Getting the Word Out About ARIA

ARIA has been a very important part of my professional life for my entire academic career, and I am pleased and honored to have the opportunity to serve as your President for the next year. To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson, "In [ARIA], anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take." So now my turn has come and I am excited by the challenge of leading this great organization. Many, if not most, of you have played an important role in my professional development. I don't know if every incoming ARIA President has begun the preparation for his or her Presidential Address in a similar way, but I reflected on some of the past presidential addresses that I have heard. I also read a few of them published in our journals (it's nice to know that I will get a publication out this). And, finally, I looked over the list of ARIA Presidents. Here's how just a few of them connected with me: * George Rejda was my insurance professor at the University of Nebraska while he was President of ARIA. * Past President Travis Pritchett was the Editor of the JRI when I submitted my first paper (and he was still the Editor when my first article was accepted). * Long-time UGA Professor Jim Trieschmann was the President at the first ARIA meeting that I attended and has just retired this year as I become President. * Dan Anderson gave the first presidential address that I heard at an ARIA meeting. * Dave Cummins was the President at the first ARIA meeting at which I presented a paper. * Past-President Sandra Gustavson hired me at UGA. * After listening to Joan Schmit give her presidential address at the 1995 ARIA meeting in Seattle, I learned that the business school building at Georgia was on fire. * Recent past presidents Jack Nelson and Helen Doerpinghaus were fellow students with me at the Wharton School. * And 1 find myself bracketed now by Mark Browne, the best man in my wedding, and President-Elect, Jim Carson who was the first doctoral student I recruited to UGA. Three years ago Helen Doerpinghaus in her Presidential Address called on us to "build strength through community." As I have just described, ARIA has personally been valuable to me for the community of scholars it represents and for the ways it has fostered my professional development. So needless to say, it is truly an honor for me to be a President of this great association. STRATEGIC PLANNING However, more important than what ARIA has meant to me is what ARIA means to you, its members. I think a useful part of our organizational structure in ARIA is that the President-Elect serves as the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. In my opinion, strategic planning is important for the self-reflection and renewed focus it can provide. An ancient Japanese proverb says, "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." Is ARIA headed in the right direction? As Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee I solicited your feedback through the ARIA listserv a few weeks ago. As a researcher, naturally I had concern for the validity of our survey approach. However, I was confident that the final question on the survey, "Any other comments that you would like to share?" would allow us to validate the instrument. I think the reliability of the survey results was confirmed by articulate and well-reasoned responses like: * Nope! * Rob Hoyt is the greatest! But seriously, the feedback that we obtained was very thoughtful and will be very useful. The full results of our survey have been shared with the Board at its meeting this past Sunday, but I want to share just a few of the key results with you now. The key responses to our first question, "What is the most important thing ARIA does?" were: * facilitates the sharing of ideas; * promotes research (through its journals, its meeting); and * promotes the teaching of risk management and insurance in colleges and universities. …