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College of Business

How We Use the Hall of Fame Event Funding

The event supports this mission in the following ways:

  1. For each event, a new scholarship is established in the name of our Hall of Fame Laureate. This scholarship goes to an Illinois State University student. See video testimonial on scholarship winners.
  2. Promoting diversity by:
    • Working with Chicago Public Schools to bring high school students to the Illinois State University campus to learn about careers in insurance.
    • Providing support for Illinois State students to go into high schools and discuss opportunities in insurance careers.
    • Hosting a Diversity in Insurance Reception in Chicago, IL to bring together insurance companies, community-based organizations, and education-based partners to celebrate and promote diversity in the insurance industry.
    • Operating the Midwest High School Scholars Actuarial Academy; a one-week program designed especially for above-average minority high school students to acquire knowledge of how to use their mathematical ability in an actuarial career.
    • Operating the Redbird Risk Management Challenge; a one-week risk management competition for high school students interested in business careers.
    • Working with community based organizations through College Greenlight to enhance underrepresented minority students attending Illinois State University
    • Facilitating Research Projects on Issue of Risks in Society Related to Social Equity.
    • Including assessing the cost of economic inewuality and injustice
    • Examining racial biases in risk assessment
  3. Each year, student innovation, research and leadership activities related to the risk management and insurance industry is sponsored. The purpose of the funded research is to:
    • Highlight interesting areas or research that would help attract a diverse group of students, from multiple disciplines, to the industry
    • Provide students with opportunities to work with industry experts
    • Help students to develop skills in critical thinking, business analytics, written communication, and business presentations

Preparing students for careers in the industry through real world professional experience:

The Katie School sponsored a nationwide study of insurance employers to determine the skills, attributes, and knowledge the insurance industry employers look for in college graduates.

  1. The Katie School Business Acumen and Student Leadership Certification is one example of the response. The Katie School supports workshops and programming for students pursuing this certification and is currently working on an LMS system to help track the over 100 students pursuing the certification. Funding from the Hall of Fame helps with this initiative.
  2. The Katie School actively promotes insurance careers to other key disciplines such as information technology (IT), business analytics, sales and marketing, and information security.

Developing Skills Through Team Competitions

  1. Data Analytics and Insurance - The Katie School facilitates a competition for any ISU student interested in learning and presenting insurance related data using visual data analytics tools. The winning team combination for the past year can be viewed here. (Then link to attached). The costs for developing and hosting the competition, and awards for the competition winners come from funds raised by the Hall of Fame.
  2. Sales and Insurance Competitions - The Katie School supports students involved in insurance sales competitions. This includes both national competitions (winning team presentation can be viewed here as well as internal insurance sales competitions developed and arranged by the Katie School. The expenses for developing, and hosting the events, and awards for the winning teams is funded by the Hall of Fame.

Student based consulting research supported by the Hall of Fame funding include:

  1. The Katie School supports student/insurance industry research. This includes fellowships for summer industry projects, ISU student research projects, and Innovation Consulting Community projects.
    • This article was originally published in the Summer 2021 edition of Insights : A Professional Journal by the CPCU Society and is shared with permission from The Institutes CPCU Society. All rights reserved. www.CPCUSociety.org.
  2. Katie School uses funds to attract, and develop students interested in doing multidisciplinary consulting projects with real world clients on managing risk in an ever changing world. See https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2021/05/students-from-across-campus-participate-in-icc-projects/
  3. Examples of fellowships include consulting with the Microinsurance Network and then producing webinars and white papers on topics such as analyzing the factors that enhance and thwart the development of insurance in emerging markets, modelling how to price microinsurance in developing countries, and assessing the extent to which global insurers and brokers support inclusive insurance. An example of one of the presentations presented at the Katie School Symposium can be found here
  4. Other consulting work facilitated by the Katie School students includes topics such as Managing Climate Change for Small Holder Farmers in Ghana, Comparing racial and social equity of telematics to traditional rating for automobile insurance, assessing the business interruption costs of solar flares, and assessing the racial inequities of COVID on educational achievement. Scholarships are awarded to students who lead these projects with distinction, such as the one on Addressing the Costs of Racial Inequalities. These are paid for by Hall of Fame funds.
  5. Students can opt for independent study credit if they participant in the Katie School Symposium for industry. Participation can be in the form of presentations of a white paper, or moderating a video podcast such as Women Founders of Insurtech Firms.
  6. One team of students researched the ethical decision-making of undergraduate insurance students. The research was published and the students presented at a conference in Japan.