Random Sampler

Election, Recognition, and Education

by Charles L. McClenahan

I would like to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the good folks at The Actuarial Review to discuss a few topics of current interest to casualty actuaries.

Contested Elections

I have a unique perspective on this issue. Many of our younger members may not know (and most of the older members have forgotten) that I was, in November of 1981, the losing candidate in the only contested vice-presidential election the CAS has had. At that time the vice-president was the president-elect-elect—the office being the first of the three-office, three-year term. I bring this up because one of the concerns raised about the prospect of contested elections is that the losing candidate(s) might suffer "insult" or "hurt feelings."

Now it may be true that back in the "olden days" (when we didn't have PCs and had to keep track of loss experience by carving notches in trees) we may have taken ourselves a bit less seriously than do the present-day putative purveyors of professional power, but I can assure you that I felt neither insulted nor hurt in my loss. I suffered no career-ending backlash (my employer's reaction being relief that I would be available to do my job over the next three years) and I walked off the field feeling nothing but pride (tinged with amazement) that I had been nominated by a grassroots effort.

My only regret about the process was that there was no mechanism to allow the candidates to promulgate their personal visions for the CAS. The grassroots nomination process does not lend itself to the organized airing of issues. And there are issues! The Actuarial Review is full of issues. Doesn't it make sense to offer the membership an option or two?

And to my friend Sholom Feldblum, who has expressed concern about insulting his nominated friends, I would point out that I never asked people to tell me for whom they voted. But if I had, and if they had said they did not vote for me, I would think them better friends than those who would lie to protect my fragile ego.

Mutual Recognition

Again I find myself with an unusual, if not unique, perspective on this issue. First, I come from an era where the only recognition issue was trying to get the SOA to recognize CAS members as real actuaries. And second, it is currently my privilege to chair the American Academy of Actuaries Committee on Qualifications.

Here's the situation as I see it. There is no legal recognition of necessary and sufficient credentials to call oneself an actuary in the U.S. and there are no standards of practice or codes of conduct applicable to noncredentialed ersatz actuaries. So if we don't recognize a foreign-educated actuary, he or she may ply the actuarial trade with impunity.

But, if we recognize the foreign-educated actuary with some level of CAS membership, the Code of Conduct, the Actuarial Standards of Practice, and the Qualification Standards become applicable to work done by that actuary in this country. I think that is a good thing.

For those of you who believe that mutual recognition will cheapen the value of the ACAS or FCAS designation I would point out that no employer, no client, and no jury believes that all FCASs are identically talented. If the education provided by the CAS examination structure is demonstrably superior to that provided by alternative means, the marketplace will reflect that superiority.

Math Education

I am increasingly concerned about the state of mathematical education in this country. In the public school system we see a disturbing trend toward nonjudgmental mathematics with names such as "Math Land," "Connected Math," or "Everyday Math" and referred to generically as "whole math" or the "new new math." In a misguided attempt to eliminate math anxiety, and thereby to foster self-esteem, these programs avoid placing the student in a situation where he or she can be wrong. Everyday Math, for example, offers fifth graders a worksheet with the following fill-in-the-blanks questions:

A. If math were a color, it would be________ because________.

B. If it were a food, it would be________because________.

C. If it were weather, it would be________because________.

These new programs eschew the teaching of basic computational methodology and concentrate on invention and creativity to solve problems. In a January 4, 2000 Wall Street Journal editorial "Math Wars," Steven Leinwand, a member of the federal Education Department mathematics and science expert panel charged with recommending nationwide curricula, is quoted as saying: "It's time to realize that, for many students, real mathematical power, on the one hand, and facility with multidigit, pencil-and-paper computational algorithms, on the other, are mutually exclusive." The following sentence of Mr. Leinwand's statement, which was not included in the WSJ editorial, is even more disturbing: "In fact, it's time to acknowledge that continuing to teach these skills to our students is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive and downright dangerous." (Source: Education Week, February 9, 1994, http://www.edweek.org/ew/1994/20lein.h13.)

So where are the actuarial societies on this issue? If the country persists in "dumbing down" our mathematical education, where will we get future generations of actuaries? Isn't this an issue on which our profession ought to be heard? Or perhaps we are too busy helping our kids try to figure out what color math is to worry about something so trivial.

For those with further interest in this topic I recommend the Web site http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com.