Application Form is available on the CAS Web Site.

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