Description: In the past few years, SoA members and leaders have raised questions about future needs for actuarial skills, globalization of markets, and the appropriate focus of the present education system in preparing actuaries for their professional futures. As a consequence of these questions, the SoA Board of Governors set aside a major portion of its January 1994 meeting to discuss the education of actuaries, with primary consideration being given to a longer horizon than the immediate future. Chris Daykin, representing the Institute of Actuaries, reported that the Institute was incorporating fundamental changes to its basic Education and Examination [E&E] system. These changes were aimed at focusing more on fundamental principles and away from details of practice.

Description: Continuing change pervades the actuarial world. Actuarial tools and techniques are constantly evolving, new financial products and services appear regularly, legislation and regulation rarely remain unchanged for long, consumers are becoming better informed and more sophisticated, the financial environment is becoming increasingly global, distinctions between types of financial institution are becoming more blurred, and the areas in which actuaries find applications for their skills become more varied. In this context, the most important attribute for actuaries is the capacity to adapt. This paper considers some implications for university actuarial programs of the need to develop adaptive actuaries. It discusses the results of a survey of the preferred learning styles of Macquarie University actuarial students, examines the newly introduced Australian actuarial subject called 'The Actuarial Control Cycle,' and looks at the use of portfolios of student work. It concludes that in order to develop adaptive actuaries for the 21st century, actuarial programs must broaden the range and type of teaching/learning activities and assessment methods provided for students.

Description: Non-consequentiality is quite consequential for the claims made for the applicability of Risk Theory RT to decision problems that are not transparently tactical or wholly instrumental. On the negative side, RT is not normative or even a complete heuristic in such contexts. The author takes strong exception to the common tendencies, A to link risk theory with welfarism and versions of utilitarianism, and B to claim that with or without but especially with such linkage RT is normative in both moral and rational analysis, choice and action.

Description: Presented at 1983 Actuarial Research Conference. Discussion focuses on improving coordination between practicing actuaries, academic actuaries and non-actuarial academics. The situations in Canada and the UK are also discussed. The emphasis is on research and communications among the different parties.