A Partnership Between the Academic Community and the Actuarial Profession

March 2000

To Members of: Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), Society of Actuaries (SOA), Actuarial Faculty Forum (AFF)

From: Alice H. Gannon, President CAS, Stuart F. Wason, President CIA, A. Norman Crowder, President SOA

Subject: A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY AND THE ACTUARIAL PROFESSION WHITE PAPER - FOR REVIEW AND COMMENT

Enclosed for your review and comment is the White Paper A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY AND THE ACTUARIAL PROFESSION, prepared by the Joint CAS, CIA, SOA Task Force on Academic Relations, and authorized for distribution by the leadership of the CAS, the CIA and the SOA.

All three organizations believe that a strong relationship between the academic community and the actuarial profession is of great importance to the actuarial profession. Because of the importance of this relationship, a Joint Task Force on Academic Relations was formed over a year ago to study the current relationship and make recommendations for any changes that they found to be needed. The Task Force did determine the need for improvements and developed specific recommendations aimed to achieve that improvement. However, the Task Force realizes that their views might not be fully shared by the members of the CAS, the CIA and the SOA and that before their recommendations are formally considered and voted on by the leadership of the three organizations, the membership should review their proposal and provide comments.

In the enclosed White Paper, the Task Force has articulated their vision of what the partnership between the academic community and the actuarial profession should be by 2005, along with the objectives of such a partnership and recommended initiatives to make the vision a reality. While the leadership of the three organizations agree with the Task Force's recommendation that the White Paper be shared with the members for review and comments, the Boards have not had full discussion of the content of the White Paper and members should not interpret the distribution of the paper to be an endorsement of the vision or recommendations in the paper by the Boards of the three organizations. In fact, in preliminary discussions a number of members of the Boards have expressed some concern about some of the ideas in the paper.

For example, one area of disagreement concerns the best role of the academic community in the basic education process of actuaries. The only agreement at this time is that a partnership between the actuarial profession and the academic community does not include the possibility of an exclusively university-based process for actuarial education and professional qualification. Although we certainly encourage members to review and comment on the basic education aspects of the vision and initiatives, we hope that the controversial nature of these issues will not prevent careful review and comment on the other areas of the proposed partnership. While these other areas may not generate as much controversy, they are also of critical importance to the profession and in need of careful consideration.

The Joint Task Force on Academic Relations has completed their charge with the completion of this White Paper. Last fall, the leadership groups of the CAS, the CIA and the SOA, upon the recommendation of the Task Force, approved the formation of a new Joint CAS, CIA, and SOA Committee on Academic Relations. The charge to the Committee is to encourage and facilitate a partnership between the actuarial profession and the academic community. All comments related to the White Paper will be referred to the Joint Committee for the development of appropriate recommendations based on both the work of the Task Force and the comments received. In addition, the comments related to alternative basic education will also be referred to a new SoA Task Force on Education and Qualifications 2005 (this task force will have liaisons from the CAS and CIA), and to the CAS's Education Policy Committee.

For your convenience, an online survey form is available for submitting your feedback. Alternatively, the feedback form which can be printed and sent in, is at the end of the paper.

Thank you for taking the time to review this important White Paper.

Note: To obtain a copy of this document in French, please contact the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. This document will also be posted on the CIA Web site, under "Publications" (http://www.actuaries.ca).