Edition

SOA Board of Governors Meeting

The following is an update from Warren Luckner on Academic Relations initiatives taken at the recent BOG meeting:

The Oct. 14–15 SOA Board meeting was my last as a member of the SOA Board. Mary Hardy, of the University of Waterloo, takes over as the Board member partner for academic relations.

Three items from the October Board meeting that may be of particular interest to the academic community are:

  1. Authorization of the Computer–based testing working group to issue an RFP, and agreement in principle with the proposal to prepare Exam FM/2 for administration by CBT in 2008. This consent agenda item was pulled for discussion and the proposal was modified to address concerns expressed. Also, Mary Hardy, Jed Frees and I had a lunch discussion with Kathy Wong and Cheryl Krueger regarding the concerns about availability of CBT testing centers for the Probability exam. SOA staff and Thomson Prometric continue to work on improving availability through either physical centers or Internet–based testing.
  2. The Board authorized and began a scoping discussion on a program of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), formerly referred to as Mandatory Continuing Education. The Issues Advisory Council will review the results of the discussion and determine the next steps for Board discussion at the next meeting.
  3. The Marketplace Relevance Strategic Action Team (MRSAT), which is charged with overseeing the market interface with the new Enterprise Risk Management credential reported that
    1. It had appointed a task force, chaired by Max Rudolph, to create an organizational readiness, market readiness and a "go to market" strategy for the ERM credential
    2. The task force recommended the credential be named ERASA for Enterprise Risk Associate of the Society of Actuaries
    3. By Feb. 1, 2007, the MRSAT will deliver to the SOA Board recommended next steps in the implementation of the new credential (the Consent Agenda also included a Sept. 8, 2006 memo from the SOA leadership to the North American Actuarial Council that indicated the goal was to have the ERM credential fully implemented by June 2007)