Description: A typical course has some "hard" parts. These "hard" parts are the places where weaker students begin to fail, lose interest, and give up. The paper introduces a metric by which to evaluate each course topic. High metric values indicate "hard parts" of courses. The paper recommends spending more course time on hard parts and less course time on easy parts. The paper also recommends using disclosure: Tell students - this part of the course is "hard" and they may feel uncomfortable which is why more time is being spent on it." This approach to hard parts works! Failure rates are significantly reduced, while retention, satisfaction, and student scores improve.

Description: In this article, we aim to outline the advantages of smaller programs and gather opinions on the challenges these programs face in their efforts to emphasize these strengths. For our purposes, we define small actuarial programs as those with a relatively low student enrollment count. The following are three key advantages of small programs, which are similar to those of small colleges:(a) Enhanced benefits from small class size; (b) Adaptable curriculum; (c) Increased opportunities for each student. A variety of similar other issues are also discussed with recommendations, challenges, and invitations for further dialogue.

Description: The Drake Risk and Insurance Workshop on Catastrophe Risk took place virtually on February 19, 2021, hosted by the School of Actuarial Science & Risk Management in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake University. The purpose of this article is to share with the actuarial science community some experience in organizing this event amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.