Blessed Are the Builders

INTRODUCTION As an admittedly aging Baby Boomer, I now often find myself pausing to reflect upon many things in life. Sometimes, in the supply closet, I pause to reflect upon why I am there-did I really need something? Other times I pause to reflect upon where I parked my car? Or did I actually walk to work this morning? So when one pauses as much as I do, perhaps reflection upon the vicissitudes of academic programs in our discipline during the baby boom era is not so trivial. THE BABY BOOM GENERATION Demographers have declared the years 1946 through 1964 as the birth years for the baby boom generation. So let's look back at our discipline from the perspective of that leading edge boomer, the Risk Management and Insurance (RMI) professor born in 1946. Assume that our boomer graduated from college about 1967 or 1968, add a year or two in industry, graduate school, or the military and four years for a doctoral program. This means that our young professor would have entered the academic profession in 1973. Ah, 1973-a year of great conflict and anguish. The U.S. signed a cease-fire and hastily departed Vietnam. In late October, U.S. President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox (no relation), which led to other firings and resignations in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." And how can we forget, the Supreme Court ruled on the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. Despite the tumult, 1973 was a year of great promise. A new technology called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was developed, although 10 years would pass before it became the standard for communication between computers. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, the technology behind MRI scanning, was created. The Grammy Award for Album of the Year went to George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, and others for The Concert for Bangla Desk. The album raised millions for that country's starving population, albeit too late. And... the Academy Award for Best Picture went to... The Godfather, although I am not sure that reflected a great advancement in the arts. THE VIEW IN 1973 Delivering the ARIA presidential address in 1973 was not Marion Brando, but another celebrity, Professor Joseph M. Belth of Indiana University. In his wide-ranging talk Joe refers to a call by board member Jim Athearn for ARIA to refuse financial support from the insurance industry. In an accompanying Journal of Risk & Insurance article, Professor Athearn (1974) states that, "Over the years, ARIA has accepted so much subsidy from the industry... that we are 'hooked' on it." Joe Belth (1974) goes further, saying, "I know quite a few members-and I am referring here to academic members-who have sold themselves completely to the insurance industry. Some of these people would not say "boo' if there was the slightest possibility that some insurance company would not like it." To his credit, he then strikes a more conciliatory tone, suggesting that ARIA has members with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, which lends overall integrity to our organization. Looking back, we can see that the ARIA officers of 1973-Belth, Athearn, J. D. Hammond, and Al Hofflander-were quite successful. They all became presidents of our organization and were accorded respect for their research. The RMI programs of their employers did not fare so well, however. Only Athearn's school-South Carolina-can claim an RMI major today and that school's RMI faculty has been substantially reduced. In the meantime, a hardy band of faculty toiled to grow RMI programs at their home universities, often with little fanfare. In my opinion, these RMI professors were in the vanguard forging public-private partnerships, which are considered a necessity in many academic disciplines today. The results are palpable. As just one example, let's look at the most recent list of U.S. universities published by Business Insurance magazine and ranked by the number of undergraduate RMI majors (see Table I). …