Special AAMGA Section
An educational smorgasbord
AAMGA University continues to succeed as it hones its offerings
By Phil Zinkewicz
A summer school and a student exchange program at Cambridge University, a claims and litigation management school, online registration and confirmation, online tracking of classes and hours completed, and scheduled networking time at each University session are only some of the offerings of today’s ever-evolving AAMGA University. Moreover, a totally revamped Web site has become the medium through which the University can communicate with its students to provide them the means for being masters of their own destiny.
The results speak for themselves. In 2004, the AAMGA University convened 3,792 students from 201 companies and agencies, compared to 1,591 students a year earlier. In 2006, more than 5,500 students attended the University from more than 400 companies. In 2007, the numbers were still on the rise, with more than 6,000 students from close to 450 companies.
What’s more, the AAMGA University continues to work with other associations. Over the last year, the University conducted nine different classes for the National Association of Insurance Women (NAIW) on subjects as varied as trucking insurance, insurance fraud and contract negotiations. In addition, the AAMGA University remains the only entity licensed by Lloyd’s of London and the Chartered Insurance Institute of England as the exclusive provider of the Lloyd’s and London Market Introductory Test and other courses in the United States, and to provide certification to those who successfully complete the course of study and testing.
“We are continuing to update classes for our membership,” says Jeff D. Henry, M.Ed., the University’s new director of education. “We have established a 24-month rolling calendar for classes to give our members more time to enroll in the courses they want. Our classes are planned and dated into 2009. In March of this year we had a University weekend that we call ‘University East’ in Philadelphia to complement our University weekend in Arizona.”
Continues Henry: “At our University East meeting, we had a panel of managing general agents, the first ever. It was extremely well attended. And at our University West meeting, we plan a panel of company executives. For our University East program, we teamed with Temple University, which offered a strategic planning panel on agency succession, i.e., succession through handing down the agency to family members, through sale or through investment for growth. A question and answer period followed the panel.”
Henry says that the University has been approved by the Society of Human Resources to begin offering designations in the area of human resources. “There will be the PHR, which is the Professional in Human Resources, and the SPHR, which is the Senior Professional in Human Resources,” he says.
Another new development for the University, according to Henry, is its Learning Management System (LMS), which will allow University members to do one-stop shopping for all of their educational needs. “There is a database that students can access through this system that will allow our members to ‘slice and dice’ into different categories of courses. Members can self-register basically for every course we have.
“Sometimes our members tell us that it is too expensive to send their people to all of our educational sessions,” says Henry. “But with LMS we can have webinars where we can bring the session to the member.
“We’ve come a long way since the University first opened its doors,” Henry observes. Among the classes now available, he says, are human resources skills, how to write financial reports and how to make effective presentations.
“The AAMGA University’s personal lines school is doing nicely, complementing our beginners’ class,” he comments. The University is now self-supporting and continues to provide networking opportunities for its members, Henry continues. “Networking is part of all our University sessions,” he emphasizes. “Learning from seasoned executives is at the heart of the University.”
For more information, go to www.aamga.org/education/university. *