Description: Highlights new Professional Actuarial Study Guide entitled Distribution Costs and Compensation.

Description: This newsletter’s nominee for the most spectacular American at last summer’s International Congress is Prof. William S. Jewel1 of the University of California, Berkeley, who, as Mr. Hazelcorn reports in this issue, introduced the Congress subject, Generalized Models of the Insurance Business. Prof. Jewel encouraged actuaries to be receptive of, and tolerant towards, new methods, models, and paradigms.

Description: This 1976 article discusses proposals being considered at that time to consider modifying the SOA’s education and examination system in Canada to rely in part on university education in place of examinations.

Description: Determination of the Joint Disciplinary Council (JDC) Disciplinary Panel

Description: In this era of high interest rates, business life insurance funded by individual level-premium life policies has become popular, even to the point of undertaking to compete with group insurance plans. The author discusses tests that a sound and adequate proposal has been made.

Description: This article discusses the Continuing Education Task Force recommended formation of a permanent committee that would be responsible for “ensuring that SOA members have access to educational programs and materials that enhance and enrich their basic education and on-the-job performance beyond basic education.” The first large project being undertaken by the CE Coordinating Committee is to determine for each practice area: • Continuing education needs • Most appropriate delivery format • Responsibility for developing materials and programs Also, a discussion of the addition of the professional development PD component to the Society of Actuaries examination syllabus.

Description: This article is a review and analysis of the article “The Statistician as Expert Witness,” by Joseph G. Van Matre and William N. Clark, from the Feb. 1976 issue of “The American Statistician.” The author of this article notes that the article he is reviewing has general application to anyone serving as an expert witness in a court of law, especially in its remarks about the ethical responsibilities of such a person and in its advice on preparing to give testimony. Written from the viewpoint of a statistician, it has equal applicability to an actuary serving as an expert witness. The SOA has reprinted this article with permission from The American Statistical Association.

Description: Introduces the career development program created by the SOA Committee on Management and Personal Development and the Continuing Education Department.

Description: The editorial explores opportunities for the actuarial profession that can be achieved through innovation.

Description: Results of a Discipline Review Committee convened for the purpose of reviewing a disciplinary sanction imposed by the Joint Discipline Council (JDC).