One of the complaints I hear from industry partners is that there aren't enough insurance-related programs around the country to meet their talent needs. And that is absolutely the truth. If you look at the top 10 risk management and insurance (RMI) programs across the country, we only have 1,665 students nationally, hardly enough to fill the demand.
So what can you do if there are no RMI programs in your area? You might think about starting one. The traditional way is that your company, foundation, or group of friends get together and contribute $2-3 million to endow a chair, which is probably the only way to guarantee that a program in RMI will remain at a college or university permanently.
However, that kind of donation doesn't come easy. It is a lot easier to convince donors to contribute to a program when it is already producing successful talent, and it is a lot easier to persuade a university to offer a curriculum when there is already an established track record of students finding jobs in a particular field like insurance.
So how do you build a program locally until you get that big endowment? Fortunately, you have lots of industry partners that can help you at little or no cost. Here's how you do it.
Let's start with faculty. While you probably don't have an endowed chair in risk management and insurance, you likely have some industry practitioners who have experience, an MBA-level education, and a willingness to teach one or two classes. Partner with an insurance organization like the CPCU Society or Risk Management Society (RIMS). The CPCU Society has nearly 150 chapters loaded with industry practitioners from nearly every field of insurance.
But you need money to pay faculty, and universities have tight budgets now. So where can you find money to pay an adjunct faculty member? The Griffith Foundation for Insurance Education has grants to pay colleges that are starting RMI programs. See their web site for details.
Curriculum already exists off the shelf, so faculty shouldn't have search far to find books, exercises, and tests. These already exist at the Institutes, which is primarily risk management and property/casualty curriculum, or at the American College, which has primarily life insurance and financial planning curriculum.
This curriculum can be used not only by your new adjunct insurance faculty members, but also by other faculty teaching in related fields like finance, economics, or law. These faculty members are usually permitted to offer independent study credit to students, although it is typically capped at six hours.
So now you have the faculty and the curriculum, how do you attract students? I'll explain that in my next blog.
Related: Read More James R. Jones Blog Posts at Back to School
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